LogFAQs > #967922510

Count_Drachma posted...

Saw the more recent trailer for Black Adam now. Still kinda hyped.

The optimistic view is that maybe Warner Bros has finally turned a corner and have figured out how to make movies that don't suck, and the future will look brighter (which is nice, because Marvel's a wreck now).

The more pessimistic view is that Black Adam only looks as good as it does because Dwayne tends to have tons of creative control over any project he works on now (and he's a producer on this one), so maybe it's only good because of his influence, and all the movies he's not in will still suck.

We'll see.



Count_Drachma posted...

The EVPs and their buddies had been talking about Punk to the dirtsheets and Hangman Page went into business for himself on live tv (among other things). Punk very publicly responded to that stuff, most notably in a media scrum after All Out 2022. The EVPs and friends decided to take one of Punk's suggestions about "finding him" a little too seriously, which led to a fight in the locker room where everybody involved was suspended -- and had their belts stripped (all of which had been won that same night) -- and there's currently an inquiry into the matter which may lead to additional punishments.

That's certainly how Punk himself would probably explain things. Sadly, it seems like almost no one else seems to be that generous about his role in the situation. And people have constantly been pointing out all the problems with his viewpoint (and behavior).

For starters, the (single) promo he was apparently pissed about was barely anything, almost no one really gave a shit about it at the time, and nearly everyone forgot about it after, while he continued to stir over it for months at a time. And Punk's repeatedly gone into business for himself in response to it, to the point where he's been way worse than anything anyone else has done. And he complained about other people jeopardizing big money draws when he's literally the only one in the entire mess who's actually jeopardized anything at all.

What makes it worse is that, as people have pointed out, it's pretty clear he rehearsed that rant in his own head beforehand (and deliberately went off on the tirade - it wasn't prompted or triggered by anything spontaneous), so he went into business for himself knowing full-well it was going to stir shit up way worse. Mainly because Tony Khan has done nothing to rein in Punk's ego (and a lot of things to inflate it), so Punk was probably assuming he's pretty much bulletproof at this point and could easily get away with it. There's a good chance he still assumes that (and doesn't see himself as having done anything wrong) because he got injured (again), which means he wasn't stripped of his title for disciplinary reasons as much as because he's going to be out for at least 8 months (during which time he can't be fired without prompting legal issues).

Telling people to "find him and say stuff to his face" is also kind of rich, considering his solution to the issues he has was apparently to completely avoid the people involved and complain about them in ways he knows for a fact they completely cannot respond to directly. And when they actually do go to try and talk to him in person, he he either tries to avoid them (his own story) or starts throwing punches almost immediately (their story), while his friend starts throwing chairs and biting people (both versions of the story).

And for all his whining about "the dirt sheets", most of them have pointed out they didn't even get the info he's mad about from the EVPs at all, he straight up misquoted what some of them even said (as Alverez pointed out directly to his face at one point), and most of the Colt Cabana stuff is assumptions the fanbase easily put together themselves, not "lies told by the dirt sheets". So for someone complaining about other people not getting the story right, he seems to be pointing a lot of fingers at the wrong people for things they didn't even do because he doesn't seem to have a very good grasp of what's actually going on. Not that that actually matters to Punk.

And then there's the fact that most of the locker room apparently don't want Punk back at this point because he was already pissing lots of other people off other than just the EVPs or Colt Cabana's friends. Other than a few people Punk is close with (like FTR), it doesn't seem like anyone is supporting his side of the story (or him).

It kind of doesn't help that nearly every single thing Punk is whining about is stuff he himself has done, only worse. Which is why the fun new game online is to go back through his Tweets and point out all the ones that make him look like a huge hypocrite (there's a lot of them).

Regardless of whether or not anyone else in the story is actually at fault or not, Punk himself is responsible for about 90% of the current shitstorm. Which is why even a lot of fans who really loved him aren't on his side now. And why people are starting to recontextualize all of the problems he had in WWE as maybe not being as much WWE or Vince's fault as people used to think they were. Triple H's comment about "He's your problem now" is starting to look more and more prescient.

Punk's pretty much a tantrum-throwing narcissist with zero self-awareness and a penchant for burning every single bridge he crosses. And it's starting to look like it was never a question of "if" he was going to have issues in AEW, but more just a question of "when". Because apparently he's incapable of not having issues.

Realistically, this ends with him getting fired in about 8 months (and would probably end with him getting fired now if he wasn't injured). About the only thing that's going to prevent that is if he does a radical change of personality in the next year and offers up a huge mea culpa (which he won't do, because he's Punk), or if Tony continues to fanboy and keep his tongue firmly up Punk's ass, letting him get away with it and enabling him even further (which would be a catastrophically stupid thing for Tony to do, especially now that WWE is reviving - it'd make all the WCW comparisons become even more apt).