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00:00Did you know that when Wardlow wrestled MJF at AW0022, he did...
00:05So technically half blind, this is one of the things, along with seven others...
00:10So we learned while reading this, AW's brand new book, This Book Is All Elite...
00:15Which is out on November 4th, it's written by Keith Elliott Greenberg and AEW...
00:20And it's available for pre-order now. Full disclosure, we were provided with a free copy of the...
00:25For the purpose of this pseudo-review video. Going to get into some...
00:30Some of my thoughts in general on the book later in the video, but right now we're going to start this one...
00:35Off with, yes, Wardlow being half blind in 2022.
00:40And why was Wardlow half blind on this show, you ask? How did this possibly happen? Well, according...
00:45According to the man himself, during the match, one of my contacts dried out. I'm blind...
00:50Without my contacts. Fortunately, I can literally powerbomb somebody with my eyes closed, and that's...
00:55That's what it was like. I couldn't see the fan reactions, but I could hear them. So that's...
01:00Pretty useful that he can do that with minimal vision, because...
01:03Yeah, the match was basically 10 powerbomb.
01:05Wasn't it? It was the big match where Wardlow in kayfabe won his freedom, contractually.
01:10From MJF. And it was... It felt like a big breakout moment for him at the time, certainly.
01:15A very important match. Really interesting to learn that on his way to the...
01:20ring or just before he was stepping out, contact lens started adding up. I mean, the man was in handcuffs.
01:25He couldn't do anything about that. He just had to live with it. That's the kind of small...
01:30Everyday thing that can go wrong for anyone at any point in life.
01:35And for Wardlow, it unfortunately happened at a very pivotal moment. Nonetheless, he hit the powerbombs...
01:40exquisitely. I'm sure he's very happy with his work that night. Number seven is the...
01:45specific moment that Tony Khan knew he wanted to launch AEW. So this book is...
01:50extremely brisk. It's very fast paced. I think if you're...
01:55leader of any level, really, you could probably blast through it in a couple of hours, which is what I've done over the past...
02:00couple of days. And then it starts off with Tony Khan's roots as a wrestling fan. It goes...
02:05through his decision to launch AEW and the pivotal moment that kind of led to him going...
02:10you know what? This is viable. We can do this. It was the escalation of TV right...
02:15the rights fees, the bubble, the exorbitant... exorbitant... that's not a word...
02:20but you know what I'm trying to say... the ex... extortion... I... words... words are failing me...
02:25right now, but it was when Tony realized that he could be paid a lot of money to run a TV show, basically. Here's what he...
02:30had to say about the whole thing. The business model for pro wrestling had really changed when TV...
02:35rights fees increased. You could sell a show for tens of millions of dollars, signing...
02:40a new roster of wrestlers and air 52 weeks a year. There was a new opportunity to...
02:45launch a promotion profitably and internationally that had not existed...
02:50until then. So the race explosion continues today. I mean, AEW is currently paid...
02:55around 185 million dollars a year by Warner Bros. Discovery to air...
03:00WWE earns billions from their various partnerships. It has gone through...
03:05the roof in recent years and it has made things a lot more viable...
03:08than they would have been in the past.
03:10this was key. If AEW had launched a... I don't know, like 10 years prior or...
03:15whatever. Without that, without that financial security, it may never have gotten off the...
03:20ground. Now, obviously, there are other factors that contributed to the launch of the promotion...
03:24and they talk about it in the book...
03:25You know, things like the Elite suddenly being available...
03:28Cody Rhodes, obviously, guys like Chris...
03:30Jericho and so forth...
03:32But if it wasn't for the TV rights fees explosion...
03:35Tony Khan wouldn't have had a viable business. So there you go.
03:38Number six...
03:39How...
03:40Sting perked Darby Allen up. So the book goes as far as Sting's retirement match...
03:45basically, in early 2024. That's chronologically where we kind of draw the line...
03:50and, hey, leave things open for another one of these bad boys in five or six years...
03:55One of the things that Darby Allen speaks about is being a little bit nervous, perhaps, before the match...
03:59He's...
04:00He's...
04:00He's backstage. He's brooding. Sting comes up to him and goes, hey, man, what's wrong with you? What's up?
04:05You feeling down or anything like that? Darby explained to him, well, it's your retirement match and we only get one...
04:10chance to do this. So we've really got to kill it. Sting's reply was that, hey...
04:15let's take the chains off. And apparently, according to Darby, at that moment, he realized that...
04:20Yeah, we're gonna go all out here. We're gonna go crazy. Of course, he ended up going through a pane of glass.
04:25In this match. Darby also speaks about how there was a big prayer huddle, right?
04:30Involving Sting. Very religious man. His family. His sons were, of course, on the show. The young but...
04:35Involving Sting. And Darby. And how Sting knew, in that moment...
04:40that they were gonna have a killer match that was gonna knock all expectations out of the window.
04:45So I think... Darby calls it the best retirement match of all time in the book.
04:50It's certainly right up there. The Sting gets really good treatment throughout the...
04:55Obviously, everyone loves Sting. If you don't like Sting, I probably don't trust you very much as a human.
05:00Being. But this is just a nice touching moment to learn of.
05:03On one of the most...
05:05Important nights of the icon's career. Number five. The TV network didn't like the scissor.
05:10Scissoring. Scissoring, obviously, is a huge part of the acclaims act. Anthony Bowens and Max...
05:15You know, a huge thing about them getting over with daddy-ass Billy Gunn.
05:20Was the whole scissoring deal. Now, obviously, this comes with some sexual con...
05:25Notations. That's...
05:27AEW's television partners, Warner Bros. Discovery...
05:30We're more than aware of. According to Max Castor in the book...
05:35Actually, the network didn't like it at first. They had a bit of a problem with the scissoring going on on there.
05:40Network because of those connotations. But apparently, Tony Khan put his foot...
05:45Down. He stomped the ground. And he said, make the t-shirt. They...
05:50He did. And it became one of the highest selling merch items in AEW. We've all seen the foam...
05:55Fingers at the shows and the shirts and everything else. And now they're back together on AEW television.
06:00As well. Interesting to learn that the network didn't like this. I'm not surprised that they didn't, to be fair.
06:05But ultimately, it's one of these... It's relatively harmless...
06:10I don't think the youth are being corrupted by scissor me daddy ass.
06:15As weird as that sounds, you know, you write that phrase down. It doesn't make any sense. But it's one of these...
06:20One of those things where if you're an AEW fan, you know exactly what it means. The scissoring is...
06:25The game maker was pivotal to getting the acclaimed over. Would they have been as profitable?
06:30That's not the word I'm looking for. As popular as they eventually became without it? Maybe?
06:35But it sure as hell would have been a lot harder for them. So...
06:37Good on Tony Khan for putting the foot down.
06:40Yeah.
06:41Number four. A big name wasn't sure at first.
06:45As the book goes through discussing a bunch of the people who were picked up by AEW early on and like after...
06:50All In, several people were told without being explicitly told a wrestling promotion was company...
06:55They were told by like Matt Jackson...
06:57Hey, you keep your dates open chief. You know...
06:59Don't...
07:00Don't sign anywhere. Keep available. Something... Something's happening.
07:03There was a lot of excitement. A lot of people...
07:05Looking forward to it. A lot of wrestlers getting on TV for the first time. Having the biggest opportunity of their careers.
07:10After decades and decades in the industry. Evil Uno is one such person who's documented here.
07:15But one person wasn't sure about all this. That person was Chris...
07:20Christopher... Daniels. Now...
07:22He had been a veteran in the game for like 20, 30 years.
07:25At this point, right? He'd seen it all. He'd seen it all. And he understood wrestling's roots as a carny...
07:30Operation. Here's what he had to say.
07:32My attitude was... I'll believe it when I...
07:35I see it. We're all skeptical. We've all had the experience where somebody wanted to start something...
07:40He knew the intentions were good. The motivation was there. And it fell through anyway.
07:45So Christopher Daniels, based on his experience, kept this whole AEW thing at arm's length because...
07:50To him, Tony Khan could have just been another money mark, if you use that phrase.
07:55Who had no idea what he was doing and wasn't going to get it off the ground. Daniels later...
08:00explains that a further conversation he had with Tony changed his mind.
08:05and convinced him that this was going to be something worth investing in.
08:08And obviously, we're talking about it six years...
08:10Daniels was a very important...
08:15figure in AEW. He was obviously a key member of SCU, which were very heavily...
08:20pushed and promoted that early on in AEW. SCU were the first Tag Team Champions, of course...
08:25Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian. And Daniels was AEW's Head of Talent Relations.
08:30leading a few years ago to the infamous backstage situation where there were reports that...
08:35CM Punk had tried to kick him off collision...
08:37before when he returned. It's like, how do you kick the head of...
08:40talent relations. That's a job for... talent relations. It was a whole mess.
08:43One thing the book doesn't go into...
08:45obviously, right, is the big controversies and the CM Punk issues and the Jack Perry issues.
08:50We'll just talk about that a little bit right now because it seems like a natural place to do it.
08:54There's none of that...
08:55here because this is an official product, right? This is the equivalent...
09:00of a WWE documentary in book form. It's not quite as...
09:05It doesn't tell as many lies as that, obviously, right? We all know about the Ruthless Aggression documentary...
09:10in particular, but in regards as effectively it serves as...
09:15as a positive recollection of all these things that have happened in AEW's past. So, there's no...
09:20nothing about brawl out or backstage fights or anything like that. None of that's in here. This...
09:25is more focused on a positive ride, a positive journey. So, if that...
09:30stands up your street and you want to live the good times, this is definitely the book for you. Just...
09:35beware that it's not going to go into some of those spicier moments from AEW history because...
09:40I mean, look guys, it's right here on the front page. It's by Keith Elliott.
09:45Greenberg and it's an official product, right? They're not going to... they're not going to do that kind of thing. Just keep that in mind.
09:50Number three, the original Stadium Stampede was delayed by a tropical...
09:55storm. There's a big paragraph, big section, big couple of pages on the original Stadium Stampede match.
10:00in 2020. And the whole attitude within AEW have been, hey, we've got this football stadium, we might...
10:05as well use it for something cool, something used for the NFL, we might as well have a wrestling match in it.
10:10The whole construction of the match, how they were walking through the building and finding specific places they wanted to do...
10:15thoughts from, like Nick Jackson said, hey, look at that football thing, I'm going to flip off of that.
10:19Matt Jackson...
10:20Matt Jackson's like, Chief, you just cracked your rib, you can't do that. Nick Jackson made ol' Barry from EastEnders like...
10:25I'm going to do it anyway. But an interesting nugget from this bit of...
10:30info, is that initially when they were filming this thing, they were there until half five in the morning.
10:35filming this cinematic match, as Jericho recalls, the sun was coming up when they wrapped it up...
10:40and part of that is because they were delayed by weather. A tropical storm had the rude...
10:45the lack of decency to occur in the middle of shooting, so they all had to stop and presume...
10:50wait for things to dry up before they could resume, causing a big delay. Now look, it's Florida.
10:55these things dry up pretty quickly, right? They can happen in a flash, be over, and it's dry half an hour later...
11:00there's no word on exactly how long they were delayed for, but you can imagine it was sizeable.
11:05if you are going to flip off of a wobbly football goal, yeah, you probably want that to be dry, you don't want it to be wet.
11:10and slipping. So the Stadium Stampede's legacy is really interesting. One of the more enjoyable...
11:15early cinematic matches for sure, I thought it was a blast personally, I mean, it was the most fun I had with...
11:20wrestling in the whole pandemic era, where there were no crowds and everything.
11:25and the match's legacy continues to date. Initial one foe...
11:28almost got rained off. Crazy.
11:30Number two is how the pandemic unfolded. Now, obviously...
11:35we all know that in early 2020, the world shut down, wrestling kept going with...
11:40QT Arena's, AEW's version of that was, at first, QT Marshall's gym...
11:45in Georgia, where it was very, very sparse, there was nobody around. They later...
11:50went to Daly's place, they had people like the guns at ringside, making lots of noise wherever they could.
11:55all of that stuff is very well documented. And actually, if somebody wanted to, they could probably write about...
12:00500 pages on the pandemic era of wrestling alone. There's a lot to cover there.
12:05But something we've never heard is how this specifically unfolded in AEW.
12:09The mo...
12:10The moment they realized...
12:11The moment they all realized...
12:12Ah, crap. Something's going wrong here.
12:14It was during...
12:15In the 11th of March, 2020, episode of Dynamite, when Evil Uno...
12:19Uh...
12:20had the following kind of...
12:22Sorry, I'm not...
12:23I've... I've jumped ahead.
12:24When Chris...
12:25Christopher Daniels had the following realization...
12:27I remember a lot of people in the locker room saying things like...
12:30I've got a cold. I've got the flu today. I'm not feeling so good. There was a lot of that...
12:35going on, but I didn't get it. Then Evil Uno added...
12:39I remember the show...
12:40The show went on as if it was nothing. And then, halfway through...
12:43A ton of important people started...
12:45I started looking worried and going into meetings. I didn't understand what was happening at...
12:50All. So the sense of confusion...
12:52Just kind of creeping in backstage as the world is...
12:55Kind of coming to terms with this catastrophe...
12:57That is unfolding. Evil Uno even says...
12:59I thought...
13:00Somebody big was showing up, man. Like a big debut or something like that.
13:03It turned out to be a debut of a...
13:05A global pandemic which had catastrophic impacts around the world.
13:10Really interesting to learn about this backstage situation right there. I mean, honestly...
13:15I wish there was kind of cameras there to capture, honestly. Or even a little bit more detail on the...
13:20These things in general. But yeah. Really interesting to learn. And then...
13:25Thank goodness all of that is behind us now. Because it really sucked.
13:28And at number one...
13:29The...
13:30The last minute reshuffle to the original Casino Battle Royale. So...
13:34The...
13:35The original OG Casino Battle Royale was won by Hangman Page. He earned his right to challenge...
13:40For the AEW World Championship. As a result of that, he ended up facing Chris Jericho and losing.
13:44But...
13:45If you recall the original set up of that match, there were...
13:48Cards...
13:49Groups...
13:50Groups of wrestlers came out depending on the card they drew in batches. And then there was one Joker at...
13:55The end.
13:56Well, the original Casino Battle Royale was supposed to feature one Bryan.
14:00Cage. He eventually signed for AEW in the future. But at the time, he was TNA...
14:05They didn't want their world champion...
14:06The problem was TNA... They didn't want their world champion...
14:10Being eliminated from a match. They didn't want him getting pinned or thrown out or whatever, whatever, whatever...
14:15Because they're world champion. It's an understandable point of view for them to take. The problem is...
14:20The AEW didn't learn about this. TNA did not realize this and raise this concern...
14:25Until just as the match was beginning. This meant that live on...
14:30On the fly, on basically their first show...
14:33AEW had to completely...
14:35Big change. One of their big matches. This meant that Orange Cassidy, who was originally supposed to have...
14:40A much smaller role in the match. Became an official participant. He entered the match.
14:45And they all had to adjust on the fly. Excalibur says he was kind of making his way to the ring...
14:50And taking a seat at the announce booth when he learned that the whole thing had changed.
14:55One of the defining characteristics of AEW has been that ability...
15:00To adjust on the fly. And here it is written, documented, in this book is all...
15:05It's out on the 4th of November. Who should pick it up? I think if you're an AEW...
15:10Hardcore fan and you would just love to have this on your coffee table or your bookshelf...
15:14Definitely...
15:15Grab it. Get a hold of it. I mean as well as the editorial side...
15:19I mean some of these images...
15:20Are just absolutely gorgeous. The photographers of AEW do a tremendous job and this is a very well...
15:25Designed and presented book. So shoutouts to them...
15:28Lee... speedy Lee...
15:30Michael Watson, Brain Buster, the whole team do a great job and it's showcased really well...
15:34In...
15:35Here...
15:36If you're looking for a deeper dive, if you're looking for like...
15:39A...
15:40Super detailed analysis of this company from start to finish...
15:44It's maybe not...
15:45The book for you. It doesn't really have that in it. But it's not going for that. It's going for...
15:50For a very high level overview. It's going for...
15:53Uh...
15:54A summary...
15:55In...
15:55In...
15:56Positive terms...
15:57Of this promotion coming to life and prospering going all the way through to...
16:00The First Wembley Show and Sting's retirement. If that sounds great to you...
16:04Pick it up for your...
16:05Order it right now. They're available. It's coming in just a few weeks. But thank you for joining me today. Here's another...
16:10Video about AEW. I'll see you later.
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