Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole signing with AEW on heels of CM Punk’s debut should give WWE pause

Will things ever be the same again?

That’s what wrestling fans have been wondering ever since arguably the two biggest professional wrestlers of the past decade, CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, signed with All Elite Wrestling with the latter turning up on its All Out PPV on Sunday.

Added to that mix is hardcore wrestling darling Adam Cole, who has shone like a diamond on the WWE’s “indieriffic” NXT brand for the past four years and what you have is a true alternative to the big dog (with due apologies to WWE champion and top guy Roman Reigns).

The acquisition of Punk — who publicly took the company to task after walking out in 2014 after falling out with WWE owner Vince McMahon and Paul ‘HHH’ Levesque and thereby gave up millions of dollars in potential earnings — could be AEW’s most important move yet.

Punk is a far bigger star than anyone on AEW TV. During his heyday on WWE television, RAW was doing close to five million viewers on Monday nights compared to its mere two million fans of late. Punk not only ups the company’s cred within hardcore wrestling fans, he also appeals to those all-important lapsed fans.

While the WWE may outwardly shrug off any concerns — the company apparently showed no interest in negotiating with Punk for a return and even reportedly told its broadcast partner Fox, with whose executives Punk shares a good equation courtesy of his stint on its short-lived talking head show for WWE, that he wasn’t a “needle-mover”, that he wasn’t wanted in the locker room and that WWE owner Vince McMahon didn’t want to do business with him (which puts paid to WWE’s best for business motto) — the departures of Danielson and Cole are another story entirely.

Indeed, WWE made big plays to keep both Danielson and Cole, with Danielson telling the media after showing up on Sunday that he agonised over the decision as he “really likes” Vince McMahon, that the WWE made him an incredible offer and even promised to let him work other places (for what that’s worth).

What complicated matters further for Danielson is that his wife Brie Bella and his father-in-law John Laurinaitis both work for the WWE, with Laurinaitis actually being the man in charge of negotiating contracts with talent (some awkward family dinners might be in Danielson’s immediate future).

The importance of Danielson, who just main-evented Wrestlemania, the WWE’s biggest and by far most visible show of the year, and who in fact seemed set to transition to a more backstage role within the company, jumping to AEW cannot be understated.

Danielson, a true genius within the ropes, has expressed interest in expanding his horizons and working with a whole host of wrestling companies across the globe. His signing with AEW will not only further mainstreams AEW’s appeal and improves their image with sponsors and top executives at TV networks, but it’s yet another sign to the hardcore wrestling fans, and even some lapsed casual ones, that AEW is the place to be.

Cole, meanwhile, may not be as high-profile as either Punk or Danielson, but he is by all accounts considered one of the nicest blokes in wrestling and an absolute ring general within the squared circle. Beloved by WWE office employees, its wrestlers and its most ardent fans, Cole was seen as the “golden boy” of McMahon’s heir-in-waiting and son-in-law Levesque (who runs NXT) and WWE icon Shawn Michaels (who serves as Levesque’s right-hand man, an amusing irony for those in the know).

Cole, in fact, recently had a meeting with McMahon himself (which by all accounts went rather well). While there was no word about a big money contract offer being dangled in front of Cole, the WWE creative team were reportedly told to start thinking about how to integrate him into the main roster storylines of RAW and Smackdown.

Instead, Cole’s contract expired and he quickly joined AEW, where his girlfriend Britt Baker works as the top female star and champion, and his friends The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega are top stars and, in real life, employed as AEW executive vice-presidents under owner and booker Tony Khan. Unlike Danielson, Cole had no such compunction and described his decision to join AEW was a relatively straightforward one.

Which yet again lets professional wrestling fans know which way the wind is blowing at the moment: firmly in one direction.

Thank you to the men and women who have worked so hard to make @aew what it is today. I’m still buzzing from last night, and that was only possible because of what you built.

I am #AllElite… now it’s time to kick some f’kn heads in pic.twitter.com/0NRDXcDugr

— Bryan Danielson (@bryandanielson) September 6, 2021

But AEW has had a string of successes even before Punk, Danielson and Cole turned up in quick succession: ticket sales for its Wednesday show Dynamite, an important metric to tell how engaged fans are with a company, have been at par with WWE’s flagship show RAW and even outdrawing them in certain cities (a fact some within WWE are still struggling to come to grips with and even floated conspiracy theories that AEW owner Tony Khan is himself buying tickets); a ravenous AEW fanbase and white-hot audiences starved for professional wrestling rather than the WWE’s “sports entertainment” have, in the words of F4W’s Bryan Alvarez, created a “big party” feel; Dynamite crushed WWE’s “third brand” NXT — which was put there to obstruct their momentum (a move typical of WWE owner Vince McMahon for anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to history) — on Wednesday nights and essentially forced the WWE to move NXT to Tuesdays; the TV ratings for its Wednesday night Dynamite show have regularly been hitting the magic one million viewers mark and absolutely crushing it in the coveted 18-44 demographic with Punk’s debut on Rampage incredibly beating both RAW and Smackdown in that particular demo (not a needle-mover, eh).

Remember, for companies like WWE and AEW, the game has completely changed. No longer are ticket and merchandise buying audiences king and queen. While selling tickets and t-shirts are important income streams to determine the health of a company and popularity of talent — indeed, some initially even dismissed AEW as a t-shirt company — the big money is in making deals with TV networks and streaming platforms.

WWE is being kept afloat by massive TV deals with NBC’s Peacock streaming service and Fox network, while AEW signed its own four-year $175 million deal with TNT for Dynamite (not exactly chump change, but far from the hundreds of millions of dollars the WWE is raking in) and another “eight figure” deal (anywhere from $10 million to $100 million) for its Friday show, Rampage.

To quote Omar Little: ““It’s all in the game, yo.”

While the WWE is in no danger of going out of business over next decade, it certainly is losing its cool factor, as evinced by its incomprehensible booking of recent NXT call up Karrion Kross (of whom it made a mockery and who was then mercilessly mocked on social media by fans) and its storyline around Alexa Bliss and “Lilly” (it’s a doll. Don’t ask. Please.)

Meanwhile, WWE legend Mick Foley, also universally acclaimed as one of the nicest guys in wrestling, recently posted a heartfelt video on social media telling WWE that they “have a problem” and that were he an up-and-coming wrestler, he would not trust his career in their hands. Ouch.

The problem, of course, is Vince McMahon himself and his creative team which are moulded in his likeness and geared to cater to an audience of one. For nearly two decades, after WCW went out of business in 2001, WWE and its brand of “sports entertainment” has pretty much had a monopoly over the wrestling market and eyeballs.

When smaller companies like Ring of Honor and a whole host of independent promotions began catering to the most hardcore of hardcore fans in the 00s and 10s and created something of an indie wrestling boom, the WWE decided it wanted in on that market share as well: hence the creation of a new NXT under Levesque which signed away some of the most prominent independent wrestlers from across the world and, for a time, enjoyed a run as arguably the most critically acclaimed promotion in the world.

This, even as the WWE, despite its revisionist history, spent the past few years in an active battle with its main roster audience over the ascension of fan favourite Bryan Danielson over Vince McMahon and Levesque’s hand-picked choice Reigns.

All while its RAW and Smackdown shows witnessed a massive erosion in TV viewers and fans in attendance chanted “CM Punk” (translation: Punk was right. Your product sucks) and regularly infuriating top brass by hijacking shows and PPVs.

The booking, particularly since 2018, has reached a nadir (far too many examples to note and which will one day, hopefully, be immortalised in a book).

Then AEW was birthed into existence in 2019 through a confluence of unpredictable events as well as the passion, industry contacts and money of Tony Khan, a lifelong wrestling fan and top executive at his father Pakistani-American billionaire Shad Khan’s myriad enterprises (including Fulham FC and the Jacksonville Jaguars).

Tony signed away most of the big name indie talent not already at WWE (The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Hangman Page) and some former WWE stars (Jon Moxley, Cody Rhodes) who, much like Punk, had left the organisation after feeling disillusioned by their experiences and most importantly, Chris Jericho, who once seemed destined to be a WWE lifer and had once vowed never to work for any other promotion in the United States.

Now, with the addition of Punk, Danielson and Cole to the roster (among other talent such as Miro, Andrade and Ruby Soho) and the promises of “even more surprises” yet to come, AEW has established itself as the premiere pro-wrestling company in the world.

One can make such a bold claim only because the WWE views itself as no longer “a mere wrestling company” but something more akin to Broadway or Cirque du Soleil. Indeed, as insiders put it in their own words: “We make movies” (its theatrical presentation of taped rather than live matches starring outlandish characters and the upcoming Netflix interactive movie starring The Undertaker and The New Day are but a couple of examples).

Speaking as someone who was growing up through the Monday Night Wars, when the then World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling were locked in a bitter struggle for supremacy, these are strange and heady times.

While this isn’t a life and death struggle for either WWE or AEW, those in the top spots only need look at the example of WCW to learn that hubris is often a prelude to a painful and fatal fall.

Talent whose contracts are expiring or about to expire may never experience a more lucrative time in their careers. And wrestling fans and followers of the industry may never witness a more fascinating or singular time in the business.

Long may it last.