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AJ Styles Responds To Claims By Arik Cannon That Avery Styles Didn’t Help Out At GCW Show
Image Credit: WWE
Before diving too deep into this, I need to acknowledge the fact that all of this could already be an angle or could lead to an angle that might work well for Avery Styles if he ends up having the skill & ability to make something of himself in pro wrestling. There’s potential for good storytelling here. Basically, what happened was Arik Cannon got on Twitter and read about Nattie putting over Avery Styles for a match he had on a GCW card and saying that Avery wanted to pay his dues. Cannon responded to the tweet he saw by pointing out that Avery had no interest in helping with anything else on the show other than his match. AJ, Avery’s father, clapped back at Cannon saying that Avery was paid to wrestle, not help with putting up and taking down the ring.
I was a bit surprised by AJ’s stance on this. He came up through the independent wrestling scene and surely served as part of a ring crew or two early in his career and probably later than he’d like to admit. He seems like the type of guy that respects tradition and old school values. It’s funny how these tradition-loving folks want to cast it aside when it no longer serves their purposes. Whether it’s AJ wanting to protect his son, AJ’s friends wanting to stick up for their friend, or AJ’s fans wanting to stick up for their favorite wrestler, it all sounds like the same song I hear when I turn on the television and hear celebrities or politicians changing their tune and their friends & fans going right along with it.
Not to defend Arik Cannon too much here, his actions are also part of a big problem with wrestling these days where everybody feels the need to air their dirty laundry on social media. Do we need to know that Avery Styles isn’t helping set up the ring or carry bags or whatever? Probably not. I’m not a veteran wrestler, but I’d like to think that in the same situation I’d talk to the kid in private about it. If I change their mind, that’s great. If I don’t, it’s not my problem. One less kid helping with the ring isn’t a big deal…but if the kid happens to have a famous father with a lot of friends & fans willing to buy what they’re selling, that could lead to a generation of wrestlers sitting on their butts waiting for somebody to set up a ring. People saying that independent promoters should pay a ring crew in addition to all the wrestlers don’t get how economics work, and they don’t get the idea Nattie floated out there about “paying your dues”. I’m gonna be the old stick in the mud that tells younger wrestlers to put up a ring. It probably won’t hurt any worse than what you do in it later.
WRESTLING HEADLINES 👊🏽
•Bully Ray Says Chelsea Green Beatdown On WWE Smackdown Left a Bad Taste
Image Credit: WWE
Once I read something Bully Ray said that I actually agreed with, I figured that would make up for last week’s take on him & the Busted Open crew taking the WWE money. It also happened to be about something I noticed while watching SmackDown Friday night. Seeing Chelsea get pinned in a tag team match by Fatal Influence and then beat down by Nia Jax reminded me of watching Rey Mysterio’s World Championship reign twenty years ago. He got the big win at WrestleMania 22, everyone was happy, then bigger wrestlers beat him like a drum for weeks afterward until he lost the title. Rey’s title reign basically served the purpose of letting fans know that he shouldn’t be a World Champion, and as legendary as his career has been since then, there’s still that little footnote of “couldn’t be a viable World Champion”. I doubt Rey has ever lost sleep over it, but it’s something I’m reminded of whenever a champion is made to look like a fluke that shouldn’t be there. The way Friday played out indicated to me that Chelsea will be made to look like a fluke champion until she eventually loses it, which I’m sure would be fine with her, but it’s questionable that her fans will get the same enjoyment out of the experience.
To make it worse, Chelsea got injured at the end of the match! Now we might get an Interim Interim WWE Women’s Champion, which would be funny to hear from ring announcers, but could have been easily avoided if Chelsea didn’t need to look like a fluke champion so soon after winning the title.
Image Credit: WWE
Conrad Thompson went on a rant last week on one of his podcasts where he claimed that Roman Reigns was overrated, which led to his various cohosts coming to Roman’s defense. I usually wouldn’t care too much about things like that, but it’s an interesting discussion that has my brain pondering a few things. As a somewhat old person, I’m always going to be biased towards the people I grew up watching. The idea of saying that anybody is a better top star than Stone Cold Steve Austin was in the Attitude Era is blasphemous to me, so if I was on a podcast giving my hot takes, I would probably side with Austin over Roman just like I would side with Michael Jordan over LeBron James. It’s what I believe in my heart of hearts as a wrestling fan. Watching Austin just brought me more enjoyment than watching Roman ever has.
But then when I put on my critical thinking cap, I realize that Austin’s run on top was pretty damn short. He was crowned at WrestleMania XIV and retired at WrestleMania XIX. We’ve lost count of how many WrestleManias Roman Reigns has main evented. Yes, he’s not on television every week, but it’s not like that’s anything new either. Hulk Hogan wasn’t on TV every week when I started watching, and I never really became a fan of his, but he still drew a lot of other eyeballs to wrestling whenever he did appear. Roman was the focus of a storyline that was more successful than anything WWE had done since…Austin? Unless I’m missing something I’m probably right. Sure, there were failures along the way and Roman got more chances than a lot of other people would have in that spot, but eventually he justified peoples’ faith in him. I think whatever rating Roman Reigns has with the general public is justified. Like how I didn’t really get Hogan, people might not really get Roman. There’s not denying the fact that the dude is a star.
MORE MUST-READ LINKS FROM 411MANIA
→Hall's WWE Raw Review 8.10.26
→Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins: The 14 Year Saga
→411's WWE Greatest Moments Report: Randy Orton
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– Steve Cook