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“Then what?”
CM Punk famously used to ask that about ideas that were pitched to him. It’s the question all storytellers want to hear. The biggest time an audience got involved was when they were asking that from when JR was shot in the season finale of Dallas to the end of Avengers: Infinity War.
“Then what?”
I couldn’t record an audio after AEW WrestleDream because I had to be at work the next morning and was needing a few hours of sleep, and I am glad I didn’t, because I was reacting to the end of the pay per view like a “smart fan.” I was upset with the booking because if Bryan Danielson was going to step away from being a full-time wrestler. With the surgery he says he needs to get, he may never come back, and even if he does, he may have to come back in a non-wrestling role.
Bryan has been The Hardcore Fan’s guy. He’s the guy who could always be counted on to have the fantastic match. He’s the guy who fought the system in WWE and made it to the top, even though management didn’t want him to BE on top. He’s the guy who fought to get back in the ring after being told he had career ending injuries. He’s the guy who worked his way up from VFWs to the Grandest Stage of Them All when most of the other big stars were people WWE manufactured.
His matches in AEW have always been a highlight of any show he is on. He’s put his body on the line, and even if some of us think that he took too many risks, he did it to have the best match possible. When he announced he was stepping away, I thought it would be like Sting retirement: A great farewell tour capped off by an incredible match where he gets to ride off into the sunset, the conquering hero. We were told he was done when he lost the title. We had visions of Ric Flair’s last WWE match, a fantastic final match where he loses and gets to take that final bow.
What we got was a hard fought match where Jon Moxley beat him clean in the middle of the ring with a sleeper hold. The arena was hushed when it was over, much like the hush at WrestleMania when Undertaker lost. We prepared for the goodbye speech from Bryan.
We didn’t get it. We got Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Pac, and Marina Shafir, the current top heel faction, beating the crap out of Bryan. Darby Allin and Wheeler Yuta came to the ring to save him, and we still thought we’d get that goodbye moment. Instead, we got the next step of the story they have told with Wheeler Yuta taking Bryan’s side against his teammates when Wheeler turned on Darby and repeated the plastic bag attack from All Out.
And the fans were enraged.
I want to put in a quick aside here. I am one of those people who thinks that the use of blood and dangerous spots is something that needs to be cut back if not stopped as we don’t need it. I don’t mind if they use stuntman tricks to make a spot LOOK insane, but too many times people actually DO the dangerous thing. I don’t mind the plastic bag spot because I know how it can be faked, and most people who have a familiarity with stage magic know as well.
The locker room empties out and Bryan is saved, The heels put the title belt in a bag and carry it off, triumphantly winning the title and ending Bryan’s career, and the last shot we see is Darby Allin and Orange Cassidy. This is not a random shot, as earlier in the show, Darby won the respect of Brody King and Cassidy was told by Jerry Lynn that he is someone who can carry the company.
So, I went to sleep, irritated we didn’t get that happy final moment for Bryan. That we still had questions about whoever is behind Mox’s team. The thing going through my mind was:
“Now what?”
Bryan Danielson is someone who loves what is now called Old School wrestling. In the days before WWE had Hollywood connections and mainstream entertainment glamour, when you retired or left a territory, you went out on your back. You lost to someone to give them the big rub, and the fans would be mad at the heel who took them out. Now, because we think we understand the business and think we know how it works, we want that to be acknowledged by the shows we watch. Our anger that should be on Jon Moxley for taking our goodbye from us is instead focused on the booker for that same thing.
I am just as guilty of that as anyone else.
And when I realized that, I smiled at myself and said, “You got me.”
That’s when I moved my anger to the heels and said to myself, “OK. Now what?”
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