So after a very enlightening Dark Side of the Ring episode called The Plane Ride From Hell, we truly got to see the dark side. We learned that Ric Flair may have,(and I only say may have because it is word against word so I never like to deal in absolutes until they are truly absolute) sexually assaulted a woman by forcing her hand to touch him. (They never say where, but take an educated guess.) Talk about another hero for some of us going down in a ball of flames. It’s getting to the point where I don’t even want to stick my neck out for a famous personality right now no matter who they are. In that episode as well, we see Tommy Dreamer, someone who didn’t even do anything bad on the plane ride from what we know, go on to bury himself here as he is interviewed by taking light of the subject matter that Ric Flair is accused of. There is a famous saying, “It’s better to let people think your stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” I mean, this guy has two daughters of his own. How in the hell can you feel that way how would he feel if Ric Flair did that to one of his daughters? Would he sIt back and just laugh, and say ‘oh it’s just Ric Flair, no big deal?’ I would have to think he wouldn’t. So with this said, Tommy Dreamer lost his job and Ric Flair may have lost an opportunity because it was rumored that he would be the next manager in AEW for his son-in-law Andrade El Idolo. Ric also lost his Car Shield commercial.
In other news, Big E was given the WWE title a little over a week ago, with rumors now coming out saying that Big E only got the title because Monday Night Raw had gotten beaten by another company, AEW, in the key demographic for the first time in like 20 years. This week’s Raw sort of proves that because Big E was in two matches this week, and he lost them both. So, you give the guy the belt, and he loses his first two matches. The matches were a 6-man tag and triple threat where he didn’t get pinned but he didn’t win either. To a lot of people, especially any new fans, they will see that as weak. And to make it worse, the guy who won both matches is from the other show Smackdown, so the Smackdown champion came over and beat the two biggest stars on Raw, making the whole show weak. They do have a draft coming up where they move guys around on the different shows to freshen things up but to be honest, they need to do away with the brand split altogether and become one company and one group because AEW is about to have the biggest show in their short history and the WWE can not take them lightly anymore. The ironic part is that WWE is starting to look like who they beat 20 years ago, WCW, in the fact that WCW started hot booking things because WWE started beating them in the ratings, so they hot booked Hollywood Hogan against Goldberg to put the title on Goldberg and we all know how that panned out.
So, yes, as I said above, AEW will be having the biggest show in their short two-year history coming up this week on Dynamite, with almost 19,000 fans in a sold-out Arthur Ashe stadium. To put that in perspective, Smackdown recently was in MSG for like 15,000 fans. Both companies are about to do the same city within a week of each other and as of the last numbers, AEW is outselling WWE like 5-1 right now in ticket sales. That is pretty crazy when you look at the age of both companies.
The last topic will be that Owen Hart’s widow has worked out a deal with AEW that will allow them to have a yearly tournament in his honor, and to help with certain fundraisers also in Owen Hart’s honor. I would be a little worried about this, but after seeing what AEW did after Brodie Lee’s death, I know this is going to be done well and with good intentions so this is pretty awesome. And if you are one of the fools that will get mad at this because of what wrestling company you side with, just don’t because this is about a guy generally loved in all aspects of the community and his family using his name for good to help people even after his death.