MDW Wrestling, Four Pillars, RIP Billy Graham – The Wrestling Estate Mailbag Week of May 22, 2023
Photo: WWE
The Wrestling Estate’s newest weekly series is back for a third week! This week, I answer YOUR burning questions about the goings on in the world of professional wrestling with two massive pay-per-views on the horizon. If you’d like to have your question answered in future weekly mailbags, feel free to email us at thewrestlingest@gmail.com.
Q: What do you think of WWE and AEW running pay-per-views on the same weekend? Who do you think has more to gain and lose?— Greg M., New Orleans
What I’m about to say may rub a lot of people the wrong way, but I think it has to be said. So many people these days question tribalism in pro wrestling and the fans’ willingness to take sides in the WWE/AEW debate. Personally, I accept this as a reality for a medium of entertainment with the type of structure wrestling has. Fans taking one side or the other is a natural consequence, and both WWE and AEW won’t have it any other way. Tony Khan has described AEW as a “challenger brand” much in the same way Coke is to Pepsi, and Triple H and Nick Khan have been generally dismissive of AEW when asked to comment publicly. Matt Hardy has questioned the tribalism. CM Punk has questioned it and went a step further, telling fans to “touch grass.”
Punk is not wrong with that assessment, but considering wrestling’s parallels to real sports as well as the messaging from both companies, it would be tough to expect wrestling fans to play nice. Fans choosing one product over the other as opposed to enjoying both will always be a constant in wrestling. You don’t have to like it. I don’t. I do believe there’s value, however, in understanding why it’s done versus constantly complaining about how needless it is.
With that out of the way, I think pro wrestling fills a massive void in the overall sports schedule on Memorial Day Weekend. Sure, there are professional baseball games, international soccer is finishing up its regular season and there’s always going to be the Indy 500, but nothing does quite like a big fight feel. There are obviously things to like on both shows. WWE is going to crown its first World Heavyweight Champion in almost a decade, and Cody Rhodes will meet another crossroad (pun intended) in his storyline with Brock Lesnar, and on a more macro level, his inevitable rematch with Roman Reigns. Speaking of Reigns, he will look to finish what he started with Sami Zayn as he and Solo Sikoa aim to take the WWE Tag Team Championship from Zayn and Kevin Owens. It’s an intriguing match, to be sure, but criticism levied against Reigns for not defending his undisputed championship at a show called “Night of Champions” is totally valid.
AEW, meanwhile, feels more like a mixed bag, with Double or Nothing being a collection of matches with a few storylines sprinkled in. The Four Pillars of AEW storyline is rough (I will get to that in a minute), but I have to say that The Elite vs. Blackpool Combat Club is probably the show’s best-built story. My buddy put it to me the other day that even three years ago it would have been inconceivable to see this combination of wrestlers share a ring on pay-per-view, and considering their roots the match has actually been several years in the making. Gotta say, when you put it like that it adds a ton to the match. On a personal level, I am looking forward to a potential match between Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee. While the story hasn’t been told perfectly, (or even well), I can at least admit there is another of a story there to yield a match and the match itself should be spectacular.
Who has more to gain and lose? The answer to this question will always be AEW. The company has rapidly gained momentum over a near-four year history but it will need to constantly prove itself to its viewer base as it breaks into foreign markets and gets ready to launch yet another television show. WWE is ironclad. Night of Champions could completely shit the bed and it wouldn’t change the way people think of the company. You either like it, or you don’t. With AEW, it’s a little more complicated than that. The impression I get is many wrestling fans have not yet made up their mind about AEW. Plus, in light of drama with Punk crescendo’ing once again, the best thing AEW can do to silence the noise is to put on a kickass show.
As the late great Al Davis once said, “just win baby.”
Q: With the Four Pillars of AEW set to headline DoN, can you give letter grades for each pillar? — Ian M., Pensacola, FL
I’ll preface by remaking at how dumb of a storyline this is. Of course, this has been a long time coming if we’re to be honest with ourselves. Once AEW went out of their way to name MJF, Jungle Boy, Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara the “Four Pillars” of the company, a storyline at some point down the line seemed inevitable. The problem? Jungle Boy and Sammy Guevara should not be sniffing the world championship right now, and the story has done no favors for Allin as it’s played to none of his strengths as a performer. Because of this, it feels like MJF is taking one big step to the side while the other three competitors take a step back. Moreover, there is no reason for the fans to believe anybody other than MJF is walking out of Double or Nothing as champion. I’m a writer, not a schoolteacher.
But if I were to grade the four pillars of AEW on their talent and respective runs in the company since its inception, here is what I have:
MJF — A+: What can really be said that hasn’t been said already? MJF cleans up his contemporaries on the mic, as a performer, and he can hold his own in the ring with almost any opponent. We don’t see him as much in the ring as the other three, but there’s no reason to believe MJF is significantly behind the other three in that area. The fact that, at 27, he has been able to become such a bankable star for the company without having ever stepped foot in a WWE ring is remarkable, and AEW should absolutely be putting everything they have behind him.
Jungle Boy — D+: It should be apparent to anyone with a set of eyes that Jungle Boy should not be in this spot, as he has done very little to progress as a character or in-ring talent. The first impression, at least personally, of hearing of a wrestler named “Jungle Boy,” I feel like someone with a big personality would come to mind. Jungle Boy does not have that, and granted, he has been referred to be his real name, Jack Perry, more and more as a way of shedding the “boy” label as he ages. Regardless of what you want to call him, Perry is what he is: a good, not great wrestler who can contribute to a great match in a pinch, but can’t talk, can’t emote, and lacks the unspeakable quality that causes fans to come along for the ride as a character. He is, in so many ways, the same guy he was when AEW was conceived — not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just not “four pillars” material. He might even merit a lower grade had it not been for his feud with Christian.
Sammy Guevara — C: Sammy’s run in AEW has been a bit of a mixed bag. Yes, he is very much still the same kind of wrestler AEW inherited and has done little to progress in that area, but his matches aren’t going to be for everyone regardless. As a character, he hade made progress, albeit has seen his character take one step forward and two steps back a bit too often to my liking. He had great progression within the Inner Circle and should have arrived as a babyface. The problem is, while he can portray a sympathetic babyface when there’s reason to have sympathy for him, he falters when he’s not involved in a larger issue because he is just not that likeable. By putting him back with Chris Jericho, his initial face turn was rendered all for naught. Even though he remains part of a heel faction, he once again flashed an ability to garner sympathy in his recent dealings with MJF. I think his in-ring style holds him back, and it’ll be interesting to see how he works when he’s 35 and the athleticism begins to wane. That being said, I still think there is potential in the Sammy Guevara character, but not enough of it has been fulfilled to have him in the spot he’ll be in come Saturday.
Darby Allin — B+: MJF aside, Darby is the one pillar AEW has been able to consistently commit to as a key cog on its programming. Allin is a unique talent. There is nobody that looks like him, works like him, or even talks like him, and certainly not anybody who is a 1:1 comp in all three areas. I think his association with Sting has ultimately been a net positive for him, and he has gotten some warm receptions. However, AEW has done him no favors in this four pillars feud, and have actually made him come off as a very unsympathetic character in many ways. I mentioned Darby is a good talker, though I also mentioned earlier how AEW has not played to his strengths. Darby can definitely talk, but it needs to be on his terms under the right circumstances. A 10-minute WWE-style talking segment does him no favors, and if AEW wants to get him to the world title one day, he needs to stick to a more old school, ECW style of wrestling promo. Â
Q: Thoughts on the passing of Superstar Billy Graham? — Mike W., San Diego
Billy Graham will be missed, even if he had become somewhat of a divisive personality in wrestling in his later life. He would routinely feud with younger wrestlers in the media, such as Chris Jericho, and became close with Devon Nicholson, but he was never one to shy away from speaking his mind. That’s something I always appreciated about him.
I haven’t seen much of him in the ring. Considering I was born in 1993, suffice to say there’s a good reason for that. I have, however, heard his mic work, which I believe to be some of the most influential of his time. MMA trash talker extraordinaire Chael Sonnen stole several pages out of “Superstar’s” playbook, and there is certainly no Hulk Hogan without him (just look at a side-by-side comparison). I’m not sure how much that adds to what I’m sure will be a lot of pieces about his passing in the coming days, but that’s about all I got.
I can distinctly remember his appearance on that legendary episode of Donahue when Graham, Bruno Sammartino, Dave Meltzer, John Arezzi, Murray Hodgson, Barry Orton, and even Vince McMahon himself appeared to discuss steroids in wrestling. Graham, along with Meltzer’s killer mullet, stole the show making outrageously baseless claims and sparring with Phil Donahue himself over their validity. I think Donahue says to him something to the effect of, “you must have been a real crank when you were on steroids.” If you’re daring enough to rewatch the episode in his entirety like I’m about to do right now, take a shot for every time Graham says the word, “barbiturates.” Graham may not have always played nice with others, but he was never afraid to speak his mind and stand up for the things he believed to be true. I’m of the belief that we, as a society, can use more people like that.
RIP Superstar.
You can follow The Wrestling Estate on Twitter @thewrestlingest and Jack Goodwillie @jackgoodwillie. Â
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