KB’s Review: Dragnet: AEW

It was Wednesday, September 4, it was hot in Tallahassee. I was working the day watch out of wrestling division. The boss is Vince McMahon and/or Tony Khan depending on where your allegiance lies. My name’s KB, I type things. I received a phone call from the Longhorn Steakhouse parking lot to report a robbery. Since the only thing stolen in wrestling was usually a crowd, I actually had something to do for a change.

The new AEW World Champion Chris Jericho was reporting that his title belt had been stolen. This struck me as odd because he felt like such a transitional champion that almost anyone would have a good shot of beating him for it soon enough but you never can tell with these people. After a little good old fashioned detective work (meaning I read the dirt sheets with my glasses on), I came up with a nice little list of suspects. I figured if I went over them again, I might get somewhere.

Adam Page

Main Motive: Saw a man about a horse, man demanded payment.

Page is someone you know of if you watch Being The Elite and most AEW shows as he is often around. He tried to win the title in the first place when he fought Jericho but choked in the biggest match of his career because he couldn’t beat a middle aged wrestler who thinks he’s a rock star. That doesn’t make for the best visuals so maybe Page turned to a life of crime.

Never trust a cowboy:

You never can tell with someone like Page. He’s already been accused of murdering Joey Ryan and imitating a main event wrestler so is stealing a title belt that much further down the line? He might be a bit too obvious though as cowboy wrestlers can go either the Ron Bass route or the Sam Houston route. Since Page already has enough problems, I think that’s enough to give him the Houston treatment.

R-Truth/Drake Maverick

Main Motive: General stupidity/A crime for passion

These two are always bungling into something or other and it would make sense for them to walk into the wrong company. Maverick already knows that you can win a title inside of a limousine and maybe he thought that he could get somewhere by taking a title that didn’t belong to him. By somewhere, I mean back in his wife’s good graces, though she already has enough grace just to deal with him.

These two bumbling goons….maybe:

R-Truth on the other hand…..there’s something wrong with him. He already thinks he’s the champion of the 7-11 in Europe or whatever he’s saying this week. With everything else that bumbling blockhead has done, would you really put it past him? You put these two together and trouble is going to follow. I didn’t say it wouldn’t be funny trouble, but that confused R-Truth and a desperate Maverick seem like good suspects.

Repo Man

Main Motive: Needs a paycheck

You can do your own detective work on this one, but good luck finding him. He’s known for his mask.

He already has a rap sheet:

Austin Aries

Main Motive: Wanted to add to his collection

How can you not look into someone known as the belt collector? That’s all this guy does: show up, complain about things and win belts. You would think that some promoter would get sick of him after awhile because he always seems to have a bad attitude but maybe the itch got to be too much for him. Winning those Impact titles will only get you so far and maybe he had an itch to scratch.

The man loves his belts:

I’m kind of surprised that Aries hasn’t been mentioned in AEW in the first place as he would seem to be a nice fit for them. He’s been around almost everywhere and can more than go in the ring, but maybe his reputation has FINALLY caught up with him. That could be enough to motivate Aries to steal something for his collection, and you know he doesn’t like anyone else calling themselves the best in the world. The A Double name makes him a good suspect as he is aggravating and annoying.

Chris Jericho

Main Motive: Needed to reinvent himself (again)

This one might seem a bit odd but would it really shock you? Jericho has one of the most interesting minds in all of wrestling, so would having him fake a title being stolen be that much of a stretch? He’s played almost every role there is to play in wrestling so why not one where his title is stolen? You might even remember him getting a little legal advice on this as he once went to the Library of Congress to look up information on WCW title belts. Perhaps studying up for a bigger caper down the road?

I smell a coverup:

Jericho has long since established himself as someone willing to try different things and as someone who loves the spotlight. How much more spotlight can you get than by playing the victim in a title belt heist? He was even filmed in a hot tub after the theft, promising to send in the world’s greatest private investigators to find the title. Are we sure he’s the victim, or is this just a mighty good cover up?

The McMahon Family

Main Motive: Personal animosity (Stephanie), General madness (Vince), Encroachment of television territory (Triple H), Needed shoe money (Shane)

This one is a big group job and that makes them more interesting suspects. Jericho is the biggest defector to AEW and that is going to make the McMahons angrier than anything else as they certainly value their loyalty. How many times do you see a crime and hear about the Family being tied into the whole thing? The McMahons have a lot of money at their disposal and paying off someone to take care of a title is certainly within their means.

These two should have had a secret love affair:

Think back to all of the issues that these people have had with Jericho over the years. He’s called Stephanie more names than anyone in history. He’s lost to Triple H more times than almost anyone. He’s never actually had a match with Vince so that’s almost overdue. Then there’s Shane, who isn’t a likely suspect but you always have to include Shane in anything WWE related because…..well that’s my next investigation.

Peter Avalon/Leva Bates

Main Motive: Overdue library fees/Jericho is rather loud

I mean….it’s not like they have anything else to do.

Can you imagine these two as criminals:

Kenny Omega

Main Motive: Classic Winnipeg jealousy

What we have here are two wrestlers with blondish hair from the same city who already have issues in the past. Jericho is a major wrestling star and Omega….well we’ll have to see what he can do in America actually as he’s best known for Japan. Omega likes to do his performance art in wrestling (that’s a crime in and of itself) so maybe he’s taken to performing acts of robbery.

Maybe Omega wants to beg for a thank you:

Omega isn’t likely to get anywhere near the title with AEW’s win/loss record rules (which I’m sure will be completely applied at all times) so this is probably his best way to get to the title in the first place. AEW isn’t exactly hiding the fact that they want him to be one of their top stars (mainly because he is one of their top stars) so having him turn to thievery to keep up with Jericho isn’t out of the question.

It’s such a nasty wrestling world out there that you never know who might have taken it. It might have been a wrestler, it might have been a promoter and it might have been a fan. That’s the trouble with this line of work: you have a hundred suspects, with half of them being wrestlers and half of them acting like wrestlers (occasionally at the same time) and they all want to get their hands on some gold. When they try to, I go to work, because I watch wrestling and type about it a lot.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. His latest book is KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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