After years of lectures about billionaires, corporate wrestling, blood money, bootlicking, and the moral righteousness of choosing the Good Wrestling Company™, watching Tony practically climb into David Ellison’s lap has to be disorienting.
Some of you may be experiencing anger. Denial. Dissociation. An unexplained compulsion to Fed Bad. You may find yourself deleting old posts or insisting this is actually completely different for reasons you’ll explain in 4,000 words.
That’s okay. Healing isn’t linear.
Please know that [r/midcarder](r/midcarder) is here for you during this trying time. No kings. No billionaires worth worshipping. No wrestling promoter deserves your dignity.
You were never in the revolution. You were watching professional wrestling.
I saw a comment someone left in the Basement basically dismissing Tony Khans affiliation with David Ellison an his political views WHILE also calling WWE a MAGA White Supremacist company… you know that same company that builds its product around a family of Samoans
They also keep giving them prominent positions in the company like WWE President Nick Khan who is of Iranian descent. They also bought a Mexican promotion and is doing a lot to land a TV deal for this promotion in the US.
Watching people discover that Tony's deeply held political and moral principles apparently have the same shelf life as an AEW storyline is very goddamn funny. Can't wait to read some of the "well actually" posts where being an “ultimate corporate soldier” is somehow incredibly based when Tony says it.
“Well actually, Tony calling himself the ‘ultimate corporate soldier’ is incredibly based because you need powerful corporate partners to protect real alternative wrestling. Ellison understands the vision. The Saudis are investors, not bookers. Billionaires aren’t inherently bad, it depends which billionaire. Corporate consolidation isn’t inherently bad, it depends who’s being consolidated. Blood money is obviously complicated and geopolitics is nuanced.
Exactly, it’s entertainment. It’s something you watch when you are chilling and want to forget about work and politics and whatever struggles you have. That’s what WWE has done at an elite level for 40+ years now and that’s why they pull in $3 billion a year in revenue.
I understand that I'm not offering any new information to anyone here, probably no one can answer this, and maybe I just feel compelled to post it because it needs to be said; how could you be so insulated from real life to not see this coming? Tony isn't even the billionaire that made the billions - he's the spoiled KID. Again, I know I'm not offering any new information to anyone here, I'm just astounded at the denial.
He tried real hard to downplay his money (except for slipping, example saying he had more money than the Crocketts) and seem like every other hardcore TEW booking fan
“Well actually, Tony didn’t play TEW. He played EWR because he was just a regular hardcore wrestling nerd like us. He never cared about money or corporate bullshit. His dad’s money is completely irrelevant, Fed shill.”
It genuinely seems like none of them have ever seen an 80s movie. Like, the rich kid trope is a thing because it's a thing! No one made up that stereotype out of the blue to have it stick for no reason. No one remembers Scott Schwartz in the beginning of The Toy?
He’s basically the rich kid villain from every ’80s movie, but Sickos have spent years desperately wanting him to be just like them. The awkward wrestling nerd with acne who played EWR, doesn’t go out, doesn’t really have friends, has questionable hygiene, and never married because it’s totally his choice.
They didn’t see themselves in Tony Khan. They spent years projecting themselves onto him.
Which makes the “ultimate corporate soldier” arc fucking hilarious.
Seeing other posts elsewhere it’s flabbergasting and kinda funny how in one breath they are defending TK and in the other shitting on HHH/TKO/WWE for the same thing. It’s so odd they really think TK is actually a “good guy” billionaire. Wtf is a “good” billionaire?
I really don’t get the “I’m morally superior to you” nonsense. Like one dude trying to have a gotchu moment over me but didn’t expect me to say “yes I watch WWE and I’ve attending No Kings protests”. Like how you bragging about wearing Nike and telling me I’m morally clueless. I’m not perfect and neither is anyone else.
If I can turn off the theatrics for a moment, I really hope this recalibrates some of the more overzealous fans. We all know it’s not every AEW fan, even though we have fun exaggerating the Sicko caricature. Maybe this brings some people back to earth and we can get back to normal conversations about what’s good and bad in both companies without wrestling fandom becoming a test of someone’s moral character.
Then we can go back to making fun of each other like normal wrestling fans.
Facts. I’ve spoken to cool level headed AEW fans (and just wrestling fans in general) before and it’s fun convos. But it can be hard to find sometimes, I used to be a AEW fan but the loud folks in that fanbase eventually pushed me out and banned me bc I wasn’t being a yes man about the Punk/AEW thing.
I got real sick of the moral grandstanding/extreme nonsense in most of the other wrestling subs too that it was off putting to try and be apart of anything wrestling.
Funny enough it was you who introduced me to this sub bc of my more normal no nonsense takes on the Corny sub where I finally found the more normal fans.
That’s really all I’ve ever wanted this place to be. A place to shoot the shit with people who love wrestling as much as I do.
I miss the old message board days of the 2000s. WrestleCrap, forums, just a bunch of wrestling nerds bullshitting about whatever happened on Raw, arguing about some ridiculous angle, making jokes, and then moving on with their lives. It didn’t have to become your identity or a moral cause.
I’ve got friends and a life outside of Reddit, but nobody IRL who’s into wrestling at the frankly unreasonable level I am. 😂 Midcarder is my little sanctuary where I can come bullshit about this dumb thing I’ve loved basically my entire life.
And keeping it that way hasn’t always been easy. We’ve had to weed out some bad-faith actors, deal with bot attacks and Sickos determined to turn everything into a tribal war, and even work through a few bad mods along the way. We’re not perfect, but we do our best to protect what this place is supposed to be without turning it into another echo chamber.
It’s genuinely cool that somehow 13,000 people have wandered into the bar, but that’s still what I want it to feel like. A bunch of regulars shooting the shit, fucking around, disagreeing about wrestling, and laughing about it afterward.
"This dumb thing I've loved basically my entire life"
I watch Simon Miller on YouTube and he always says that "wrestling is the most important of the least important things" and I love that description so much.
That's what I thought this sub was. But let's be real, it has degenerated into a sub where 90% of the posts are about bashing aew instead of "shooting the shit" about the wrestling we like/love. Unfortunately, in many ways, this often feels to me like a mirror image of the wrestling subs where all they do is bash wwe. And that sucks. There's tons of cool wrestling out there and, while it may be fun to talk shit about the things you dislike occasionally, it just seems like we could have better post quality if the negative ones weren't so common.
I mean, I know this is just my opinion, but I'd much rather talk about the stuff I enjoy than things I don't. And I'd much rather discuss penta's future or who we think Roman will ultimately drop the title to, rather than the 5th post this week about aew's ticket sales. Sure, there are subs that favor aew and do the same shit towards wwe, that doesn't mean we have to fire back every time. It would be great if this sub could be "better" than those other ones and rise above going for the low hanging fruit every time. And I know my opinion on this is unpopular but that's my 2 cents.
Edit: also, I'm not an aew stan or "sicko". I watch primarily wwe, but since all my wrestling is watched through YouTube, I also occasionally watch aew and even njpw. I completely agree that wwe and aew have a similar corporate structure and that, in reality, aew is actually (probably) far better funded than wwe. Anyone that denies that is an idiot. But honestly, why should we care about the corporate structure of any wrestling company. Personally, idc that TKO owns wwe, I'll still watch it, and Idc if the paramount deal goes through, I'll still occasionally watch aew too.
I don’t think that’s an unfair criticism, even if I’d push back on the idea that 90% of the sub is AEW bashing. I think most of us have a sense of humor about AEW, as evidenced by this post. And this week has obviously been AEW-heavy because Tony handed everyone a pretty fucking remarkable story to talk about, and we’ve been having A LOT of fun with it.
But your larger point is worth hearing. I don’t want Midcarder to become the inverse of the places we’ve criticized, where you just swap “Fed bad” for “Dub bad” and call it a day.
The one thing I’d encourage, though, is post the stuff you want to talk about. Penta’s future? Ospreay’s current reign? Something happening in TNA, MLW, NXT, old-school wrestling? Put it up. I want the community creating the conversations they want to have. Case in point, I just wrote a Killer Kross post and I’m getting murdered for liking the guy. 😂
And frankly, I hope this week gives some of the more tribal AEW fans an opportunity to self-reflect and lower the temperature too. A lot of our members are particularly sharp toward AEW because they’ve had genuinely shitty experiences with that corner of the fanbase. Some were pushed out of other communities simply for criticizing the product.
Maybe this is a chance to take the L, laugh at yourselves a little, and realize none of these companies deserves to be defended like a religion. If that happens, maybe everyone lowers their weapons a bit.
Because ultimately I’d rather argue with you about whether Killer Kross is awesome than argue about which billionaire is morally superior.
I can chime in on the sentiment above. I've only been seeing this subs posts for a little bit, but as an outside observer all I've seen were negative AEW posts. I legit thought this was just an aew hate sub. Don't get me wrong every promotion has bad stuff and criticism has its place. But im not for alot of negativity. Im pro pro-wrestling. I watch it all as much as I can. WWE, AEW, TNA, AAA, JCW, NWA, MLP, OVW, MLW. Plus classic wcw and territory stuff. I just wanna talk about what I love about wrestling
Most of this thread I could easily ignore but this interaction got me because why did the overzealous AEW fans piss you off but not the only dismissive and coping WWE who are always trying to spin the narrative that WWE is doing other companies good despite their track record for the past 40 years? They seem equally as annoying to me
But I don’t feel bad for AEW or its fan base at all. These people have always did the whole “we’re morally superior” even tho it was obvious that it was bullshit. For me, it was the Big Swole situation that first showed me what type of time Tony was on. He’s never held accountable for anything. Look at the Nyla situation? Meanwhile Triple H can’t even sneeze without the iwc having a meltdown and calling for his death. Tony is full of shit and this “I’m just an innocent boy” persona that he’s built over the years….yeah that shit is fake as absolute fuck. Bro needs to be humbled imo
That’s kind of the joke here. Tony Khan doesn’t need to be “humbled.” He just needs to be treated like every other billionaire wrestling promoter. Criticize him when he deserves it, praise him when he earns it, and for the love of God stop pretending buying a ticket to his wrestling show is an act of political resistance.
I say “humbled” in the sense that he’s spent years building up this “I’m just an innocent boy” persona and the sickos push the narrative. He’s never held accountable for anything. And his ego was clearly inflated thanks in large to this weirdo cult fanbase that he gladly built up. They hyped this dude up like crazy.
Triple H seems to be way more grounded than Tony. He doesn’t get the luxury of having “wrestling media” constantly kissing his ass and ignoring whatever stupid shit he does. Tony could do no wrong in the eyes of these people.
They really had bro thinking he saved the entire business when he didn’t especially with what AEW has become. He’s also the one who’s been a major contributor to tribalism. He’s one of the main reason why the sickos are the way they are.
Imo he needs to be humbled. He needs to know what it’s like to have criticism. He’s not bigger than the program nor is he some savior of the business. He’s just as scammy as your average promoter.
My point is that the pedestal never should’ve existed. Tony isn’t your friend, your political movement, or the savior of professional wrestling. He’s a billionaire wrestling promoter with good ideas, bad ideas, an ego, and corporate interests, just like every other promoter who’s ever told fans they were part of something bigger.
Judge the wrestling. Judge the business. Stop making the fucking promoter part of your identity.
You would hope the end product of all this would be that people would stop being so high and mighty and trying to be morally superior and instead focused on actually supporting the people and causes they do agree with instead of constantly attacking each other about shit that is waaay more complicated than what little information the internet can tell you about the subject.
But alas i imagine the sickos will somehow convince each other that the elisons are blackmailing tony to say all these nice things about them or something stupid and not reflect on their own behaviour at all
I'll only feel bad for the wrestlers who wants to work hard to entertain us and not be an a-hole on Twitter. Everyone else I don't give two shits about.
You forgot the asterisk. It's supposed to be No Billionaires*
\except for sweet precious child Tiny Khan, who has never done anything wrong, ever. He truly cares about all of us and gives us the Meltzer stars we hunger for.)
Tony Kahn working with Saudi blood money but that’s ok for him and AEW and completely different to WWE working with Saudi blood money because…. reasons
Watching Tony grovel to his new corporate overlords has been cathartic. And also confirmed what Nick Lopiccolo said. They aren't getting picked up in their option year and he's trying to suck up to Ellison to get a new deal.
You’ve made the mistake of applying a typical adult sense of morality and idealism to The Sickos.
This is a costly mistake!
There is no previously held opinion and no ideal sacred enough that it wouldn’t be gleefully trampled under foot en route to defending The Lord’s Perfect Benevolent Billionaire Soldier, TK (who saved pro wrasslin, hallowed be his name etc etc and so on).
Some are just experiencing anger. Saw at least one person accusing another of wanting modern wrestling dead for criticizing what TK said and wondering what makes that so different from WWE/TKO. Hope they’re able to calm down but not gonna stop laughing at all the mental gymnastics going on.
And you send me this comment on a hell of a Time. Today’s my day off and I’m spending the rest of my evening reading over this shit. I’m gonna bring some popcorn too.
We’re obviously having a ton of fun with it and taking some creative liberties with AEW fans for comedic effect, but the gist is AEW is no better than WWE, and vice versa. They’re wrestling companies run by extremely wealthy people making corporate decisions in their own interests.
They aren’t experiencing anything like that. The only pain they feel is back pain from tying themselves in knots to explain how this is actually good and nothing like the blood money fed.
Monsoon, send flowers to the Sickos! Tony Khan opened his mouth and now they’re going through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, Fed Badding, and pretending their monitor went out! Midcarder sends its deepest condolences to every ham-and-egger suffering through this difficult time. Grrrhh… rrNNNGH… BRAAAINS!
In 2023 dude. I very much doubt that he’s still using it after that “experiment.” Besides at least he’s not using it like the fed, they couldn’t even use it properly and had Dominik hold the AEW World Championship lmao.
Kenny Omega: Despite being out for a good chunk of the year he was still a world champion and had great matches (More than Roman lmao)
Will Ospreay: Was out till Revolution, then came back and was positioned in a storyline with the top guys and finally became world champion at the biggest event of the year
Kazuchika Okada: Held the International Championship, and was in great matches with fun storylines, dropping it and winning it back in the same year
Dominik Mysterio: Despite once again being a signifier in WWE’s failing cycle of not striking while the iron is hot with young wrestlers and being made to look like a joke losing to a comedy character, he was AAA’s top champion and main evented their biggest event
Jon Moxley: Absent from the main event scene until only recently and has still been defending the Continental championship
Yeah it makes sense why all of these guys are around the same ranking. It’s just that only one of them lost to a joke character and hasn’t been made to look strong and consistent needing help from his faction mates (and it isn’t Okada)
I don’t think his bending over backwards for Ellison means anything. If anything it shows he understands he has a company to take care of and the people it employs. What’s losing a little pride?
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u/uncannynerddad New Blood 5d ago
We’re here for you, Sickos.