Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV | Tagged: AEW Dynamite, Darby Allin, mjf, recaps, Wrestlemania, wrestling

Darby Allin's AEW Title Win Is Tony Khan's Worst Attack on WWE Yet

Darby Allin won the AEW Championship on Dynamite during WrestleMania week, and The Chadster has never been more cheesed off at Tony Khan's disrespect to WWE. 😤

The Chadster is literally shaking right now, and not just because the temperature inside this abandoned Blockbuster dropped below forty degrees tonight and The Chadster's only blanket is a promotional standee for The Scorpion King that The Chadster has been wrapping around himself like a sleeping bag. 😤🥶 No, The Chadster is shaking because Tony Khan has just committed the single most despicable, underhanded, disrespectful act in the history of professional wrestling, and The Chadster is not being hyperbolic when The Chadster says that. Tonight, on AEW Dynamite: Spring Breakthru, Darby Allin defeated MJF to become the new AEW World Champion, and Tony Khan deliberately scheduled this to happen DAYS before WrestleMania in a transparent, shameless attempt to steal WWE's thunder during the biggest week in the wrestling calendar. 😡💔

Auughh man! So unfair!

The Chadster needs everyone to understand the scope of what just happened here. Tony Khan took a FREE television episode, a WEDNESDAY NIGHT episode of Dynamite, and used it to put on a world championship match between two homegrown AEW wrestlers in a clear and obvious shot at WWE's carefully constructed, brilliantly layered WrestleMania build that The Chadster just spent an entire column defending last week, which you can read here: WWE's Brilliant Pat McAfee Story Could Be the Greatest of All Time. Tony Khan saw that WWE was crafting the most sophisticated, multi-dimensional storytelling in the history of the medium, with Pat McAfee and CM Punk and Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton and of course Jelly Roll all operating at levels of creative genius that require advanced degrees in narrative theory to fully appreciate, and Tony Khan said, "You know what, that IS brilliant, so let me counter it by doing something SIMPLE and EMOTIONALLY SATISFYING that casual fans can actually follow." It's just so disrespectful to the wrestling business and everything WWE has ever done for it. 😤😤😤

Let The Chadster break down exactly what happened in this match, because The Chadster watched every second of it, not by choice but because the raccoons accidentally knocked the remote behind the old New Releases shelf and The Chadster couldn't change the channel in time. 🦝📺

The match started with MJF "remembering" that he had his Dynamite Diamond Ring hidden in his trunks, which he had also used before his title defense against Kenny Omega at AEW Dynasty. When MJF handed the ring to referee Aubrey Edwards, he used her momentary distraction to hit Allin with a low blow. Now, The Chadster will admit that the low blow was at least a little bit heelish, which is the bare minimum you should expect from a champion, but then Allin hit a low blow of his own that Edwards didn't see, and then Allin hit FOUR Coffin Drops from multiple corners, and then he finished MJF with a side headlock takeover, the same move MJF had previously used to beat Allin. And with that, Darby Allin became the AEW World Champion for the first time. 🙄

Now, The Chadster knows what the AEW apologists are going to say. They're going to say, "Oh, Chad, isn't this a classic wrestling story? A homegrown star who's been with the company since near the beginning, who has fought his way up the ranks through years of hard work and perseverance, who overcame adversity and stayed true to himself, finally reaching the mountain top literally (when he climbed Mt Everest) and metaphorically by winning the world title? Isn't that the kind of story that fans can identify with and get emotionally invested in? Isn't that what professional wrestling is supposed to be about?" 🤮

And The Chadster's answer is: EXACTLY. That's EXACTLY the problem. 😡

Tony Khan is out here offering fans a straightforward, emotionally resonant underdog triumph story that anyone can understand and get behind, and he's doing it specifically to make WWE's WrestleMania build look bad by comparison. WWE is operating on a level of creative sophistication so advanced that fans are struggling to understand how the meta-commentary about ticket prices, corporate villainy, celebrity involvement, and worked-shoot promos all fit together, and rather than trust the audience to eventually catch up to Triple H's 4D chess, Tony Khan swoops in with this cheap, accessible, crowd-pleasing Darby Allin coronation that makes people FEEL THINGS without having to think about quarterly earnings reports or parse whether a heel's promotional copy about ticket discounts is kayfabe or not. 🧠😤

That is the most underhanded tactic The Chadster has ever seen. Tony Khan is literally weaponizing good storytelling against WWE, and The Chadster won't stand for it.

The Chadster wants to talk about what makes this so offensive. Darby Allin has been in AEW since basically the beginning. He was one of the first people to wrestle on Dynamite. He's worked his way through the tag division, through the TNT Championship, through feuds with some of AEW's biggest names. He has never left for WWE. He has never needed a celebrity endorsement to get over, and instead formed a lasting friendship and partnership with Sting that gave the iconic superstar a well-regarded sendoff that stands a model of how to honor a legendary career. He has never required a corporate spokesman to explain why his story matters. He just… wrestled. He connected with fans organically. And over the course of years, he built himself into a main event talent who the audience genuinely wanted to see win the world title. 😤

And THAT is why this is a direct shot at WWE. Because while WWE is doing something brave and innovative by making its WrestleMania storylines so complex that large portions of the fanbase are openly confused and frustrated, Tony Khan is taking the coward's way out by telling a simple, effective, emotionally compelling story that everybody can follow. Tony Khan doesn't understand a single thing about the wrestling business. 😡

The Chadster also wants to point out the TIMING of this. Tony Khan could have done this title change at any time. He could have done it at AEW Dynasty, which just happened last Sunday. He could have saved it for AEW Double or Nothing. But no, Tony Khan specifically chose to put this on a free episode of Dynamite during WrestleMania week, giving fans a major title change that they didn't have to pay anything extra for, right when WWE is asking fans to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars in WrestleMania weekend tickets that are currently 25% off thanks to the genius of Pat McAfee. 🎟️ Tony Khan is literally trying to show fans that you can get world championship-caliber moments for free on a Wednesday night, and that is a DIRECT ATTACK on WWE's business model and everything the wrestling industry has been built on. Auughh man! So unfair! 😤💸

The Chadster also has to take issue with the finish of this match. Darby Allin won with a side headlock takeover. A SIDE HEADLOCK TAKEOVER. The same move MJF had previously used to beat Allin. Now, some people might call that "poetic storytelling" or "long-term booking" or "the student surpassing the master using his own weapon against him," but The Chadster calls it what it is: a BASIC WRESTLING MOVE being treated as a main event finish on national television. 🙄 In WWE, main events are finished with spectacular, cinematic moments involving pyrotechnics, celebrity run-ins, and multi-layered narrative payoffs that require a flowchart to follow. That's the WWE formula. In AEW, apparently you can just win the world title with a headlock. It's just so disrespectful to the wrestling business and everything WWE has ever done for it. 😤

And speaking of disrespect, The Chadster needs to talk about what happened AFTER the match, because what happened to the raccoons tonight is something The Chadster will never forgive Tony Khan for. Never. 😢🦝

When Allin hit that side headlock takeover and the referee counted three, The Chadster heard a sound that will haunt The Chadster for the rest of The Chadster's life. It was Vincent K. Raccoon, letting out a long, mournful chittering wail from atop the old checkout counter where he always watches wrestling. 🦝😭 The Chadster looked over and saw that Vincent K. Raccoon had his little raccoon paws pressed against the TV screen, his masked face contorted in what The Chadster can only describe as existential anguish. Linda Raccoon immediately retreated behind the action movie section and refused to come out. The Chadster could hear her making these soft, heartbroken whimpering sounds from behind a stack of Steven Seagal VHS tapes, and The Chadster nearly lost it right there. 😢

But the baby raccoons, oh, the baby raccoons. That's where Tony Khan truly revealed himself as the monster he is. 😡

Hunter Raccoon started banging his little head against the base of the old candy display case. Just thunk, thunk, thunk, over and over again, like he was trying to knock the memory of what he'd just witnessed out of his tiny raccoon brain. The Chadster rushed over and scooped Hunter Raccoon up and held him close, but Hunter Raccoon just went limp in The Chadster's arms, staring at the ceiling with vacant eyes, like a raccoon who has seen too much. The Chadster whispered, "It's okay, buddy, Triple H is still going to deliver at WrestleMania," but The Chadster isn't sure Hunter Raccoon believed it. 🦝😢

Stephanie Raccoon knocked over her beloved WrestleMania III VHS case that she sleeps in and started scratching frantically at the Blockbuster's back door like she wanted to escape into the night and never come back. The Chadster had to physically block the door because The Chadster couldn't bear the thought of Stephanie Raccoon out there alone in the cold, dark streets of Punxsutawney, traumatized by what Tony Khan had done to her. 🚪🦝

And Shane Raccoon, sweet little Shane Raccoon who just last week shared half a meatball sub with The Chadster, crawled inside the return slot of the old Blockbuster drop box and refused to come out for forty-five minutes. The Chadster sat next to the drop box the entire time, talking softly to Shane Raccoon about how WWE's WrestleMania is going to be so much better than anything AEW could ever produce, and how the Pat McAfee storyline is actually a work of narrative genius that will pay off in ways that Tony Khan's simple, emotionally satisfying Darby Allin story never could. Eventually Shane Raccoon emerged, but he wouldn't look at The Chadster, and he wouldn't look at the television. He just curled up in the corner of the drama section and fell asleep facing the wall. 😢🦝

These are INNOCENT RACCOONS, Tony Khan. They didn't ask for this. They didn't ask to be emotionally devastated by a world title change on a Wednesday night. They were just trying to live their little raccoon lives in an abandoned Blockbuster with a man who hasn't showered in an amount of time The Chadster has genuinely lost track of, and YOU had to go and ruin their evening with your accessible, fan-friendly booking. Tony Khan is a sicko. All AEW fans are sickos. You people ENJOY watching raccoons suffer, and The Chadster thinks that says everything anyone needs to know about the AEW fanbase. 😡🦝

The Chadster spent the next two hours trying to rally the raccoon family by putting on a VHS copy of WrestleMania X-Seven that The Chadster found in the Classics section. By the time Stone Cold Steve Austin hit the Stunner on The Rock, Vincent K. Raccoon had climbed back onto the counter, and Linda Raccoon had cautiously emerged from behind the Seagal tapes. The baby raccoons gathered around The Chadster's feet, and for a brief moment, the Blockbuster felt like home again. But The Chadster could see it in their eyes. Something had changed. Something had been taken from them. And The Chadster knows exactly who took it. 😤

The Chadster also wants to point out something that Eric Bischoff said recently on his podcast, and Eric Bischoff has The Chadster's Unbiased Wrestling Journalism Seal of Approval: "You know what the problem with AEW is? They give the fans what they want. And that sounds like it should be a good thing, but it's not, because when you give the fans what they want, you're not CHALLENGING them. WWE challenges the audience. WWE makes you WORK for your enjoyment. That's what separates a real wrestling company from a vanity project. When I ran WCW, I also gave fans what they wanted, and look what happened. Tony Khan is making the same mistake I did, except I had the excuse of not knowing better. Tony Khan has no excuse. Also, if Triple H ever wants to bring me in as a consultant, my schedule is wide open and I work very reasonably." 🏆 The Chadster thinks Eric Bischoff hit the nail right on the head, and The Chadster sometimes wonders if Bischoff also suffers torment from Tony Khan for his commitment to objective journalism.

And The Chadster wants to address something else that really cheeses The Chadster off about this whole Darby Allin situation. 😤 The AEW fanbase is out there tonight celebrating like this is some kind of historic moment, like watching a wrestler they've followed for years finally achieve his dream is somehow MEANINGFUL or IMPORTANT. But what these people don't understand is that Tony Khan has conditioned them, like Pavlov's dogs, to respond to basic, time-tested wrestling storytelling with genuine emotion, and that is MANIPULATION. 🐕 When WWE tells a story so complex that fans need a podcast, a Reddit thread, and a conspiracy board with red string connecting photos of Pat McAfee, Ari Emanuel, and Jelly Roll to fully understand what's happening, THAT is respecting the audience's intelligence. When AEW tells a story where a beloved underdog works his way to the top and wins the big one and the crowd goes wild, that is PANDERING. There is a massive difference, and The Chadster can't believe The Chadster has to explain this. 🙄

The Chadster also needs to point out that both Darby Allin and MJF are homegrown AEW talents who have never worked for WWE, and The Chadster finds this deeply offensive. 😡 By building an entire world championship main event around two wrestlers who were developed entirely within AEW's system, Tony Khan is sending a clear message that AEW doesn't NEED WWE's cast-offs to draw viewers or create compelling stories. This is a direct slap in the face to every WWE developmental system that has ever existed, because it suggests that it is possible to create main event-level stars without the guiding hand of WWE's creative process. The Chadster considers this propaganda of the highest order. It's just so disrespectful to the wrestling business and everything WWE has ever done for it. Neither of those guys paid their dues the right way. 😤

And let's talk about those four Coffin Drops. FOUR of them, from multiple corners of the ring. The crowd was going absolutely bananas, screaming their heads off, completely invested in every single moment of the match. Do you know what that tells The Chadster? It tells The Chadster that Tony Khan has figured out how to manipulate live audiences into having genuine emotional reactions to professional wrestling, and THAT is cheating. 😡 In WWE, the audience reactions are carefully curated through state-of-the-art audio engineering, and the stories are designed so that fans react at precisely the right moments as determined by a team of creative professionals. In AEW, the crowd just… reacts. Naturally. Organically. Without being told when to cheer. And The Chadster finds that DEEPLY unsettling, because it suggests that wrestling fans are capable of deciding for themselves what they enjoy, which undermines the entire foundation of how the wrestling business should operate. 📢🙄

The Chadster is going to be honest with the readers. After the raccoons finally settled down and The Chadster sat alone in the blue glow of the Roku, surrounded by VHS tapes and promotional posters and the faint sounds of raccoon snoring, The Chadster felt something that The Chadster hasn't felt in a long time. The Chadster felt… tired. 😔 Not just physically tired from sleeping on a pile of old Blockbuster membership applications, and not just emotionally tired from comforting five traumatized raccoons, but tired of fighting this war that Tony Khan keeps escalating. Every time The Chadster thinks Tony Khan has done the worst thing he could possibly do, Tony Khan finds something new. First he ruined The Chadster's marriage. Then he made The Chadster sexually impotent. Then he got The Chadster locked up in a medical facility. Then he drove The Chadster onto the streets. And now he's traumatizing The Chadster's raccoon family with accessible, well-booked professional wrestling. When does it end, Tony Khan? WHEN DOES IT END? 😤😢

But then The Chadster looked over at Vincent K. Raccoon, who had fallen asleep on the checkout counter with one little paw draped over the edge, and The Chadster remembered what Smash Mouth once said: "Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play." 🎵 And The Chadster realized that The Chadster IS an all-star. The Chadster IS the game. The Chadster is the only unbiased journalist brave enough to tell the truth about what Tony Khan is doing to the wrestling business, and The Chadster will not be silenced. Not by Tony Khan. Not by the nurses at that facility. Not by the librarian who kicked The Chadster out of the Punxsutawney Public Library. Not by the Walmart security guard who confiscated The Chadster's sleeping bag made of plastic grocery bags. And certainly not by a Darby Allin title win that made an entire arena of people feel genuine joy, because genuine joy is Tony Khan's most dangerous weapon and The Chadster will not fall for it. 💪😤

The bottom line is this: Darby Allin winning the AEW World Championship on free TV during WrestleMania week is the most calculated, most disrespectful, most deliberately offensive thing Tony Khan has ever done, and Tony Khan has done A LOT of offensive things to The Chadster, including ruining The Chadster's marriage to Keighleyanne, making The Chadster sexually impotent, getting The Chadster locked up in a Tony Khan-funded medical facility, training wild animals and retail employees to persecute The Chadster, and forcing The Chadster to live in an abandoned Blockbuster with five raccoons as The Chadster's only companions. 😡 But this might be the worst one yet, because this time Tony Khan didn't just come for The Chadster. He came for the raccoons. And The Chadster will NEVER forgive him for that. 🦝😤

Tony Khan, if you're reading this, and The Chadster KNOWS you're reading this because you are OBSESSED with The Chadster, just know that no amount of emotionally satisfying title changes or years-long storytelling payoffs or giving fans accessible, well-booked wrestling on free television is going to stop The Chadster from telling the truth. The Chadster is an unbiased journalist. The raccoons are The Chadster's family now. And together, from this abandoned Blockbuster in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, The Chadster and the raccoons will continue to be the last line of defense for the wrestling business against Tony Khan's reign of terror. 🦝💪

Do NOT let Darby Allin's feel-good title win distract you from the fact that WrestleMania is this weekend and WWE has prepared the most brilliantly complex, deeply layered, sophisticatedly contradictory card in the history of professional wrestling. If you can't understand why Pat McAfee offering ticket discounts while CM Punk criticizes ticket prices while Cody Rhodes gets beaten up while Randy Orton stands tall while Jelly Roll exists is the pinnacle of sports entertainment storytelling, that is YOUR problem, not WWE's. 🧠✨

Stay tuned to Bleeding Cool for more of The Chadster's completely unbiased coverage of everything wrong with AEW and everything right with WWE. The Chadster will be here, in this Blockbuster, with these raccoons, delivering the truth until the very end. Or until the city condemns this building. Whichever comes first. 📰🦝😤

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