AEW President Tony Khan promised to deliver a special gift to Sting as he is scheduled to end his in-ring career at the Revolution pay-per-view in 2024. That special gift was bringing two-time WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair to AEW.
Flair stated that he wants to be with Sting for the rest of his journey in the company and per a press release from AEW, Flair has been signed to a multi-year contract. In addition to that, Flair’s Wooooo! Energy Drink is now the exclusive energy drink of AEW.
I actually texted him (Tony Khan) that we had an energy drink and asked if he would be interested in having a sponsor for the show. We started negotiating with him and then he called me and said, ‘Would you want to come to work?’ He had talked to Sting and I said, ‘Hell yeah.’ The only people that knew about it of course were Chad Bronstein (President & Chairman of Carma HoldCo, parent company of Wooooo! Energy), myself, Sting and Tony. I came in as a surprise and it just was a wonderful experience. Sting and I have been working together for 31 years. What a moment.
Sting is scheduled to be in action at the upcoming Full Gear pay-per-view. He’ll be tagging with Darby Allin and Adam Copeland to take on Nick Wayne, Luchasaurus and TNT Champion Christian Cage.
I don’t hate it, but I also don’t love it. Hopefully they don’t put him in the ring. I doubt they will, but who knows as I’m sure flair will push for it, and Tony tends to do his best to make talent happy even sometimes to a detriment.
Without my opinion on the man himself, having a legend like Flair under the AEW umbrella makes sense.
AEW has embraced carrying the torch for all pro wrestling history. There are very few living examples of people who have been present throughout most of the major events of the past forty year. Flair is one of those people.
I don’t expect him to have a major role.
I also expect, given how TKO likely won’t be interested in paying legends to be associated with them anymore, other legends to jump into AEW / legends of wrestling embassador type roles. He will make promotional appearances in the south east. He will pop up on pre-show panels. He will be a ringside judge.
He’s not going to be a weekly fixture.
If anything, this is Tony trying to take care of a broke wrestling legend.
This is pretty much my thoughts. The ethical issues and hypocrisies however do rub me the wrong way.
In 2020 Tony went out of his way to publicly state that Hulk Hogan was banned from all AEW shows because he used the N word in his 2012 sex tape. Which for the record was gross, and I’m not even remotely defending Hogan, however at the time I thought Khan’s statement was disingenuous and done to appeal to the IWC.
3 years later to then sign Ric Flair and to even go out of his way to call him a “gift” to Sting when Ric Flair has been accused of of calling Teddy Long that same word that Hogan said and has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault just comes of extremely hypocritical to me.
I believe it’s virtue signaling and that it comes down to the fact that Hogan is not loved by the ICW, and Flair is (at least is more then Hogan) and has nothing to do with morality. Tony says what he says because he is trying to appeal to a certain demographic that spend money on his product and because “Vince is worse” which don’t get me wrong, he certainly is, Tony has largely gotten away with it.
Flair has been accused of much worse then Hogan, and while I get that Hogan’s gross language was recorded, the fact that Tony did a complete 180 when it came to Flair just makes me roll my eyes.
I agree with you and I think Charlotte should jump to AEW. There comes a point for certain performers where they just become stale and have worked with almost everyone 100 times, and outside of Jade because she just came in, I feel that Charlotte is at that point. Her Dad is there, her husband is there, it just makes sense. With that said, when I googled her contract status an article popped up saying she signed a 5 year ext last month, but it doesn’t seem to be 100% as it appears to have come from Madusa.