The news comes days after Stark appeared at GCW’s ‘Dream On’ event in New Jersey and was announced for a match against Matt Cardona at ‘Highest in the Room 3’ on December 14.
While the company didn’t disclose the reason for Starks being pulled, Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp is reporting that it was a call made by AEW. The outlet reports that AEW decided on Tuesday after taking issue with recent comments by GCW performer Effy on his Weekend at Effy’s podcast.
During the podcast, Effy responded to AEW booking the Hammerstein Ballroom for three nights next month in advance of GCW’s return to the venue on January 19.
Y’all have no buzz, no draw and we’ve been riding the lighting on having to actually run a profitable company for the past few years to continue existing. We do not have as much backup. I’ll put it this way, GCW can’t run on a $40 million deficit and continue to run shows but some of us have the privilege of being able to run at a $40 million deficit. Brett (Lauderdale) does not own a football team, Brett doesn’t have a Dad who pays him to stay away. I don’t want this to be a personal thing, but hey guys, you’re not the only game in town.
Fightful reports that Starks has a contract with AEW into 2025 and can take other independent bookings.
Starks has not commented on his removal from the shows but an interview with the AEW wrestler was posted on Tuesday with Chris Van Vliet and detailed his hiatus from AEW programming.
The 34-year-old has not wrestled for the promotion since March.
Not smart to cut a promo on a guy richer than you that allows his contracted talent to work for your company, and who’s online a lot and might pick it up.
Agreed, not sure why Effy would say anything. Stupid comment.
With that being said, I’m surprised Tony would pull a guy because a wrestler on the roster said something stupid. It would be one thing if someone in management said something, but if this is a random talent, just very odd to me unless there is more to it.
Who knows, maybe Tony called someone in management and they defended Effy. I don’t know.
That makes way more sense. Even before this, I remember commenting somewhere about how it would be a really bad legal move for Tony to “bench” Starks and also not allow him to take bookings elsewhere.
And in general, FAFO. Don’t publicly bash your business partners.
Also, it’s a mild possibility that Tony didn’t hear about this until yesterday – though doubtful given how terminally online he is. But you’ll note that he let Shafir, Mox and MVP appear at Bloodsport before pulling his talent from GCW. I assume it’s either out of deference to his top guy (Mox) or out of respect for Josh Barnett.
Damn. How thin is Tony’s skin that some irrelevant loser on a podcast nobody listens to can affect him like this? You’re a billionaire, man. Act like it.
Is it though? Acting like a boss would be not letting Moxley run his own creative because it’s been awful. This is more like punishing your performers for the actions of an unaffiliated loudmouth on a podcast. Big toddler vibes.
He’s within his rights to pull contracted talent whenever he wants. Nice guy Tony would have just ignored it, like he did when he allowed guys to work AAA and have Konnan talk shit all the time.
As for the creative, it’s Tony’s show. He approves it all so if it sucks it’s on him.
Yeah I think that kind of sucks to be pulling talent from shows just because of what some other wrestler said. Does Effy work at other indy promotions? Are AEW wrestlers just not allowed to wrestle where Effy does?
I think this one comes out because the dude is spending more than my yearly salary to make a bad “November Rain” video. But that much money to him is probably the interest on his smallest bank amount.
NXT is “just” developmental.
This one only comes out these days when fans want to a.) gloat about NXT beating AEW in the ratings or b.) complain that a new signing as been assigned there instead of the main roster. While obviously NXT is “lesser” than Raw/Smackdown, it’s still meant to be a money-making venture more than a “hiptoss school”.
AEW is a more “sports-based presentation”.
I don’t even know if this is still around other than the depths of tribalist Twitter. But the idea has been laughable for years. And that’s not a knock on AEW. While Tony or somebody else probably said it 2018-19, it’s clearly not their aim in 2024.
I think it has more sports based aspects than WWE, the Continental Classic being one of them. I consider AEW a mix between WCW and PWG. They’ve had these sports entertainment aspects to them as they are based on a YouTube comedy bit. For me, I just don’t like over the top things like the Garcia/Perry segment last week. I was fine with the Ishii/Jericho one and that seemed like an old BTE segment.
I guess another comparison is its also a mix between WWE and New Japan, with the sports entertainment aspects and the structured sports aspect.
Also just based on the CVV interview and other info, if you’re not going to use Starks just release the guy. Same goes for Miro. We hated WWE for holding onto talent like Luke Harper and Ali - this is no different.
