Court Bauer is no stranger to backstage tension within a wrestling promotion. The current MLW owner spoke with the Masked Man Show about AEW’s backstage troubles following the All Out media scrum.
In the interview, Bauer was asked if he’d ever seen anything play out like what happened between CM Punk and The Elite. Bauer did share that backstage tensions once led to a shoot fight in the ring. He went on to talk about how situations involving tension can pop up, and the challenge Tony Khan now faces to fix it.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
How promoters react to backstage issues: “Usually you can see that it’s going there, and you try to cool it off instead of heat it up. And sometimes you think it’s cooled off and it hasn’t cooled off, or it escalates again. Or everything settles and then you see a live round in a match, ‘Oh, this guy is coming at me, I’m not going to let that happen.’ It’s a part of wrestling that’s always been there, and it’s frustrating, especially for the promoter. Because you have these plans, and then this happens with these strong personalities, and it’s really now on you to try and get it back on track, can you get it back on track, can you do business, and can you get it into the talent’s head: ‘Hey, we’re trying to do the best things by the fans here. Please put the egos aside and trust the process.’ Can you get them to buy into and trust the process again? That’s a question that every promoter has to deal with: can they do it?
“And certain promoters have the power of persuasion, other promoters sometimes come out with cash or creative. Sometimes you throw cash and everything goes away. Sometimes they adjust the creative. And sometimes, promoters just surrender creative to the talent, which is the most dangerous thing to do, because then you’ve got creative control.”
On AEW’s current situation: “I think every organization, especially that size where you have like a million guys under deals, it’s like you need to have infrastructure. WWE has infrastructure. On top of that system, you have have leadership that [say] ‘If you do X, Y is going to happen.’ There’s consequences, and it’s been defined. And you know, sometimes it’s a little grayer because it’s wrestling.
“So I think this is one of those moments where I think the locker room’s gonna learn ‘What are the consequences if we do this? Are there consequences?’ And now the onus is on Tony Khan to determine how he wants to dictate his leadership role. How does he want the boys and girls to look at him? Is he gentle and understanding? Is he firm but fair? What is that? And that just comes with experience of trying to figure out how you try to balance being the best boss you can be, but also running a company and giving the fans what they want and these big, cool matchups that you have. It’s not an easy seat to be in, and every podcast and every Twitter account tries to say how they’d do it. It’s not that easy, but only with time and experience do you really understand how to do it right.”
You can hear Bauer’s appearance in its entirety at the link below:
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