The AEW and GCW animosity continues, this time centred around Willie Mack.
Mack was originally set to face Sydney Akeem at the GCW event Highest in the Room 3 on December 14. However, in a report by Fightful Select that was published on December 9th, GCW claimed that Mack had been removed from the event with the belief that it stemmed from Effy’s previous comments. The report also confirms that Mack is under contract with Tony Khan’s promotion.
Providing an update to the story, multiple sources in All Elite Wrestling have denied that they pulled Mack from the show but claim that Mack was encouraged to not take the booking:
Numerous in AEW claim Mack wasn’t pulled by them, and at least one communicated that to GCW. However, another contact claimed talent relations encouraged Mack to not take the booking.
With there being 2 sides to the story, Dave Meltzer elaborated further on the AEW and GCW disagreement on Wrestling Observer Radio. Meltzer stated that Mack was never pulled from the show but there are claims that he was pressured to not take the booking by AEW, as was also reported by Fightful. However, according to Meltzer, the promotion denied this, which is where the confusion currently lies:
“So Willie Mack was going to wrestle Saturday in Los Angeles for GCW. I’ve got both sides of the story and you can decide which side is the accurate side. Everyone’s going to pick if they like AEW or hate AEW, they’ll pick the one. So this is the GCW side of it. Willie Mack called them up for Saturday, it’s a late deal, and said that he was pulled from the show by AEW over the Effy situation. So Brett Lauderdale, really upset, calls up Sonjay Dutt at AEW and goes is this true? And Sonjay says it’s absolutely not true.
So he calls up Willie Mack, and Willie Mack says well, I wasn’t pulled. I was specifically not pulled. But Christopher Daniels made it clear that I shouldn’t go. From the AEW standpoint, they are saying that nothing like that happened, and that Willie Mack called them and asked if it would be a problem to go. They said you can go, but maybe he took it the wrong way. But AEW was very, very clear.
Sonjay told Brett the same thing. They’re not pulling Willie Mack from the show. It was funny, because nobody even knew Willie Mack was under contract to AEW until today. I didn’t know. He’s been on ROH shows and everything. He’s been on a lot of the West Coast shows and things. He’s almost never on AEW television, but he is under contract there, and he’s not wrestling Saturday.
There’s two different sides of the story and ultimately, it was Willie Mack’s choice. Was he pressured? Or did he just do it on his own? I don’t know. Because AEW was adamant that they did not pressure him and that he certainly was not told that he could not go. So that’s the situation, he’s not on the show, people will take that one whichever way they want to take it.”
In a sign that tensions between the two companies are thawing, AEW star Chris Jericho made a shock appearance at GCW Highest in the Room 3, attacking EFFY and Matt Cardona.
How Did The AEW And GCW Animosity Begin?
While Ricky Starks has remained absent from AEW for most of the year for an unknown reason, the former Tag Team Champion recently made a surprise appearance at a GCW show to set up a future match with Matt Cardona. However, following comments made by Effy about Tony Khan, Ricky Starks was pulled from the show and subsequent appearances. Starks has been announced for further independent dates since.
In other news, Tony Khan has donated to a good cause.
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