What Andrade vs. Guevara Says About AEW

By
Jim LaMotta
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(Photo Credit: AEW)

Just after it appeared that the backstage turmoil within All Elite Wrestling had finally settled, a new dispute was trending was social media this week, as Sammy Guevara took to Twitter to fire back at Andrade, who said in an interview that Guevara complained that he hit him too hard in their matches. As is often the case in the often carny world of professional wrestling, many assumed that this was a work, but even if it’s not, none of this latest backstage conflict is good news for the perception of the company.

If it’s a work, the “logic” behind it could be that it might be a way to spark Andrade’s momentum, considering that despite a solid skill set, his All Elite tenure is rather undistinguished so far. He had a lukewarm feud with Darby Allin that was more or less only booked as an excuse for Tony Khan to schedule a coffin match for an episode of television. The feud was rushed and completely secondary in the grand scheme of things. Furthermore, Andrade’s involvement with different stables during the course of his stint in the company was basically just to give him something to do rather than a meaningful angle that could progress his status in the organization. As talented as he is, there’s an argument to be made that Andrade floundered for the majority of his AEW stint.

That speaks to the much bigger problem that the company has across the board. One of the potentially fair criticisms of All Elite is that Tony Khan treats it as a self-serving vanity project in some ways, which isn’t anything new for wrestling promoters, but at the same time, if that becomes too dominate of a narrative, it can sour fans on the product. For example, when it became clear that Dixie Carter’s main goal with TNA was to be on television, the audience rejected it. Granted, as I’ve written in the past, you have to commend Khan for the fact that he was already from a billionaire family and didn’t need to invest in the pro wrestling business to attempt to gain a level of financial security. His passion for the industry is what fueled his decision to fund a sports entertainment venture, and the result was more options for both the wrestlers and the fans. That provided AEW with a certain level of goodwill with the audience because the fans know that Khan could’ve bought an island and drank ice tea in a lounge chair, but opted to jump into the world of pro wrestling, a genre where very few can maintain success at a national level. That said, while Tony enjoys announcing surprises, which eliminates the element of surprise from the equation, if the narrative becomes Khan thinks he can throw enough money around to become the next Vince McMahon or Triple H, it could damage the level of goodwill with the fan base.


The moral of this particular grappling story is, just because someone is on the market that doesn’t automatically mean that they should be signed to a contract. A wrestler can have all the talent in the world, but if there’s not a place for them in a specific promotion, it’s probably best if they find their fit somewhere else instead of being stagnant in an organization. For example, would Cactus Jack have been able to be fully utilized in WCW in 2000? Cactus and Triple H had a legendary match at The Royal Rumble that year, but as we know, Turner executives weren’t going to allow barbed wire and tacks on the WCW broadcast. In a similar way, would New Jack have been able to get over anywhere close to the level he was in ECW in either WWF or WCW? At some point, Khan has to consider if there’s truly a spot for many of the wrestlers he signs to contracts. In many cases, there’s no substance to their AEW tenure beyond the artificial debut pop, which is always easy. The true gauge of successful booking, besides the obvious of the revenue generated, is how effectively was a talent utilized? Was a certain wrestler used to their fullest potential?


Rush, a Mexican star that had a stint as ROH champion before the company was sold to Khan, was recently aligned with Andrade on television. Rush is a talented performer, but what’s his role projected to be in All Elite? Was he signed because Tony Khan has a concept or angle for his introduction to the audience? The same can be said about Bandido, who worked an ROH title match against Chris Jericho on Dynamite and was reportedly offered a deal. Nobody is disputing Bandido’s talent, but what’s the plan for him? Essentially, Andrade is one example of many, that was signed because he was a free agent, but ultimately didn’t develop into more of a star under the All Elite banner. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same is said about Bandido or Rush in six months.


Andrade is set to compete in a career vs. mask match against 10 of the Dark Order on a live edition of Rampage this Friday night so that might be the way to write him off of the show. Perhaps, Andrade took the opportunity to bury Guevara in the interview because he’s on his way out of the company. At the same time, it creates questions about Sammy’s status in the promotion because there isn’t the first time he was the subject of controversy. While the backstage confrontation with Eddie Kingston was the most recent incident, Sammy was suspended for a few weeks during the pandemic era for lewd comments he made about Sasha Banks in an interview a few years earlier. He apologized and returned to the organization without much of a halt in his career path. There was also the report of when he was scheduled to work a set of Impact tapings when the two groups had a working agreement, but refused when he disagreed with the booking of the match. He recklessly threw a chair at Matt Hardy during their feud, splitting Hardy’s head open, and careless dropped Ruby Soho on her head during a match at All Out.

At some point, you have to ask, is Sammy Guevara the problem and if so, at what point is dealing with it not worth the hassle? Don’t get me wrong, Sammy is an extremely talented athlete and has the potential to be one of the major stars of the future for AEW, but this latest public tension does All Elite no favors in terms of the perception of the company. I actually met Sammy at a comic con last year and he was very polite. He seems like a nice guy and it was a great experience, but the issues on social media are the bigger picture

If it’s a work, it’s to a smaller audience because the only interaction was on social media, not television, which is still the biggest platform possible for pro wrestling. It doesn’t look like there’s a Sammy/Andrade planned so what’s the pay off if the social media heat is a work? If it’s supposed to be a “worked shoot,” the vast majority of them don’t get over because as soon as either wrestler throws a worked punch, it loses the credibility of a shoot. Also, the nature of a “worked shoot” tells the audience, “the rest of the show is fake, but this is the real stuff” so it exposes everything else on the show.

If it’s a shoot, it sends yet another message that Tony Khan can’t control the roster, and wrestling fans, especially the demographic of fans that are the core AEW audience, know what usually happens to promotions when the wrestlers put personal agendas ahead of business. That would be one of many reasons why TNA and WCW don’t exist today. It’s going to be difficult to get fans to continue to invest in tickets and pay-per-views if the organization appears to be unstable. The bottom line is there’s no upside to the latest social media incident for AEW.

What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.

Until next week
-Jim LaMotta

E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Twitter @jimlamotta

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