Final AEW Promo (1/19/2022)

What do you guys want to talk about? I'm reminded from that last match about a man who once sat on a stage just like that, looked in a ring just like this, and he gave one of the most important addresses in the history of our sport. It inspired thousands of would-be wrestlers. It mobilized literally millions of fans. It was the first hint of a revolution. I am talking about CM Punk and the pipe bomb. Someone told me to save this promo but I honestly don't know if I'm going to get the chance so I'm going to do it now.

In that interview, that was the first whiff of a revolution. He laid out a roadmap. He listed things. Things that for him - for somebody like me - that were taboo at the time. Things like going to New Japan Pro Wrestling, working with Ring of Honor, and ultimately, he would talk about teaming with The Young Bucks. As destiny would have it, as fate would have it, he was unable to do those things. But he would join... He would eventually wind up here in what Pro Wrestling Illustrated called the 'Comeback of the Year', but if we're being honest with one another, and I see all the CM Punk shirts, it is the comeback of the decade. We are all living it, we are all loving it. But in his absence, in the void that CM Punk left behind, somebody did do each and every one of those things. I did them.

I CARRIED EVERY OUNCE OF ANTI-MONOPOLY SENTIMENT ON MY SHOULDERS. I HELD EVERY GRADE OF THE REVOLUTION IN MY HAND, AND EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU CHEERED. You wanna ask why I won't turn heel? It's because you cheered me when I needed it the most. When it says there is more than one royal family in wrestling, I am talking about me and ALL OF US!

People talk about the 'Forbidden Door'. It's a proper noun. Its vernacular. But if you are an industry journalist who covers what we do and you disagree with anything that I say here tonight you're not a journalist. As this generation likes to say: Check the receipts, check the dates, before there was a forbidden door I WAS THE ONE WHO BUILT IT!

And I am gone, I'm gone for two weeks--two weeks!--and I see that The Young Bucks last week in the opening segment almost started the Wednesday Night Wars all over again. And listen, I know reDRagon graduated hip toss class with flying colors, but I don't need to see the Bucks beat the developmental more than once. And then my friend, my Trelawney-like friend in Ricky Starks, my real life friend, gets into a tiff with Jay Lethal. Word to the wise, the Lethal Injection is the one cutter in the business that people don't kick out of. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

And then one of the most talented wrestlers on the planet that you're gonna see later, Malakai Black. A guy who hung two losses on my name--everybody knows I hate to lose--a man who needed no help added insult to injury by getting help in the form of just this size and speed and strength--and I know we're not in the business of renaming people like Gunner McGilabuddy or whatever the hell it is, but not just speed and strength, ... BALLS. Because if you come to AEW and you call yourself Brody, you've got balls. And I'll let you find out in eight years what a mistake that was when that kid shows up.

But speaking of Brodie, speaking of Darby, of Miro, and the TNT Champion, Sammy Guevara. These are men, a lineage, a legacy of champions who taught you what you had been taught against. Everyone had been conditioned for 20 years that any title that doesn't have the word 'World' in it is a secondary belt. But we don't have secondary belts, the only way it's secondary is because right now there's two. I think it's pretty clear what we do. I know Tony Khan has sent a contract in the mail to Sammy Guevara and myself--maybe it's not the contract I wanted--but Sammy at this point, Beach Break, two titles, one champion. Oi Sammy Guevara, what do you say?