FanPost

Historically Significant Disasters of Wrestling #99: The TNT Title Reigns of Sammy Guevara

TBS

It became a pain in my Inner Circle...

The Four Pillars of AEW have, for the most part, been booked quite well to be part of the bedrock that the promotion has based itself off. Part of the reason for this is that, at least for three of them, their characters are consistent and simple for both the audience to understand and their opponents to interact with. Jungle Boy is a kid living his dream who is finally now beginning to mature into the man he can become. Darby Allin is the outsider who is willing to put everything on the line in order to get the victory. And MJF is the privileged little shit who everyone wants to see get his while using his mouth to deceive the locker room and the crowd.

But what of the other one?

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In late September last year Sammy Guevara won the TNT title against Miro on Dynamite in a surprise victory that was received really warmly. Still part of the Inner Circle, people thought that this would be the start of a reign that would allow Guevara his own time in the sun and deepen his character.

It should be explained at this point, given what the TNT title has been through over the past 12 months, what it was before the Spanish God relieved the Redeemer of it. The TNT title was seen as the workhorse belt -- like the IC title of old in WWE. As such it wasn't one for epic feuds, but instead one where fun TV exhibition matches were to be had and a guy could get over for being really good in the ring.

That was what made Miro such a compelling TNT champion. While his promos were really good, it was the fact that if you saw a Miro match you knew what to expect -- a hardhitting hoss beating the piss out of someone. It was why the Cody invitational for outside talent when he was TNT champion worked well too. It made week-to-week television fun at a time when the upper parts of the card were moving towards longer storylines. Counting both the match he won and lost it on cagematch.com, Miro had 10 matches for the TNT title over the course of 140 days -- one per 2 weeks. Furthermore, that's all he had. He wasn't involved in other feuds or stories, his SOLE PURPOSE on AEW was to defend that title. Such booking makes the champ feel a) special and b) like the title was special to him (it also makes downright bewildering how you then book the same guy to only have FOUR matches in the whole of 2022). Guevara had a better match rate (16 in 156 days), but there was a lot of grist in his wheels.

So let's start with the first issue:

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The Inner Circle were a great vehicle for all of these workers to get some of Jericho's shine, don't get me wrong. It's just that when Guevara had the TNT Title, it would have been the perfect moment for them to take a step back so that Sammy could begin his title reign anew. Instead almost immediately they dragged Sammy into their feud with...sigh...

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Full disclosure: I almost titled this HSDoW the Inner Circle/Top Team feud, but I was sure as shit not going to rebook that! Don't get me wrong, I don't hate American Top Team as a concept, I just think that the pitch doesn't scream 'upper mid-card stable that can hold its own in a compelling feud with major stalwart stable of promotion'. The trouble is that there is a booking consideration and there's a celebrity consideration and rather than come together in a beautiful synergy (see Zayn/Knoxville), they actually fought against each other.

Because I can see the celebrity considerations. If you wanted a high profile vet that wasn't in the title picture to slot in against a new celeb/MMA crossover stable, then Jericho is the guy. But the thing is that Jericho is a guy whose brand can take the hit because Jericho isn't going to stop being Jericho by feuding with a bunch of MMA/lower mid-card workers and when he's finished he can go back to getting a bigger push (as he soon did in 2022). Jake Hager is another one who can be in this feud because I think it is safe to say that Hager is 40 years old and isn't going to suddenly catch fire. But Guevara on the other hand, was a guy who was trying to establish his own reign of the workhorse title and wasn't given room to establish what his reign meant.

And I wonder whether the influx of Punk, Danielson and Cole into a AEW roster, made the TNT title feel like less of an attraction, or if it was the fact that Miro was so much more compelling a champion or if it's a mixture of both. As then in December, looming over the horizon was this guy:

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Look. we talked about a little about where Cody was losing the audience a couple of articles ago, and it did seem...odd to then during the Holiday episode of Rampage (where, y'know the good guys usually win) to give the belt back to Cody to the showers of boos of a very unhappy crowd.

I have wondered about this decision and can think of a few reasons why TK may have made the call:

1) Cody hadn't made the call to jump ship to WWE and this was a last minute olive branch

2) Tony misjudged the anti-Cody mood and thought this would be a great moment

3) Post-Elite/Page, Tony thought they were a little light-on vis-a-vis the feud front and decided to try and create one.

4) Try and create some sympathy for Guevara by giving him a 'boss' to surmount.

The trouble is that, while Guevara and Cody did have an awesome rematch, it didn't feel like a big feud. And indeed this is a major issue with many AEW title feuds- that because they want to make such a sports-based promotion the viewer is simply supposed to assume that both workers really want the title. And that's fine for Miro or Orange Cassidy's week-to-week title programs, but when you need to show why this you need the title and how this title defines you as a worker...it kinda falls flat. It would have been so easy to have Cody be a bit snarky and say that Sammy is a great future TNT Champion, but he simply isn't there yet and Sammy being determined to prove him wrong.

Still, the whole schmozzle was a speed bump that could have been overcome. But then the crowd reaction to Sammy began to shift dramatically:

Sammy Guevara is one step closer to being AEW world champion - Cageside  Seats

Now, there needs to be a sensible dialogue about this. In August of 2021, Sammy Guevara proposed before a televised episode of Dynamite to his then partner, which was subsequently televised and used for a match, but by the end of the year had announced their break-up. Soon, rumours began to swirl that Guevara and his partner broke up because of Guevara cheating with Tay Melo. who he was now with. Some wrestling fans (not necessarily the most nuanced bunch) took to social media (not necessarily the most nuanced platform) heaped abuse on the couple as if whatever they got up to in their personal life as consenting adults was any of our f*$king business.

So what happened to make this an issue is not a Sammy and Tay thing, it's a Tony Khan thing. Part of the problem I think is that despite their obviously warm relationship (the two of them are married now) is that the whole thing came off...as insincere. It seems unfair to compare them to Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch (when they teamed up for that interminable Baron Corbin feud), but WWE knew enough to not make it seem like they were shoving the whole couple thing in your freakin' (pun intended) face every week- the fans could join the dots. AEW seemed to say that they were all about the sex at the start, before trying to turn it around with cutesy 'Love Actually' style vignettes.

There is a theory that with Cody and Brandi out of the company, Tony was looking for his new 'mixed tag team' to front up to people like American Top Team's Scorpio Sky and Paige Van Zant (more on them later) and Tony therefore felt he had to create a history for them in six weeks. But it felt really inorganic at best and at worst, indulgent. And as a result it kinda became a trope about Guevara that quickly grew to become seen by the fans as being a defining trait.

Y'see, Guevara is a spectacularly naturally talented wrestler. But there is a commonly held myth amongst wrestling booking that high flyer= natural face (see RVD and Jeff Hardy). However, the reason that this worked in WWE was because RVD and Hardy were workers that stood out in a product that, let's face it, didn't really have a lot of high flyers in the early 2000s. AEW's roster, on the other hand, has (at a rough glance) Fenix, Penta, Young Bucks, Pac, Swerve, Darby, Rush, Matt Sydal, and I'm sure I'm leaving a few out. More to the point, when Darby Allin uses his body as a missile against Samoa Joe, it's because he has to in order to overcome the monster. When Sammy goes through a table on the outside against Scorpio Sky of all people after trying a massive 630 splash (while indicating that this is crazy) it feels...stupid. What made it even more stupid was that:

a) it wasn't how Scorpio Sky won- meaning it was essentially meaningless wrinkle that meant that Sky couldn't beat the dude when he had busted ribs- essentially torpedoing him as a viable TNT champion out of the gate.

b) Guevara came out the next week and essentially said that he wouldn't change a thing about the match despite the fact HE LOST IT AND THE TITLE and he badly busted up his ribs.

This second point was important so we could get to the 'sex-on-the-belt' gag. Which, admittedly was...kinda funny. But it also took the equivalent of the Intercontinental Title and showed that the former title holder would rather crack wise about it than actually show why it was important to them.

The irony was that Guevara and Sky actually had great matches. But in a promotion that was full to the brim with good matches, nobody cared about a dependable worker who couldn't get the chance to actually show what they.could do with the belt because of the whole Top Team backdrop, against another whose character seemed to be 'arrogant-prick-we're-supposed-to-cheer-because-he-does-flips',

And naturally because this was to hype Paige van Zant's debut, it couldn't even die a fast death, but had to keep going to Double or Nothing- where we essentially had two teams who were natural heels with the ONLY real natural babyface amongst them being Frankie Kazarian- who teamed with Sammy and Tay essentially trying to get heat by sabotaging their team mate (?!). And sure, this may have gotten them heat, but for a promotion that wants you as an audience to set a lot of stake by their titles, and harps on about the title bringing prestige and perks, Sammy and Tay's antics knowing full well that they couldn't challenge for the title again if they lost felt like someone puncturing a hole into the kayfabe balloon.

The damage to Guevara as a character can best be summed up with the fact that after Double or Nothing, he slotted back into Jericho's new stable- despite throwing a tantrum and walking out not 2 months before. Not because it was the logical new step for his character, not because it was an intriguing and shocking swerve, but rather simply because Tony could put him back there in the knowledge that it would work. But it also shows that out of the four pillars Sammy is the one that Tony has put in the too hard basket- the one that Tony is happy to rely on for good matches, but not to actually give the story which will hope them get to the next level. And as a result, Sammy's character has become essentially 'cocky prick that acts as #2 to Jericho', which is not only where he was 36 months ago, but has left him stunted so that when he has called Kingston fat, or has (arguably) botched spots with Ruby...the cocky prick is all that fans have to go on. In other words, Tony has allowed Guevara's heat to curdle into something that the AEW fans no longer want to see.

But what can we do about it? Let's see in Part 2...

#1 Owen Hart vs Stone Cold @ SummerSlam '97
#2 December to Dismember 2006
#3 The Fingerpoke of Doom
#4 The Scott Steiner vs HHH Feud
#5 Ryback vs Mark Henry @ WrestleMania XXIX
#6 Bret Hart vs Vince McMahon @ WrestleMania XXVI
#7 The Jerry Lawler/Michael Cole Feud
#8 The Curtain Call
#9 Bash at the Beach 2000
#10 Royal Rumble 2014
#11 Warrior/Hogan II @ Halloween Havoc
#12 The Cena/Laurinatis Feud
#13 The Firing of Ric Flair From WCW
#14 The Brogue Kick of Doom
#15 Lesnar vs Goldberg @ WrestleMania XX
#16 Immortal Revealed @ Bound for Glory 2010
#17 Sting vs Hogan @ Starrcade 1997
#18 Triple H vs Booker T @ WrestleMania 19
#19 The Corre
#20 The Undertaker vs Big Boss Man @ WrestleMania 15
#21 Jeff Hardy vs Sting @ Victory Road 2011
#22 Road Wild 1999
#23 The John Cena/Kane Feud of 2012
#24 Hulk Hogan's Mancow Interview of 1999
#25 CM Punk vs the Rock @ Elimination Chamber 2013
#26 The Reign of Bill Watts in WCW
#27 The Claire Lynch Affair Part One And Two
#28 Triple H vs Kevin Nash @ TLC 2011
#29 The Cactus Jack Amnesia Angle
#30 Hulk Hogan Leaving TNA
#31 HBK vs Hulk Hogan @ SummerSlam 2005
#32 David Arquette: WCW Champion
#33 Katie Vick
#34 nWo Souled Out 1997
#35 The Vampiro/Sting Feud of 2000
#36 Once in a Lifetime, Episode II
#37 The Angle/Jarrett Feud of 2010/11
#38 The McMahon/Lashley Feud
#39 The Shockmaster
#40 CM Punk vs Ryback @ Hell in a Cell 2012
#41 Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper @ Starrcade 1996
#42 The WWE Championship Reign of Diesel
#43 Cena vs the Wyatts
#44 The Main Roster Run of Emma
#45 The WCW Run of Bret Hart
#46 John Cena vs the Miz @ WrestleMania 27
#47 The Lone Wolf AJ Styles
#48 Alberto Del Rio vs Jack Swagger @ WrestleMania 29
#49 The Transition of Mike Awesome from ECW to WCW
#50 The Dolph Ziggler Conundrum Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
#51 The Rise and Fall of Damien Sandow/Mizdow Part One and Part Two
#52 DDP & Jay Leno vs Hollywood Hogan & Eric Bischoff @ Road Wild 1998
#53 Triple H vs Randy Orton @ WrestleMania 25
#54 Lord Tensai
#55 LOD 2000
#56 Sid Vicious vs Scott Steiner @ Starrcade 2000
#57 Bret Hart vs Yokuzuna (feat. Hulk Hogan) @ WrestleMania 9
#58 Royal Rumble 2015
#59 The Crucifixion of the Sandman
#60 Brock Lesnar's First Year Back in WWE
#61 Bo Dallas' Main Roster Run
#62 Vince Russo vs Booker T for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship
#63 Randy Orton vs the Big Show @ Survivor Series 2013
#64 AJ Styles vs Abyss @ Destination X 2010
#65 EV 2.0
#66 The Summer of Punk Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
#67 The Lex Express
#68 Goldberg's first WWE Run
#69 Paige's Main Roster Run 2014-2016
#70 Seth Rollins' First World Title Run
#71 Hulk Hogan vs Sgt Slaughter @ WrestleMania VII
#72 Sting vs Abyss in a Last Rites Match
#73 The Undertaker vs Big Show in the Punjabi Prison
#74 Ric Flair vs Hollywood Hogan @ Uncensored 1999
#75 Roman Reigns' Road to WrestleMania 32 Part One, Part Two. Part Three
#76 Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice @ WrestleMania VIII
#77 Muhammad Hassan
#78 Sheamus' World Heavyweight Title Reign
#79 The Ghastly Match
#80 Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton @ Wrestlemania 33
#81 Goldberg vs Steiner vs Nash @ New Blood Rising'
#82 The Lesnar/Angle/Big Show feud of 2002
#83 Aces and Eights
#84 Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar @ WrestleMania 32
#85 Jinder Mahal: WWE Champion Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
#86 DDP & Karl Malone vs Hollywood Hogan & Dennis Rodman.
#87 Triple H vs Sting
#88 The 1992 Run of the Ultimate Warrior
#89 Jenna Morasca vs Sharmell
#90 The Lesnar/Reigns Feud of 2018 Part One, Part Two, Part Three
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#92 The Brawl for All
#93 The 2019 Title Reigns of Seth Rollins Part One, Part Two
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#95 Fiend vs Goldberg @ Super Showdown Part One, Part Two, Part Three
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#98 The Rollins/Ambrose Feud of 2018/19 Part One and Part Two

The InVasion Saga

Article One: Shane has a surprise for Daddy
Article Two: Booker T vs Buff Bagwell and the Temple of Boos
Article Three: Daddy's little Girl Gets in on the Action
Article Four: "WHY AUSTIN DAMMIT?! WHY

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.