>>15266565I hate him because he built this company around a bunch of false promises. He originally claimed he wanted to be the silent money man who would sit back and let people who knew the business better than he did do the booking. He said he didn't plan to do on-screen appearances.
Dude just couldn't help himself.
To be honest, I think the start of AEW is this: he probably met Chris Jericho sometime prior to 2018, maybe in a bar or something. They got to talking, heard about some big stuff happening in Japan, and sent Jericho out to scout it out. Jericho got in with the Elite, got into their ears and poached them under the guise of starting a new promotion. After All-In 2018, they probably thought they had some real winners on their hands who could run a full-fledged promotion for them.
It was easy at first. The Elite hired a bunch of indy shitters, no one Tony really had to get his hands on to play with. After Dynamite launched, however, Tony found himself more and more aggressively seething in the corner, spazzing out about the fact that there were toys and he couldn't play with them.
Finally, his rage exploded so he found the first pretense he could to take back control. He just couldn't stand watching his hirelings play with his precious toys, it was too much. So he took back the book, put Cody in the Codyverse, and made it his life's mission to buy newer and better toys.
That's how AEW has come to be what it is today.
