Hi Scott,
I'm sure this was no doubt discussed before, but I keep thinking what if Vince is somehow helping AEW?
I don't think he owns it, but to me, it's interesting at least that Vince agreed to move NXT to a different day, allowed the “Cody Rhodes” trademark to expire, released so much good talent pretty much at the same time and regarding Punk, I find it interesting he's able to use Cult of Personality and that his t-shirt has pretty much the same design as his t-shirt in WWE did back in 2011.
Somehow I think WWE would license stuff like someone's entrance music. It doesn't matter it's by an actual rock band, so was Undertaker's (Limp Bizkit), Rey's (P.O.D.), Mark Henry's (Three 6 Mafia), Edge's (Alter Bridge), Batista's (Saliva). I mean that's basic legal due diligence – we want this song from this band as an entrance music for this guy we're about to push to the top and we're going to have it on our DVDs and blu-rays and whatever? License that shit exclusive to us for such use. Same with the t-shirt designs and logos – that must be standard practice in a company like WWE. Remember WWE didn't renew or cancelled the trademark “Cody Rhodes”, which probably again wasn't completely accidental.
About NXT – if Vince truly wanted, he could've kept hurting Dynamite further by adding a few bigger names to NXT's roster or putting some other program against Dynamite – he easily could've done that. Maybe he wouldn't win, but he would definitely slow down or impact AEW's growth.
So if I wanted to be a conspiracy theorist, there's a decent amount of lucky coincidences where WWE either did something wrong, or let something go that just happened to help AEW. So it's perhaps not out of the realm of possibility Vince might be somewhat helping AEW, because he either: a) doesn't care anymore, or b) wants his successors to face some proper adversity once or before he retires so they grow as leaders, or c) he's simply interested what happens next and it's a game to him at this point.
Maybe he isn't actively helping AEW, but he turned the other way regarding a few things when he saw AEW was struggling to get to the level they wanted to get to. Maybe on some level he understands that AEW doing better at least for now is a good thing overall. And now he's waiting what they do with the momentum he kinda sorta a little bit allowed them to gain.
Maybe Vince knows Shahid Khan and the old man gave Vince a call and told him to stop being a p***y and give junior a fighting chance.
Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, IDK, but it doesn't seem impossible to me. What do you think?
If you think Vince would have ANY leverage with music licensing whatsoever, I've got a bridge to sell you. He would get laughed out of the office for suggesting that someone else can't give the record company money to use Cult of Personality.
And yes, you're giving him way too much credit.