Former AEW Tag Team Champions The Acclaimed are no longer.
The homegrown team officially split on AEW Collision this week after weeks of tension building between them. They’ve continuously lost title shot after title shot and Max Caster finally walked out on Anthony Bowens. The split has been a long time coming and something AEW fans have been clamoring for. Now that they’ve officially split, there are ample opportunities to reinvent their characters.
For one, Caster’s rapping shtick has gone sour with the fans given a lot of his controversial lines that have landed AEW in hot water more than once. If he can find who he is outside of that, he’ll be better off. As for Bowens, joining The Hurt Syndicate feels like a great next step for him. Fans have wanted him to go solo for quite some time. Under the guidance of three wrestling legends, he will soar.
reaction to The Acclaimed’s Split
The former tag team addressed their split in two separate AEW digital exclusives that aired following AEW Collision.
“Anthony Bowens is my best friend for life, and I know he’s hard-headed. Ever since he started listening to Billy Gunn, he’s been a real stubborn guy. I have been, too,” Caster reflects. “Billy is a bad influence, has been since the 90s. But I just told it like it was, and as the captain and the leader of The Acclaimed, sometimes the captain’s gotta go down with the ship. I was going down with the ship.
Even though I said I want to stop rapping, they said, ‘No, it’s all we got.’ I said, ‘Let’s stop scissoring.’ They said, ‘No, everyone loves it.’ I said, okay, let’s keep doing it. But I want to grow, but they never let me grow. So I went a little off the deep end, and I just had to find that life raft off that sinking ship, and that life raft was me. I found myself, my self-worth, my self-confidence. I love myself, and I think that’s a good thing to say. But Anthony Bowens, Billy Gunn, they’re not at that point in their lives yet. So hopefully one day, they are, and it’s just not today.”
In a separate video, Bowens added, “Five years, Billy. Five years as a team. We went from nothing to Wembley Stadium, the highest scissor party on earth, and he threw that all away. This is honestly gonna be a lot to process. But out with the old, in with the new because I got a badass in my corner, and I cannot wait to get started because you haven’t seen anything yet.”
The Acclaimed started their AEW careers on the defunct AEW Dark, quickly building a name for themselves in front of the fans. When they eventually started appearing on AEW Dynamite their charisma on the mic and in the ring got the fans behind them and earned them several shots at the AEW Tag Team Championships. They won them back in 2022 from Swerve In Our Glory at AEW Grand Slam. During their run, they also became AEW Trios Champions.
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