Are the Acclaimed done?
On Wednesday, the former AEW World Tag Team Champions fought The Hurt Syndicate's Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley and it wasn’t much of a match. Though Bowens had a brief moment in the match, it was mainly Max Caster. At that point, Bowens had enough of his arrogant tag team partner and left him hanging as Shelton and Bobby beat Max like a government mule.
Usually, that means a heel turn for Anthony Bowens, but the situation isn’t quite that simple. Caster’s been acting extremely cocky for the past couple of months. His selfish attitude has gotten to the point where Billy Gunn and Bowens are tired of the 35-year-old.
The cameras caught up with Bowens as he walked backstage, but he didn’t want to answer any questions. However, Caster had no problem tearing down Lashley and Shelton by calling them cowards. He was hyping himself up by claiming that he’s the best wrestler alive, and Bowens couldn’t deal with Max’s selfishness anymore. He explained why he walked out Caster and stated that the only reason he didn’t punch him in the mouth was because of Billy.
Are we nearly at the end of the Acclaimed? Max and Bowens originally came in as singles stars, but they brought themselves together and formed The Acclaimed. The duo quickly became a hot act that the fans enjoyed and the two won the AEW World Tag Team titles at Grand Slam in 2022. Max, Billy, and Bowens would come back the following year to win the AEW Six-Man Tag Team titles.
Anthony Bowens did cite that he has singles aspirations in the future:
“I mean, that sounds nice, but I like to take things one step at a time.” Anthony Bowens said on The Mark Hoke Show Pro Wrestling Radio Show, “I think Max and I have some unfinished business in the tag team division. We are still proving that we are the best tag team alive. I mean, we do have the most wins as a team in the history of the company. Former AEW Tag Team Champions, former AEW Trios Champions. We’d love to win the tag team gold a second time, but we do also have singles aspirations.
I would love to be a grand slam champion, win all those singles belts. We’ve won all the tag team gold that’s available at All Elite Wrestling, so why not win the TNT Championship? Why not go all the way to the top and become professional wrestling’s first gay world champion? So all those things are on my list. I like to take it one step at a time, not get too far ahead of myself, but I do have goals, I have big aspirations, and I plan to achieve all of them when the time comes.”
Maybe that time is now. We’ll see in the following weeks whether The Acclaimed will patch things up and officially break apart.