Being the Elite recap for May 20, 2019: Upfront

A weekly recap of the hit YouTube series Being the Elite, featuring the stars of AEW like the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Cody and others.

Being the Elite opens up this week with the Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, at their home talking about how they have invited Brandon Cutler over today to sign an official contract with AEW. He thinks he’s coming over to record voiceover lines for the Casino Battle Royale and show them their new wrestling gear that his wife created for them, but that’s just a cover to surprise him with this life-changing information.

They talk about how Cutler took seven years off from the wrestling business, but he’s been back at it for the past year and a half. He’s never asked for any favors or handouts and the Bucks feels if anyone deserves a break it’s him.

When Cutler arrives, they sit him down with a paper and ask him to go over his lines one by one. He eventually gets to the line that reads that Matt and Nick are about to offer him an AEW contract, and he breaks down in an emotional display.

The Bucks tell him that he deserves it and Matt gives him a big hug. Cutler calls his wife to tell her the good news and that he’s starting with the company immediately, and you can tell that she’s overcome with emotion over the phone as well. It was an amazing, heartwarming moment to start the show this week.

Anyone who has followed Cutler’s story the last few months between Being the Elite and Road to Double or Nothing has developed an attachment to his story and to see this play out before our eyes was truly special.

After the 8-bit opening, the Young Bucks are talking to Jungle Boy about him being part of the Casino Battle Royale. His gimmick is he doesn’t talk so he has to make great use of his facial expressions. They make him take a card. Matt kneels down and it’s revealed that Jungle Boy is sitting on Luchasaurus’s shoulders. Matt asks him if he wants to be in the Casino Battle Royale, too.

Nick tries to stop him and tells him that everyone for the match has already been decided but Matt says they can cut Michael Elgin or something, which we guess means Elgin was probably going to be in the match before he signed with IMPACT Wrestling. Luchasaurus takes the card as they walk away. Jungle Boy looks down at his card and Luchasaurus tells him no peeking.

Jungle Boy seems shocked that Luchasaurus can talk and finally speaks himself, to ask him about it. Luchasaurus replied that “of course,” he can talk, he has a bachelors degree and asked Jungle Boy what’s his excuse for not talking. Jungle Boy just shrugs to end the segment. It was pretty entertaining.

In Santiago, Chile Christopher Daniels is wanting to cut a “Worst Town” bit in Chile but claims he can’t speak proper Spanish, yet he proceeds to have a perfect one-way conversation with his friend in Spanish. It’s vintage Daniels. He says he needs to stop taking singles bookings.

They then cut to a backstage area at a random wrestling event and Fuego Del Sol and Ray Zombie are talking about Sammy Guevara. Del Sol doesn’t know how he feels about him because of what he’s said about him on his Vlog, but before he can continue Guevara shows up and greets them. Del Sol asks him if he saw his match and Guevara says he didn’t see the match but he heard it and “it sounded like it was a banger.” This frustrates Del Sol, who tells Guevara that maybe everything people say about him is true. Guevara apologizes for how he’s acted in the past and says he has a lot going on now, with AEW and all, and Del Sol accepts his apology and concludes that maybe he’s not so bad after all.

Afterward, we go to MJF in a car in front of a gym that Dustin Rhodes is going to. He refers to Rhodes as “Old Yeller” and says that Cody has too big of a heart and that he won’t be able to put him down so he’s gonna do his best friend a solid. He says Rhodes “is going to die tonight.” He gets out of the car with a replica sword from the Legend of Zelda and tries to attack Rhodes.

Rhodes catches him and recognizes him as MJF, but MJF is quick to retort that he has no idea who that is and that he must have him confused with someone else. Rhodes tells him the Zelda Competition is down the street and “to be careful with the sword.” Rhodes insists he looks like MJF but MJF insists he doesn’t know who that is as he runs away. This is one of those segments you need to watch to truly appreciate; it was very well done.

They go to another edition of the Being the Elite Mailbag. They ask a few questions to the members of the cast including how many titles the company was going to have but really didn’t get a straight answer. Nick said they will only have a few and want the championships to be important and have it mean something when a title changes hands. The only noteworthy piece of news to come out of the Mailbag segment this week was Cody confirming that they will be doing an AEW event in the United Kingdom.

Afterward, we go to the Bucks at the airport announcing they are heading to New York City for the Turner Media Upfronts to officially announce that All Elite Wrestling will be on TNT. They said they have been sitting on this information for a very long time and are very excited that the world will know this information soon.

Later, the Bucks and Kenny Omega are sitting in a car in New York now talking about how they are minutes away from making the announcement that they will be going on TNT in primetime later this year. They joke about the people who called them just a “T-Shirt Company” and we’re sure they all feel very validated that they have proved all the doubters wrong.

They meet up with Cody as the announcement breaks. TNT releases the now extremely-popular tweet to announce that they’re back in the wrestling business, which was a callback to Ted Turner calling Vince McMahon in the 1990s to tell him that he was getting into the wrestling business well before the Monday Night Wars began. Is this a sign of things to come down the line? Only time will tell.

There’s a montage of the event featuring several members of the AEW roster, including the Young Bucks, Cody, Hangman Page, Britt Baker and others. There isn’t much to it, but it’s an exciting experience to see all of this happening. A few years ago, something like this seemed like an impossibility and now we are only mere months away from professional wrestling returning to TNT. It’s surreal. What a great time be a wrestling fan.

The show ends with Page checking his mail. He gets a videotape marked to “Hangy” and puts it in his desk and the video plays on his computer screen, a call back to earlier episodes of all the weird ways Page is able to watch the footage he is sent. It’s from Cody, and he admits to him that everything that has been done to him has been him and the Bucks — from the cameras in his home to “Michael’s Secret Stuff.”

If we were to venture a guess, we believe all of this stuff would have most likely been revealed to him at Double or Nothing on Saturday, but since the match with PAC isn’t happening, it made sense for him to be told now. Cody tells Page that he is “full gear ready” and that he’s had the “secret stuff” all along. He tells Page that he did the work and unzips his jacket, showing Page that he is wearing his “Hangman” t-shirt. He tells him to essentially go get PAC.

Hangman rips off his clothes, revealing that he’s wearing his wrestling gear underneath, and proclaims he is full gear ready. We’re then taken to a montage of Hangman leaving his house and traveling to Wrestle Gate Pro in Nottingham, England to challenge PAC.

It ends with the two of them in the ring ready to face off and it is announced that we will be able to see the match in its entirety on Tuesday at noon on the AEW YouTube page. So while we aren’t getting this match on Saturday, we will be getting it for free this week instead. A fair trade-off we suppose but now the question is, who will Page be facing on Saturday night?

That’s it for this week’s edition of Being the Elite. This was the final episode before Double or Nothing takes place, and we think the episode delivered big-time. The BTE Channel also released bonus content with SCU returning to spoof another Rocky movie. This time it’s Rocky IV; you might recall they spoofed Rocky III prior to All In. It’s absolutely hilarious and we highly recommend you check that out as well.

Are you excited about AEW’s first show this Saturday? How are you feeling about the Hangman and PAC situation? Sound off in the comments section below!