With its newest PPV set for Montreal, pro wrestling history buff Tony Khan decided to honor Quebec’s legendary Rougeau Family.
The scene on The Buy In before Redemption this past Sunday night played out like most wrestling tributes. Jacques and Raymond Rougeau, aka The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, said a few things about their careers. Raymond was cheered, while Jacques — who later played The Mountie in WWE — got a more mixed reaction.
It was similar to what went on backstage before the tribute apparently,
too. That’s per Dave Meltzer in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, in an item he specified was confirmed:
The reason the ceremony didn’t even have a video is because Jacques told AEW he’d take care of that. He gave them the video to play. Unfortunately, the video was too long, had footage that AEW didn’t have rights to, music that AEW didn’t have rights to and some AI stuff in it that AEW didn’t want to use. There was no way it could be used and now it’s the day of the show with no time to do anything, so there was no video.
Multiple sources said Jacques was throwing a tantrum backstage over that. He was told by one AEW official to calm down or they’d have to kick him out.
Sounds like Rougeau didn’t get his video to AEW until he arrived at Bell Centre on show day. Meltzer later got into the reaction Jacque got from the crowd as well, writing:
He’s done so many retirement matches that local media doesn’t trust him. Many area independent wrestlers want nothing to do with shows he’s involved with.
And at least according to one person familiar with the French-Canadian scene, it was all par for the course with Jacque. Retired independent wrestler LuFisto reposted aggregation of the above and added:
Jacques being hated and booed this past week in Montreal has NOTHING TO DO with his gimmick. He doesn’t have “haters”. He was a terrible person with so many.
Jacques Rougeau is reaping what he has sown.
On the other hand, Raymond is a class act, a gentleman and a wonderful guy.
Others are pointing to Jacques’ Facebook page for evidence of his love of AI-generated graphics:
And when Cultaholic spoke to people Jacques and Raymond’s people, they disputed the tantrum and almost getting thrown out parts. Not the AI, though.
Those close to the Rougeau Brothers have claimed to Cultaholic that there was no tantrum from Jacques, nor was he given any eviction warning.
AEW are said to have asked the brothers for a video package as they own footage from Lutte Internationale, but AEW rejected what was created due to having a strict “No AI” policy, while the video could also not be cleared in time by AEW’s legal team.
Those close to the brothers acknowledged that Jacques wasn’t very happy that the video couldn’t be cleared in time, but he understood, and the segment went according to plan outside of him shooting when the fans in Montreal booed him. RJ City was said to have helped put the segment together.
Let us know what you make of all that in the comments, Cagesiders.
