The Acclaimed are one of the hottest acts in AEW and it’s all down to… scissoring.
The team, which is comprised of Anthony Bowens, Max Caster, and ‘Daddy Ass’ Billy Gunn, saw their popularity skyrocket when they introduced their scissor handshake leading to foam hands, and crowds chanting ‘Scissor me Daddy Ass’.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Bowens revealed that he wasn’t sure scissoring would fly on AEW television, let alone become the team’s trademark.
Related: AEW’s Anthony Bowens recalls scary first meeting with Billy Gunn
“It first started when we were on Dark during the pandemic,” Bowens said.
“We had our Acclaimed hand symbol and Caster came up from behind and did a little scissor thing and you can see me on camera give him one of those looks like, ‘Oh we’re gonna get fired’.
“We did it again and they kindly asked us maybe to not do that. Then we were just feeling rebellious at some point when Max came back from [his suspension] and we started tagging again we were just like, ‘We’ve got to stand out from the pack’.
“‘We’ve got to do stuff that’s different,’ and we went back to doing it and I started coming up with little elements to add to it.
“Then I was laying down on the ground at one point [during a match] and I looked up and I saw the first rows going, ‘Scissor me Bowens!’
“‘I was like, ‘Huh? I think we’re onto something,'” he added. “So we both started really leaning into doing it.”
At the time, Bowens and Caster had started working with Billy Gunn, who was known in WWE as ‘Mr Ass,’ and who had left his own sons, The Gunn Club, to join them.
Then, once Bowens began referring to Gunn as ‘Daddy Ass,’ things really took off for the team.
“Adding the final piece of the puzzle, which was Billy Gunn with the ‘Scissor me Daddy Ass,’ made it all just explode,” Bowens said.
Related: AEW’s Tony Khan explains decision to move All Out show
But, despite their popularity, the team still had to convince everyone to embrace the power of scissoring.
“Getting the ‘Scissor me Daddy Ass,’ T-shirt, I had to really really push for that every week,” Bowens continued.
“It wasn’t so much AEW it’s the fact that this thing has to go all the way up the ladder to the parent company. So we have to convince these teams of network executives that it’s a really good idea to put a ‘Scissor me Daddy Ass,’ T-shirt out.”
Now The Acclaimed are so popular that Bowens can’t go anywhere without being asked to scissor.
“‘It brings a smile to people’s faces,” Bowens said. ” It’s something I do with people literally everywhere.
“I get stopped at airports, in public, anywhere I go there’s usually one person that will sneak up and be like, ‘I don’t want to bother you but can we just scissor real quick?’ It’s really fun.”
Catch AEW Dynamite live every Thursday at 1am in the UK, Rampage every Saturday at 3am, and Collision every Sunday at 1am on TrillerTV with an AEW Plus subscription. US customers can also watch Dynamite on TBS and Rampage and Collision on TNT, and in the UK, AEW repeats air on ITV4.
Reporter, Digital SpyÂ
Stephanie is a writer who specialises in pro wrestling, covering everything from AEW and WWE to NJPW.Â
After graduating with a degree in history from Queen Mary University, London, she went on to study journalism at Birbeck University.Â
Outside of her journalism work Stephanie is also a YouTube content creator focusing on AEW and interviewing talent from AEW, WWE, and across the indie wrestling scene. She has also worked for Revolution Pro Wrestling as a backstage interviewer and commentator.