Anthony Bowens On The Formation Of The Acclaimed, Max Caster’s Raps

AEW star Anthony Bowens joined Busted Open Radio to talk about his run with Max Caster as the tag team The Acclaimed. Bowens confirmed the story that Tony Khan signed himself and Caster after having the idea for a tag team called The Acclaimed for some time. Bowens recalled how excited Khan was to team him and Caster up, and he talked about how well he and Caster play off each other.

"I think Tony putting Caster and I together was a godsend," Bowens said. "I think we bring out the best in each other, we feed off each other's energy and our dynamic. It's kind of similar to my YouTube channel where my boyfriend is the crazy, wacky one and I'm kind of almost the straight man of the comedy group. I feel its a similar dynamic where we just go out there and we feed off the crowd when we had the opportunity to last week or two weeks ago at Double or Nothing. And we go out there, we are ourselves every single time we're on camera. And I think people are starting to see that now, and I think people are starting to connect with it."

Before The Acclaimed was formed, Bowens almost joined AEW as part of another tag team. He revealed to Busted Open that he was scheduled to be part of the Search for Spears contest to potentially team with Shawn Spears back in March of 2020. The pandemic ultimately nixed that story, though Bowens believes it ultimately worked out.

"Usually I tend to stay very positive about things," Bowens said. "But there was a moment sometime last year in 2020, actually it was right before COVID hit. From what I understand, I was supposed to be part of the Blood & Guts show in Newark last year. I did the promo for the Search for Spears contest and I ended up being top three. So I'm  like 'this is finally going to be my chance to at least do something to show the world I belong on a national platform.' I found out that I got booked for the show, and then thirty minutes later all the shows got canceled.

"I understand there were a lot more important things going on in the world, and people were suffering. I knew that I couldn't let it get to me, I had to just keep chugging. And obviously it paid off because by the end of the year Max and I were main eventing Dynamite for the title. So it's pretty nuts."

Bowens was later asked if he gave Caster any input when it came to Caster's popular pre-match raps. While Bowens stated that he does give Caster suggestions, ultimately what you see is mostly the brainchild of his partner.

"Max is the music guy," Bowens said. "I can't take credit for anything. At most what I'll do is he'll be like 'hey, what cam I hit on today?' And I'll think 'you can do this, this and this. Go take it as you please and see what you can come up with.' At most I'll give him like bullet points of stuff that maybe he can hit. And he's so creative that he finds these funny bars that he comes up with, and the next thing you know people are rolling around on the ground laughing. Or in shock.

"He (Tony Khan) pretty much lets us go out and be creative. And that's the, I guess, the most rewarding part of this journey through our ascension. Obviously AEW puts us in a position to succeed, but it's very much a sink or swim environment. But we have, I think, the best lifeguards to make sure we don't drown. And the fact that we're connecting with people just by doing stuff that we thought of or we thought would be funny or 'hey let's try this tonight.' They allow us to go out and do it. It's pretty rewarding, especially when you're getting the result that you want."

To date The Acclaimed's most high profile match was an AEW World Tag Team Championship match against The Young Bucks back in December. With The Acclaimed once again ranked in the top two in AEW's Tag Team rankings, Bowens is excited for a rematch with the Bucks. Separate from that he also said there's even more stuff to come in terms of The Acclaimed going forward.

"We're excited for round two," Bowens said. "And I think the most excited part about The Acclaimed is you haven't seen anything yet. People like to think we're characters or that we're a gimmick and such and we're not. Max is a professional wrestler who also happens to be a very good rapper. If he wasn't wrestling he'd be rapping, that's his life's work. For me, I am a critically acclaimed sports entertainer/pro wrestler.

"You actually haven't even seen a lot of my, I use the word character development loosely because obviously it's been pretty rap heavy. But once we get more TV time, we've got Rampage coming up in August, the more opportunities that we have to talk you'll kind of see a more complete, well rounded Acclaimed. Even more complete than we are now. There's so much more room for growth, so many ideas that we've had that haven't had the chance to hit yet. So there's a lot more fun stuff to come and I'm excited."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription