Everlong wrote:Sounds like a company that has a lot of heart, something that is COMPLETELY absent from WWE.
This, to me, is essentially the main reason why AEW is so hot and why WWE hasn't been able to generate buzz in a long time. One company is run by a guy who comes across as a genuine fan of pro wrestling and is actually committed to delivering a good product to his audience, and the other company is run by a guy whose entire booking strategy is based on appeasing
himself and his rich Saudi Arabian friends.
This is the guy running AEWThis is the guy running WWEThere's been several instances of something not working in AEW, be it an angle, gimmick, or storyline, and instead of continuing to force it down the fan's throats, they tweak something and make it work, or just drop it. The biggest example of this is from a few months ago when AEW had their worst segment ever: the end of the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch when "explosions" were supposed to go off around the ring. The pyro failed to go off. So on the very next episode of Dynamite there was like 3 different segments explaining why the pyro didn't go off. They worked it into the storyline and moved on.
Fans are rewarded for following the show and getting invested in characters. There's actual long-term storylines. A LOT of wrestles are being booked well and pushed
simultaneously, and as a result there are A LOT of people on the AEW roster that are REALLLY FUCKING OVER. They have main eventers like Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Punk, Danielson, Christian, Jericho, Adam Page, Adam Cole, etc, all legit contenders that can seamlessly jump into the title picture. Then there's a whole slew of upper midcarders that can move up to the top at any time. The wrestling is great, the crowds are electric, and there is always something worth talking about coming out of every show. And the legends like Sting, Big Show, Arn Anderson are actually there to elevate the rest of the roster. On a show like that, people are going to be way more forgiving of stuff they don't like.
AEW has established itself as a babyface company. WWE is a heel company and they don't seem to give a damn about presenting themselves as one.
There's been so, so many instances of WWE doing something cool and then dropping the ball, or just not capitalizing on it at all. Kofi Kingston had a great push to winning the WWE title at Wrestlemania, only to end up losing the belt to Brock Lesnar in 8 seconds, just to set up a match between Brock and Cain Valasquez in Saudi Arabia, after which we never saw Cain again and Kofi was literally back to eating pancakes the next week like nothing happened. Bray Wyatt managed to reinvent himself again and win the world title by no-selling like 10 finishing moves, only to lose to 1 botched Jackhammer by Goldberg in Saudi Arabia... just to set up Reigns vs Goldberg for the belt. AJ Styles gets buried alive by The Undertaker and comes back a few months later with no explanation. Finn Balor is about to beat Roman Reigns, but the top rope suddenly breaks, and no explanation is even
attempted as to how that can happen to a dude who weighs less than 200 pounds!
It makes it so hard to be invested in the product when you know that there's barely going to be any follow-up to anything cool, and the only long term planning (if there is any), revolves around the Saudi shows. Other wrestlers may have some amount of success, just pray to God they don't have to face Reigns or a part-timer. Or seeing someone become a big star in NXT only to get their gimmick changed and then absolutely buried when they graduate to the main roster. And if Vince McMahon doesn't "get" your character, you're screwed. Zack Ryder, Rusev, Shinsuke Nakamura, Asuka, Kieth Lee, Bobby Roode getting over with fans and then having their momentum killed by booking.
These have been WWE's constant problems forever. You would think that NOW would be the time when they step it up. But it doesn't feel like there's motivation internally in the company to do that. Even though crowds are back now. Even though AEW has gained so much momentum and just had one of the best wrestling PPVs in years. Even though the top NXT guy (Adam Cole) just jumped ship to AEW, the guy who main evented Wrestlemania 5 months ago (Bryan) signed with AEW too, and the guy who main evented Summerslam last year (Bray Wyatt) is rumored to be coming as well.
Nothing seems to happen on Raw anymore. Even looking up clips of it on Youtube feels like wasted time. There was recently a WWE "draft" that was not even remotely attempted to be exciting television. How hard is it to do a decent draft show? And if legends come in, it's only for a cheap nostalgia rating pop before they fuck off right back to obscurity. Which is a shame when you consider just how many legends they have at their disposal and how they could be used to enhance the current product instead of just showing up to remind everyone that once upon a time this show didn't suck.
Smackdown is decent (it better be since it's their A show now), and Tribal Chief Roman is an incredible character and my favorite in all of wrestling. But his stuff takes up so much of the show that you can't help but think of how many guys aren't being utilized as a result, especially after seeing how AEW manages to juggle their massive roster every week. Only one or two guys gets to be WWE's "top guy", at the expense of almost everyone else. WWE should have at least 5 Roman Reignses by now, at least 5 John Cenas. For some bizarre reason they haven't wanted to push more than handful of people at a time since the Attitude Era, despite how every other wrestling company that has ever existed seems perfectly capable of booking everybody on the roster to actually feel relevant even if they're not currently involved in a storyline or title feud.
The show is better when Brock and Edge are around, but you don't have much to look forward to when they leave (and you KNOW they will) because most of the other characters haven't been doing much in the meantime. WWE have trained their audience that the exciting stuff happens around the big 4 PPVs and Saudi Shows, and to expect lulls during the rest of the year. They don't seem interested in motivating their audience to even watch the TV shows, almost by design. Their booking is about creating "moments", not the week-to-week stuff. And that's why I only I go out of my way to watch some of the PPVs. They show video recaps of the feuds anyway, and so I feel like I miss absolutely nothing by not watching Raw or Smackdown.
With AEW it's the opposite. Their big moments may not feel as grand as WWE's, but you HAVE to watch the weekly shows to properly follow the product. Even if I watch all the videos on AEW's Youtube channel and read about it on Reddit, I still feel like I missed a bunch of cool stuff that happened on the show. It also helps that AEW only has a couple PPVs a year, so they are able to book a lot more big matches and moments for Dynamite. That also enables them to avoid excessive rematches, which happens to be another one of WWE's huge problems: Rematches. Lots and lots of rematches.
Jeez, this is getting to be a long post. It wasn't really meant to come off as a rant. Well... it's not like anybody's reading this anyway. But I just wanted to highlight what I see as the differences in presentation between the two companies and recap WWE's most head-scratching moments from the past two years. So I'll just end it with this:
10 years ago CM Punk said that WWE would only get better once Vince McMahon was dead. He's still right. But I think it's fair to say that we're much more optimistic about the company getting taken over by Vince's "doofus son-in-law" than we were back then...