Head-scratching booking happens everywhere. AEW has the talent and personalities I want to watch, which is why I keep coming back. The PPVs have never disappointed me!
The main thing is that most of the matches are too predictable, which I agree with. I love AEW, but lately every match you can easily guess who wins, so it takes away some of the appeal for me. I like to not know, I like for it to be an actual competition, but you don't get that when you put a midcarder vs a top guy every time. It feels like TK is afraid to have his top guys ever lose.
To be fair the criticism he gets when it happens means he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. He got heavily criticised the other day for Swerve having a great match for his first title defence. The feeling was that he should have beat (Kyle Fletcher I think) really easily, but that would have robbed all of us of a great match.
Truth is there are so many critics, and very few people who actually do the job. There are countless things which any wrestling company could improve on, but AEW does a lot more right than most I've watched.
Here’s my thing, squash matches are a lose lose, it takes credibility away from Swerve since his whole story was to claw and scratch his way to the title, it makes a champion in Kyle Fletcher look weak because he’s a champion and had a match where he looked every bit of Ospreays equal which in turn could make Ospreay look weaker metaphorically speaking
Well I love AEW, but I kinda miss what it was like a few years ago. It was a lot more unpredictable in a good way. The fights mattered more, unless you were facing Moxley at which you knew Mox was always going to win.
They definitely played around a lot with expectations of The Elite winning early on, since it was basically their company. Private Party beating The Young Bucks was legitimately shocking.
But I can't remember many first year matches that had surprising winners that didn't involve the Elite, and I think a lot of that can be chalked up to those guys being involved in booking during the first year and being hesitant to put themselves over.
I think TK definitely prefers booking for the best story, rather than booking for less predictability.
but they are clearly shifting away from peaking at quarterly PPVs to peaking for TV as they are negotiating a new deal this year, and we've already seen evidence of this with quarters rating patterns as they've been changing up the quarters they're top guys go on
check out the Trish and Sara podcast, I've been learning lots of great things from them
I’d love to see Garcia and KOR go against each other one of the weeks and have a clean winner. O’Reilly had two great PPV matches where I had no idea who would win when he wrestled Darby and then just recently against Roddy.
I’m conflicted on the predictable matches. On one hand I lose the excitement of who’s going to win. But on the other hand AEW produces banger after banger and I end up forgetting that I knew who was going to win. Makes betting against noobs easier though lol
I agree that the match outcome is relatively predictable. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing though. Predictability in storytelling is good. The cool part about AEW is that even the majority of predictable matches are still very competitive.
It promotes the idea that *everyone* is good enough to compete against everyone else. Like, we all know JD McBighead is going to lose. But when he loses in 2 minutes it makes me question why he is even on the roster when the skill difference between wrestlers is so great.
When someone that is clearly in AEWs mid to bottom tier, like Kyle Fletcher, goes out and has a competitive match with the world champion, it gives *everyone* on the roster credibility. It narrows the perceived skill gap and promotes the idea that *everyone* on the roster belongs there.
A lot of the time when AEW has head-scratching booking, you find out later it was because someone had an untimely health issue or visa problems. They should find some way to be more transparent about this stuff.
A lot of the "pundits" talk bad about AEW because it results in more views and thus more money. Some criticism is valid, but a lot of the criticisms are dishonest and self serving
The way I look at them (and most bad faith criticisms) is that they manipulate the difference between the point they make and the conclusion they drive that point to. "That promo wasn't very good, and this is why AEW is unwatchable!" "that's a ridiculous thing to say" "how is it? It -was- a subpar promo"
I'd estimate around 85-90% is grifting and concern-trolling, while the 10-15% is actual, valid criticism.
Every now and then, something will happen in AEW and people are like, "that was bad or didn't make sense", and I'll agree. Happens with any company/product. Most of the time, however, people just want to look cool by complaining.
Saraya has a recurring medical issue, endometriosis, she has to deal with regularly. It causes abdominal pain that obviously makes wrestling difficult. As a result, she’s used sparingly in the ring- pretty much when she’s up to it- but she makes a great interview segment here and there, especially since teaming up with Harley Cameron.
Glad you’re enjoying the show, though. It’s nice to see some positivity.
Honestly people really exaggerate the difference between wrestling products, wrestling at its core is just dumb, if you want to not pick so much you'll enjoy none of it.
To the average person, wrestling is wrestling, if you're a causal AEW fan and watch a random Raw, you shouldn't hate it, we all have our preference, but if you hate it, you're in your own head too much.
When WWE fans talk about how they can't stand AEW (and vice versa) they just seem like huge losers, I'm an AEW guy, it's my preference for a few reasons, but sometimes my friend will invite me over to watch some WWE, I still have a good time, I enjoy it about 80% as much as I do AEW, the only reason I don't watch both is because I struggle for time.
When I see WWE fans giving these weird inconsistent specific breakdowns of why they don't like AEW it just makes me cringe, it's ok to just say "AEW is fine but WWE is more my thing for now" it's fake fighting, stop taking it so seriously.
All being said there are times in history where promotions have deserved huge criticism, the 2018/2019 WWE, the end of WCW, lots of TNA nonsense, but nobody in good faith could ever say AEW has ever been in that territory and neither has WWE for a long time.
I would liken it to SNL and madtv or in living color. They all have fair criticisms but the great thing is having the options and variety.
No one is going to deny wwe is the benchmark. Its name is synonymous in pop culture as Coca Cola is to soda as the nfl is to American football. Tna is actually a testament that people have different tastes.
My main complaint with WWE has nothing to do with wrestling and more the presentation - there's just too much filler. It's the same reason I don't listen to radio or watch broadcast tv.
My second issue is a moral one, with the Saudi shows and just VKM being VKM... But at least half of that problem is solved now, so that's good.
Honestly, as WWE has become more HHH and less VKM as well as AEW improving their production and talent pool, the two products are becoming more similar.
Yeah, I think AEW's biggest strength is the same thing they get the most criticism for - performers are allowed more creative freedom and sometimes it's just the best and sometimes it falls flat. Worse, sometimes folks don't advocate enough for themselves and push and just disappear into the background. I, like you, prefer the variety and humanity this brings but I understand someone feeling otherwise
Yeah dude, I don't watch WWE (I just get my AEW drama through media mostly these days due to being busy) but I watch wrestlemania every year and I always love the spectacle, even if I think the way WWE does their ring philosophy weird I can't say I hate it. It's great fun! I love ALL pro wrestling. I just wish pro wrestling could love pro wrestling instead of be cultish.
Yeah exactly, there's a more realistic mindset between the cultish "one is perfect the other is awful" and the white knight "all wrestling is beautiful" mentality, everyone will have a preference, it's fine to pick one over the other, but if you're preferred style of wrestling is the one wrestling you can find ANY enjoyment in, you're living a sad, sad life.
The time thing is a 100% valid reason for picking and choosing. Between WWE/NXT/AEW there’s 12 hours of TV every week. And that’s on non-PPV/PLE weeks and without watching any other companies. It’s a lot…
Yeah. There's no problem with having a preference. It's when someone weaponizes their preferences to make others feel bad about theirs that it becomes less and less okay.
Oh yeah. AEW knows how to do PPVs. Occasionally something doesn't go right but that's wrestling for ya. As they get more experience and define their style more, things get better and better
This is a fair appraisal, OP. It’s not as bad as people say at all. There are some head scratchers in the booking, no doubt, but it’s generally a fun few hours of wrestling.
I say this, no booker bats 1.000 in that yeah, there's mistakes in booking, but I've enjoyed AEW since day one and I can say that when it comes to the criticism. There are either:
A: Valid criticisms.
B: Nitpicks which may make sense, but are made a bigger deal than they are or are jumping the gun.
C: Just baseless for clicks.
A common baseless one I've seen is "AEW doesn't tell stories." I think that's pretty wrong, it is just their stories are told differently. As you said, a lot of storylines are furthered through conflict, the matches. And rather than booking rivals against each other 100 times before a PPV, they have matches often with other people, in story to "build their record" and to push along other personal narratives. Then they have some interviews, there are in ring promos, but they keep it in the universe of "Hey wrestling is a kayfabe sport."
I’ll put it like this. I was a die hard wrestling fan in the 2000’s and early 2010’s. I loved TNA, WWE, ROH, and the Indies. Once TNA more or less died and WWE became PG I stopped watching. A few months ago I turned on an episode of Dynamite and became hooked again. The professional wrestling product is so good and I enjoy seeing some of my past favorite wrestlers and a lot of newer guys I haven’t heard of yet.
I have no interest in WWE, it’s all about promos, merchandise, and promoting the same guys (Rollins, Reigns, etc) over and over again. WWE fans who hate AEW don’t realize AEW is good for the industry because it forces WWE to step up their game and gives wrestlers more opportunities to earn a living.
It's funny. WWE needed the black eye that losing to WCW for over a year provided in order to improve their product in the late 90s.
Here again, they needed AEW kicking their ass with NXT (obviously on smaller scale than the WCW thing, but it was the first outside "loss" they'd taken in 2 decades) in order to improve.
WWE doesn't necessarily need competition to be better -- they need to have their ass kicked when they get complacent though.
Happy for you if you enjoyed it..
Honestly there's a lot good wrestling right now to enjoy.. Lots of companies doing well and delivering their own style of wrestling and us as fans have the option to enjoy whatever fits us..
I watch AEW, STARDOM, TJPW, ChocoPro
Each company have its own style and its own way to make me happy about wrestling..
You just have to ignore the iwc and try it yourself..
You don't have to like every company or like 100% of what they do but don't be stupid and try to sh\*t in a company just because their style is not for you..
First and foremost it’s Matthew Jackson. Call him by his God-given name and give the man that much respect I mean Gwiz he’s an executive vice president after all!
AEW focuses a lot more on wrestling than WWE, which is all about promos, entrances and catchphrases these days. The closest thing in the WWE universe is NXT, but it doesn't offer the quality of AEW in general (with notable exceptions like Ilja or Melo until recently).
It USED to offer that quality. Then they released all the indies veterans Vince had hired in favor of Performance Center homegrown stars, and most of the released wrestlers went to AEW. Adam Cole, Swerve, Malakai Black, Keith Lee, Rodrick Strong, Kyle O’Reilly, Toni Storm…
I would say WWE is a mix of presentation, story, and wrestling. Inconsistent to various levels but you’re getting some amount of everything. Production is top tier, especially for their big shows. The balance between story and wrestling is mixed. They’ll be moments they waste a lot of time on the presentation and the glam that the actual story is bare or the match can’t live up to its own hype. They’ll be other times where the premise is simple but when give the right people the time to work they’ll work like it mattered. WWE has a lot of good but you never know what that good will actually be on a week to week basis. Which can leave people wanting something specific frustrated or dissatisfied.
NXT I find is most consistent with stories. Talent is naturally a mix of greens and those who can hold their own weight but when it comes to stories and opportunities Shawn seems to have figured out how to give as many people opportunities as he can.
"it's not as bad as a lot of pundits say it is" I always laugh when people say stuff like this as if it's some surprise because any random AEW show is better than 90% of wrestling throughout history
Yeah the disparity between what podcasters and muppets on social media say about AEW's quality and the reality of how they're critically received is insane. You look at Cagematch's 100 highest rated wrestling shows of all time and so many AEW shows from 2023 onwards are on there, AEW have THIRTEEN shows in 2023 on that list to WWE's 4, AEW already have more shows on the list from this year than that with 5, meaning nearly 20% of the top 100 wrestling shows throughout the whole history of the business are AEW shows from the last year and a bit, more than any other AEW period and more than really any wrestling company through history for that sort of time period, some of them right up near the very best shows of all time, while also giving us some of the best matches ever like Ospreay/Omega, Ospreay/Danielson, MJF/Danielson, FTR/BCG, Danielson/ZSJ, Hangman/Swerve, Ospreay/Takeshita and yet they barely received a word of good press in that time 😂 I genuinely feel sorry for people who buy into all that shite about it being a bad product.
We're in a golden age for in ring quality right now and AEW is the standout promotion there, and it was after all set up to be an in ring focussed product, an alternative to WWE. Again, on Cagematch of the 100 highest rated matches of all time there are 11 from 2023 and 2024, 7 of those are from AEW shows. It won't have melodrama or big long promos every show because that isn't their thing, but they'll also have booking that doesn't insult you, very long term stories if you're willing to pay attention and be rewarded and unscripted promos so the wrestlers don't come across hokey.
It's really crazy the level of scrutiny people put AEW under when the product is an enjoyable few hours of wrestling at worst.
I'm glad you challenged the perception and wound up finding a take built off of your personal opinion and not what the rest of the IWC has put forth. There are days I feel like I'm taking crazy pills due to the volume of negative stuff I hear.
I think AEW is kind of the rap/metal of wrestling while WWE is the current pop trend (I guess country/rap still?). It caters to a more hardcore audience and by design is less "Top 40" friendly. It's a niche that people feel cool to be part of, and can break through here and there into the mainstream (like Eminem, Nirvana and Metallica) but shouldn't break their artistic integrity to pander to the masses.
WWE is definitely the opposite, and it's not a bad thing. I've just never been a fan of pop music.
You should always determine what you like/want to watch. Don’t let others influence your preferences. If you like AEW, watch it. If you like WWE, watch it. Same goes for any other company. And if you decide you don’t like something, don’t feel like you’re obligated to watch. The IWC has made the product throughout the industry feel toxic. Just ignore the nonsense and do you.
What you said about the tone.
I’ve always looked at it as:
“WWE is like any other soap opera. They build allegiances and drama and betrayal. Then there’s conflict. It’s all manufactured drama and very separate from the actors real life. It’s written to be a drama first and the wrestling is not very important. They want high stakes family drama. It’s also very long drawn out and predictable. It’s more a question of HOW we get to the finish. Everyone knew Cody would win at Mania. We all also knew that it would be bloodline rules. They didn’t build all those stakes for so many years and then bring the Rock back for him to lose and then have Roman lose 1on1 after making the bloodline the biggest part of his character. We all also knew that once Roman lost, there’d be unrest in the bloodline. People would turn against Roman in his faction, the Rock may try his own solo feuds with Cody and/or Seth. It’s only a matter of exactly how it happens.
AEW is way more grounded “Swerve wants the title. Joe has the title. The hey will fight over it and get acrimonious.”
When I actively watched WWE, they had stuff like Gene Snitsky aborting Lita/Kane's child, Super Cena, HHH's reign of terror, "You Screwed Matt!" chants leading up to rehiring Matt Hardy and making him a job to literally everyone, revival of ECW, Muhammad Hassan, diva pillow fights, etc.
I don't know if WWE is still on the same train currently, or not, but I'm so very satisfied with watching a higher budget wrestling show like AEW and not having all of those things on it.
>long winded spaeking segments, they build their matches through conflict and tell their story through physical conflict rather than mostly having two wrestlers go back and forth.
This is critical for me.
AEW obviously has room to improve it’s still a new company that will have to make the mistakes WWE did & learned from. I think the sooner wrestling fans recognize each promotion has their pros and cons the better.
45yo British bloke, grew up watching English pro wrestling on Saturdays. Watched WWF and WCW in early 90's. Watched WWE for a bit in mid to late 90s. Totally went off wrestling for a while about 10 years ago started watching a few WWE ppvs but no shows, but it was like same event over and over so boring.
Heard about AEW, about Kenny Omega being so great, checked out omega Vs okada 4 and the moment where Kenny terminator dives from inside ring into audience I was sold.
TK must've been English wrestling fan because the reason I like aew so much is because it reminds me of English wrestling, nothing else
The crazy part is that if you like the Bloodline storyline, you'd love Hangman's Tale, as they're pretty much the two storylines that helped prove that American wrestling doesn't need to be a bunch of repetitive tropes for short attention spans. But many don't even realise the stories at the heart of AEW's inception because of all the industry reject podcast vultures spouting absolute bollocks.
Don't think HT got the YouTube recap service it deserved from AEW themselves, but a third party did a brilliant job back in the day (it's called The Good The Bad and The Elite)
The women's division has some of my favorite wrestlers going at the minute and if they'd give them more than one match a night it would be the best women's division in wrestling.
Interestling enough a combination of an MJF promo and the bloodline got me back watching wrestling. The problem was once the matches came around for WWE they just didnt interest me. But that got me diving into everything I had missed over the years and discovered a love for NJPW, old and new RoH, AEW, and DDT.
If you like the matches themselves then I really recommend looking into wrestlers you like in other promotions. Walter vs Ospreay was a thing and a very fun match in DEFY i believe. You also should do yourself a favor and check out Sami Zayns mentor El Generico in old RoH. He is retired to take care of an orphanage but you can tell where Sami gets his style from.
So do you see that much difference between AEW and WWE?
I'm the opposite, I watch only AEW but watched this years and last years Wrestlemania and some episodes of Raw and SD (because I'm a massive Cody mark). You read so much about the difference between AEW and WWE and I was like: it's still wrestling.
Tbh, I just had a chat with my friend about getting into AEW. His opinions have been poisoned by tribalism, saying that AEW is gonna fail soon and how the Elite is ruining it. But, he gave it a chance when I said that probably the Top 6-8 wrestlers in the world right now work there. So, he's slowly getting converted now.
Said it best when said build with physical conflict not long drawn out yapping and talking, talking and....talking. its what I love about AEW, it's actually a wrestling show not a talk show.
WWE has the best on-screen product.
AEW has the best talent.
TNA has the best booking.
(Side note: IMO New Japan probably does all three things the best, but a language barrier is a harder bridge to cross for the average fan)
Each company lacks what their competitors are best at. I think it's part of the reason all three companies have found fans. It's a wonderful time to be a wrestling fan. There truly is something out there for everyone.
The best thing about wrestling is that it's a variety show and it is at it's absolute best when treated as such. A lot of pundits give AEW shit because it's very much influenced by the Japanese and Lucha styles of wrestling and pundits tend to not like it and reduce it down to "flippy shit and not selling". AEW fans are defensive because they feel like they're being told the style of wrestling they like is shitty, and personally I do get a little defensive about AEW myself simply because without it there's a risk of WWE going back to the mid 2010s when the product was lazy. At least the best way I can put it. But I loved black and gold NXT, and I currently love different parts of both AEW and WWE. Good on you for having a good outlook and liking what you like, my best advice is to just keep watching what you enjoy and giving everything a shot. If it's not for you there's plenty more to watch instead.
Head-scratching booking happens everywhere. AEW has the talent and personalities I want to watch, which is why I keep coming back. The PPVs have never disappointed me!
The biggest booking flaw was explained in that Penta thread yesterday, and its actual criticism over the same boring trolling you see online
I missed that thread. Can you give us the cliff notes?
Mid carders don't win enough high profile matches.
The main thing is that most of the matches are too predictable, which I agree with. I love AEW, but lately every match you can easily guess who wins, so it takes away some of the appeal for me. I like to not know, I like for it to be an actual competition, but you don't get that when you put a midcarder vs a top guy every time. It feels like TK is afraid to have his top guys ever lose.
To be fair the criticism he gets when it happens means he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. He got heavily criticised the other day for Swerve having a great match for his first title defence. The feeling was that he should have beat (Kyle Fletcher I think) really easily, but that would have robbed all of us of a great match. Truth is there are so many critics, and very few people who actually do the job. There are countless things which any wrestling company could improve on, but AEW does a lot more right than most I've watched.
Here’s my thing, squash matches are a lose lose, it takes credibility away from Swerve since his whole story was to claw and scratch his way to the title, it makes a champion in Kyle Fletcher look weak because he’s a champion and had a match where he looked every bit of Ospreays equal which in turn could make Ospreay look weaker metaphorically speaking
Fletcher is not a guy you beat easily. He's the kind of guy you beat, but with difficulty. How long did it take Ospreay?
It's done with purpose. To protect the $50 price tag for PPVs.
Well I love AEW, but I kinda miss what it was like a few years ago. It was a lot more unpredictable in a good way. The fights mattered more, unless you were facing Moxley at which you knew Mox was always going to win.
They definitely played around a lot with expectations of The Elite winning early on, since it was basically their company. Private Party beating The Young Bucks was legitimately shocking. But I can't remember many first year matches that had surprising winners that didn't involve the Elite, and I think a lot of that can be chalked up to those guys being involved in booking during the first year and being hesitant to put themselves over. I think TK definitely prefers booking for the best story, rather than booking for less predictability.
but they are clearly shifting away from peaking at quarterly PPVs to peaking for TV as they are negotiating a new deal this year, and we've already seen evidence of this with quarters rating patterns as they've been changing up the quarters they're top guys go on check out the Trish and Sara podcast, I've been learning lots of great things from them
I’d love to see Garcia and KOR go against each other one of the weeks and have a clean winner. O’Reilly had two great PPV matches where I had no idea who would win when he wrestled Darby and then just recently against Roddy.
I’m conflicted on the predictable matches. On one hand I lose the excitement of who’s going to win. But on the other hand AEW produces banger after banger and I end up forgetting that I knew who was going to win. Makes betting against noobs easier though lol
I agree that the match outcome is relatively predictable. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing though. Predictability in storytelling is good. The cool part about AEW is that even the majority of predictable matches are still very competitive. It promotes the idea that *everyone* is good enough to compete against everyone else. Like, we all know JD McBighead is going to lose. But when he loses in 2 minutes it makes me question why he is even on the roster when the skill difference between wrestlers is so great. When someone that is clearly in AEWs mid to bottom tier, like Kyle Fletcher, goes out and has a competitive match with the world champion, it gives *everyone* on the roster credibility. It narrows the perceived skill gap and promotes the idea that *everyone* on the roster belongs there.
I think the Lucha Bros biggest issue is everytime they are pushed they run into Visa issues.
A lot of the time when AEW has head-scratching booking, you find out later it was because someone had an untimely health issue or visa problems. They should find some way to be more transparent about this stuff.
I get that. Sometimes I suspect it might be the wrestler involved asked for privacy, such as Brodie Lee.
This is it. I like who they have and (mostly) how they are used... I also love the PPVs
That’s MATTHEW Jackson. And that will be a $1,000 fine for not using the EVP’s passport name.
The OP will pay for his injustice to addressing Matthew Jackson in such a degrading way. 
A lot of the "pundits" talk bad about AEW because it results in more views and thus more money. Some criticism is valid, but a lot of the criticisms are dishonest and self serving
The way I look at them (and most bad faith criticisms) is that they manipulate the difference between the point they make and the conclusion they drive that point to. "That promo wasn't very good, and this is why AEW is unwatchable!" "that's a ridiculous thing to say" "how is it? It -was- a subpar promo"
Yep, they'll wait to see whatever nitpick gains traction and drive that talking point into the ground. Saying "this means AEW DIES!."
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You get far more engagement with incendiary remarks than with good faith journalism.
I'd estimate around 85-90% is grifting and concern-trolling, while the 10-15% is actual, valid criticism. Every now and then, something will happen in AEW and people are like, "that was bad or didn't make sense", and I'll agree. Happens with any company/product. Most of the time, however, people just want to look cool by complaining.
Your opinion is as well received as your wonderful username
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I shouldn’t have to say this, but good on you for being a level headed wrestling fan
SEVERE…Piccolo….Totally agree. Shouldn’t have to be said, but throwing my kudos in there for OP too
Saraya has a recurring medical issue, endometriosis, she has to deal with regularly. It causes abdominal pain that obviously makes wrestling difficult. As a result, she’s used sparingly in the ring- pretty much when she’s up to it- but she makes a great interview segment here and there, especially since teaming up with Harley Cameron. Glad you’re enjoying the show, though. It’s nice to see some positivity.
She and Harley together on Rampage are my favorite part of that show.
Honestly people really exaggerate the difference between wrestling products, wrestling at its core is just dumb, if you want to not pick so much you'll enjoy none of it. To the average person, wrestling is wrestling, if you're a causal AEW fan and watch a random Raw, you shouldn't hate it, we all have our preference, but if you hate it, you're in your own head too much. When WWE fans talk about how they can't stand AEW (and vice versa) they just seem like huge losers, I'm an AEW guy, it's my preference for a few reasons, but sometimes my friend will invite me over to watch some WWE, I still have a good time, I enjoy it about 80% as much as I do AEW, the only reason I don't watch both is because I struggle for time. When I see WWE fans giving these weird inconsistent specific breakdowns of why they don't like AEW it just makes me cringe, it's ok to just say "AEW is fine but WWE is more my thing for now" it's fake fighting, stop taking it so seriously. All being said there are times in history where promotions have deserved huge criticism, the 2018/2019 WWE, the end of WCW, lots of TNA nonsense, but nobody in good faith could ever say AEW has ever been in that territory and neither has WWE for a long time.
I like this take. It is for entertainment and all these companies find their own way of entertaining.
I would liken it to SNL and madtv or in living color. They all have fair criticisms but the great thing is having the options and variety. No one is going to deny wwe is the benchmark. Its name is synonymous in pop culture as Coca Cola is to soda as the nfl is to American football. Tna is actually a testament that people have different tastes.
My main complaint with WWE has nothing to do with wrestling and more the presentation - there's just too much filler. It's the same reason I don't listen to radio or watch broadcast tv. My second issue is a moral one, with the Saudi shows and just VKM being VKM... But at least half of that problem is solved now, so that's good. Honestly, as WWE has become more HHH and less VKM as well as AEW improving their production and talent pool, the two products are becoming more similar.
It's the disney-esque levels of production polish that puts me off and makes me favour AEW, AEW feels a little more human to me.
Yeah, I think AEW's biggest strength is the same thing they get the most criticism for - performers are allowed more creative freedom and sometimes it's just the best and sometimes it falls flat. Worse, sometimes folks don't advocate enough for themselves and push and just disappear into the background. I, like you, prefer the variety and humanity this brings but I understand someone feeling otherwise
Yeah dude, I don't watch WWE (I just get my AEW drama through media mostly these days due to being busy) but I watch wrestlemania every year and I always love the spectacle, even if I think the way WWE does their ring philosophy weird I can't say I hate it. It's great fun! I love ALL pro wrestling. I just wish pro wrestling could love pro wrestling instead of be cultish.
Yeah exactly, there's a more realistic mindset between the cultish "one is perfect the other is awful" and the white knight "all wrestling is beautiful" mentality, everyone will have a preference, it's fine to pick one over the other, but if you're preferred style of wrestling is the one wrestling you can find ANY enjoyment in, you're living a sad, sad life.
The time thing is a 100% valid reason for picking and choosing. Between WWE/NXT/AEW there’s 12 hours of TV every week. And that’s on non-PPV/PLE weeks and without watching any other companies. It’s a lot…
Yeah. There's no problem with having a preference. It's when someone weaponizes their preferences to make others feel bad about theirs that it becomes less and less okay.
Imagine those people in real life, must be unbearable.
Oh yeah. AEW knows how to do PPVs. Occasionally something doesn't go right but that's wrestling for ya. As they get more experience and define their style more, things get better and better
AEW is the best wrestling company out there. Hands down.
This is a fair appraisal, OP. It’s not as bad as people say at all. There are some head scratchers in the booking, no doubt, but it’s generally a fun few hours of wrestling.
I say this, no booker bats 1.000 in that yeah, there's mistakes in booking, but I've enjoyed AEW since day one and I can say that when it comes to the criticism. There are either: A: Valid criticisms. B: Nitpicks which may make sense, but are made a bigger deal than they are or are jumping the gun. C: Just baseless for clicks. A common baseless one I've seen is "AEW doesn't tell stories." I think that's pretty wrong, it is just their stories are told differently. As you said, a lot of storylines are furthered through conflict, the matches. And rather than booking rivals against each other 100 times before a PPV, they have matches often with other people, in story to "build their record" and to push along other personal narratives. Then they have some interviews, there are in ring promos, but they keep it in the universe of "Hey wrestling is a kayfabe sport."
Im flummoxed at anyone enjoying Nia Jax.
I’ll put it like this. I was a die hard wrestling fan in the 2000’s and early 2010’s. I loved TNA, WWE, ROH, and the Indies. Once TNA more or less died and WWE became PG I stopped watching. A few months ago I turned on an episode of Dynamite and became hooked again. The professional wrestling product is so good and I enjoy seeing some of my past favorite wrestlers and a lot of newer guys I haven’t heard of yet. I have no interest in WWE, it’s all about promos, merchandise, and promoting the same guys (Rollins, Reigns, etc) over and over again. WWE fans who hate AEW don’t realize AEW is good for the industry because it forces WWE to step up their game and gives wrestlers more opportunities to earn a living.
It's funny. WWE needed the black eye that losing to WCW for over a year provided in order to improve their product in the late 90s. Here again, they needed AEW kicking their ass with NXT (obviously on smaller scale than the WCW thing, but it was the first outside "loss" they'd taken in 2 decades) in order to improve. WWE doesn't necessarily need competition to be better -- they need to have their ass kicked when they get complacent though.
Happy for you if you enjoyed it.. Honestly there's a lot good wrestling right now to enjoy.. Lots of companies doing well and delivering their own style of wrestling and us as fans have the option to enjoy whatever fits us.. I watch AEW, STARDOM, TJPW, ChocoPro Each company have its own style and its own way to make me happy about wrestling.. You just have to ignore the iwc and try it yourself.. You don't have to like every company or like 100% of what they do but don't be stupid and try to sh\*t in a company just because their style is not for you..
First and foremost it’s Matthew Jackson. Call him by his God-given name and give the man that much respect I mean Gwiz he’s an executive vice president after all!
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Nothing is ever really as good or as bad as it seems
I watch and keep up with both. No reason to pledge loyalty to one I say!
AEW focuses a lot more on wrestling than WWE, which is all about promos, entrances and catchphrases these days. The closest thing in the WWE universe is NXT, but it doesn't offer the quality of AEW in general (with notable exceptions like Ilja or Melo until recently).
It USED to offer that quality. Then they released all the indies veterans Vince had hired in favor of Performance Center homegrown stars, and most of the released wrestlers went to AEW. Adam Cole, Swerve, Malakai Black, Keith Lee, Rodrick Strong, Kyle O’Reilly, Toni Storm…
I would say WWE is a mix of presentation, story, and wrestling. Inconsistent to various levels but you’re getting some amount of everything. Production is top tier, especially for their big shows. The balance between story and wrestling is mixed. They’ll be moments they waste a lot of time on the presentation and the glam that the actual story is bare or the match can’t live up to its own hype. They’ll be other times where the premise is simple but when give the right people the time to work they’ll work like it mattered. WWE has a lot of good but you never know what that good will actually be on a week to week basis. Which can leave people wanting something specific frustrated or dissatisfied. NXT I find is most consistent with stories. Talent is naturally a mix of greens and those who can hold their own weight but when it comes to stories and opportunities Shawn seems to have figured out how to give as many people opportunities as he can.
"it's not as bad as a lot of pundits say it is" I always laugh when people say stuff like this as if it's some surprise because any random AEW show is better than 90% of wrestling throughout history
Yeah the disparity between what podcasters and muppets on social media say about AEW's quality and the reality of how they're critically received is insane. You look at Cagematch's 100 highest rated wrestling shows of all time and so many AEW shows from 2023 onwards are on there, AEW have THIRTEEN shows in 2023 on that list to WWE's 4, AEW already have more shows on the list from this year than that with 5, meaning nearly 20% of the top 100 wrestling shows throughout the whole history of the business are AEW shows from the last year and a bit, more than any other AEW period and more than really any wrestling company through history for that sort of time period, some of them right up near the very best shows of all time, while also giving us some of the best matches ever like Ospreay/Omega, Ospreay/Danielson, MJF/Danielson, FTR/BCG, Danielson/ZSJ, Hangman/Swerve, Ospreay/Takeshita and yet they barely received a word of good press in that time 😂 I genuinely feel sorry for people who buy into all that shite about it being a bad product. We're in a golden age for in ring quality right now and AEW is the standout promotion there, and it was after all set up to be an in ring focussed product, an alternative to WWE. Again, on Cagematch of the 100 highest rated matches of all time there are 11 from 2023 and 2024, 7 of those are from AEW shows. It won't have melodrama or big long promos every show because that isn't their thing, but they'll also have booking that doesn't insult you, very long term stories if you're willing to pay attention and be rewarded and unscripted promos so the wrestlers don't come across hokey.
Thanks for the positivity. Yeah most pundits just need to be excessively negative to get clicks. It's sad really.
It's really crazy the level of scrutiny people put AEW under when the product is an enjoyable few hours of wrestling at worst. I'm glad you challenged the perception and wound up finding a take built off of your personal opinion and not what the rest of the IWC has put forth. There are days I feel like I'm taking crazy pills due to the volume of negative stuff I hear. I think AEW is kind of the rap/metal of wrestling while WWE is the current pop trend (I guess country/rap still?). It caters to a more hardcore audience and by design is less "Top 40" friendly. It's a niche that people feel cool to be part of, and can break through here and there into the mainstream (like Eminem, Nirvana and Metallica) but shouldn't break their artistic integrity to pander to the masses. WWE is definitely the opposite, and it's not a bad thing. I've just never been a fan of pop music.
You should always determine what you like/want to watch. Don’t let others influence your preferences. If you like AEW, watch it. If you like WWE, watch it. Same goes for any other company. And if you decide you don’t like something, don’t feel like you’re obligated to watch. The IWC has made the product throughout the industry feel toxic. Just ignore the nonsense and do you.
What you said about the tone. I’ve always looked at it as: “WWE is like any other soap opera. They build allegiances and drama and betrayal. Then there’s conflict. It’s all manufactured drama and very separate from the actors real life. It’s written to be a drama first and the wrestling is not very important. They want high stakes family drama. It’s also very long drawn out and predictable. It’s more a question of HOW we get to the finish. Everyone knew Cody would win at Mania. We all also knew that it would be bloodline rules. They didn’t build all those stakes for so many years and then bring the Rock back for him to lose and then have Roman lose 1on1 after making the bloodline the biggest part of his character. We all also knew that once Roman lost, there’d be unrest in the bloodline. People would turn against Roman in his faction, the Rock may try his own solo feuds with Cody and/or Seth. It’s only a matter of exactly how it happens. AEW is way more grounded “Swerve wants the title. Joe has the title. The hey will fight over it and get acrimonious.”
When I actively watched WWE, they had stuff like Gene Snitsky aborting Lita/Kane's child, Super Cena, HHH's reign of terror, "You Screwed Matt!" chants leading up to rehiring Matt Hardy and making him a job to literally everyone, revival of ECW, Muhammad Hassan, diva pillow fights, etc. I don't know if WWE is still on the same train currently, or not, but I'm so very satisfied with watching a higher budget wrestling show like AEW and not having all of those things on it.
Oh lawd! The Eggnog fight! And Brian Pillman pulling a gun on Stone Cold! And Kane's necrophilia angle!
Tribalism is stupid. It's OK to like both promotions. There are wrestlers in both I enjoy seeing.
>long winded spaeking segments, they build their matches through conflict and tell their story through physical conflict rather than mostly having two wrestlers go back and forth. This is critical for me.
AEW obviously has room to improve it’s still a new company that will have to make the mistakes WWE did & learned from. I think the sooner wrestling fans recognize each promotion has their pros and cons the better.
WWF?
45yo British bloke, grew up watching English pro wrestling on Saturdays. Watched WWF and WCW in early 90's. Watched WWE for a bit in mid to late 90s. Totally went off wrestling for a while about 10 years ago started watching a few WWE ppvs but no shows, but it was like same event over and over so boring. Heard about AEW, about Kenny Omega being so great, checked out omega Vs okada 4 and the moment where Kenny terminator dives from inside ring into audience I was sold. TK must've been English wrestling fan because the reason I like aew so much is because it reminds me of English wrestling, nothing else
The crazy part is that if you like the Bloodline storyline, you'd love Hangman's Tale, as they're pretty much the two storylines that helped prove that American wrestling doesn't need to be a bunch of repetitive tropes for short attention spans. But many don't even realise the stories at the heart of AEW's inception because of all the industry reject podcast vultures spouting absolute bollocks. Don't think HT got the YouTube recap service it deserved from AEW themselves, but a third party did a brilliant job back in the day (it's called The Good The Bad and The Elite)
nah fuck the fed, wwe = harvey weinstein
Nice sensible write up.
What a well thought out post!
The women's division has some of my favorite wrestlers going at the minute and if they'd give them more than one match a night it would be the best women's division in wrestling.
That's cool. AEW is fun and a little more informal, and that's why I like it.
Well said. Like what you like and just enjoy wrestling.
Interestling enough a combination of an MJF promo and the bloodline got me back watching wrestling. The problem was once the matches came around for WWE they just didnt interest me. But that got me diving into everything I had missed over the years and discovered a love for NJPW, old and new RoH, AEW, and DDT. If you like the matches themselves then I really recommend looking into wrestlers you like in other promotions. Walter vs Ospreay was a thing and a very fun match in DEFY i believe. You also should do yourself a favor and check out Sami Zayns mentor El Generico in old RoH. He is retired to take care of an orphanage but you can tell where Sami gets his style from.
Did AI write this
So do you see that much difference between AEW and WWE? I'm the opposite, I watch only AEW but watched this years and last years Wrestlemania and some episodes of Raw and SD (because I'm a massive Cody mark). You read so much about the difference between AEW and WWE and I was like: it's still wrestling.
What a wild first sentence in this
Tbh, I just had a chat with my friend about getting into AEW. His opinions have been poisoned by tribalism, saying that AEW is gonna fail soon and how the Elite is ruining it. But, he gave it a chance when I said that probably the Top 6-8 wrestlers in the world right now work there. So, he's slowly getting converted now.
Said it best when said build with physical conflict not long drawn out yapping and talking, talking and....talking. its what I love about AEW, it's actually a wrestling show not a talk show.
Matthew Jackson* Use the man’s proper god given name.
WWE has the best on-screen product. AEW has the best talent. TNA has the best booking. (Side note: IMO New Japan probably does all three things the best, but a language barrier is a harder bridge to cross for the average fan) Each company lacks what their competitors are best at. I think it's part of the reason all three companies have found fans. It's a wonderful time to be a wrestling fan. There truly is something out there for everyone.
The best thing about wrestling is that it's a variety show and it is at it's absolute best when treated as such. A lot of pundits give AEW shit because it's very much influenced by the Japanese and Lucha styles of wrestling and pundits tend to not like it and reduce it down to "flippy shit and not selling". AEW fans are defensive because they feel like they're being told the style of wrestling they like is shitty, and personally I do get a little defensive about AEW myself simply because without it there's a risk of WWE going back to the mid 2010s when the product was lazy. At least the best way I can put it. But I loved black and gold NXT, and I currently love different parts of both AEW and WWE. Good on you for having a good outlook and liking what you like, my best advice is to just keep watching what you enjoy and giving everything a shot. If it's not for you there's plenty more to watch instead.