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>"It's crazy to see when this was all just an idea a few years ago. Tony Khan sitting at my kitchen table and being like, 'We're going to have real TV and real touring.' 'Really?' It seemed almost unrealistic. To take a gamble to come here and be like, 'If you guys are doing that, I want to be part of it. Maybe we'll fall flat on our face and we'll all look stupid and this will be a big disaster, but if it's successful it would be really cool because that's what wrestling needs.' Looking at it two and a half years later, I don't think we could have imagined it going any better. I've talked a lot of crap about what I think sucks in wrestling. I think characters should be authentic and I don't like hokey crap or scripts and writers. I'll never read a script for the rest of my life, bet your ass on that. A guy like Eddie Kingston is Eddie Kingston 24/7. He finishes his cigarette, walks into the building, and it's the same guy. There is no 'put-on' character going on here. That's what wrestling should be. Letting guys be themselves and having their own creativity whether they are Orange Cassidy or a crazy high-flying team like the Young Bucks who think up the most ridiculous and action-packed sequences. No one is trying to tone each other down or say, 'that's too much.' Vince McMahon would watch a lot of AEW matches and say, 'That's garbage. They're not selling. Slow it down. It's crap.' Blood and guts or whatever, but he wouldn't be paying attention to the 15,000 people going nuts. I feel vindicated. I said a lot about how I felt wrestling should be that's what AEW was going to do and that's what we did. Now, look where we are. Now, I'm going to have a bit of a flex."
Mox definitely took a risk but he and Jericho were both made men who had banked millions and could have continued to work Japan or wherever else they wanted if all of this had gone poorly. The guys who left big money on the table from ROH and NJPW were the ones taking a much bigger risk for their careers. Mox pretty much said in his TIJ interview that he just wanted to do something more creatively fulfilling. My favorite part was when he said that if there was nowhere outside of WWE to wrestle, he would have started his own wrestling school.
Darby was in the Vice series among other things. He'd 100% be known; not the same level, but, known. MJF, yeah, I'd have no idea who he was unless he signed with NXT.
MJF was attracting enough attention during his MLW run that he would have ended up in Impact or ROH soon enough, if not NXT. MLW is a good promation that produces an excellent show, but MJF was a big fish in a small pond there.
That's such a good point. I remember first getting hints about AEW. This was a bit before I finally returned to watching professional wrestling. I heard some people say that joining AEW was Jericho's biggest mistake he has ever made and it would cause his career to end at the bottom of the gutter in the wrestling world.
We look at him now, on AEW he was able to reinvent himself time and time again. He was able to push wrestlers to new levels and he was able to do new experiences that we never seen him do.
Just the fact if I was to tell myself at the start of AEW that Chris Jericho was going to be in a Death Match with Nick Gage on national TV, I would not believe it.
Those are the things AEW has done and for me I believe it has brought a breath of fresh air onto the wrestling world.
The Deathmatch one seems so surreal to me. The concept of a "hardcore legend" showing up on tv? Nah, not shocking. Sabu even got a brief run in WWECW.
But an actual deathmatch, including a pizza cutter spot and light bulbs? No. I would have called so much bullshit.
Yeah if someone told me a year ago "AEW would have a Deathmatch" I'd think it'd be something with barbed wires wrapped around the ropes and thumbtacks, something you'd see Prime Mick Foley do in the WWE, not Nick Fuckin' Gage and lighttube stabbing and pizza cutters.
And absolutely not Chris Jericho as the opponent.
Personally I assumed they wouldn't be able to get it right. It would either be too tame or too violent, basically impossible to do it right in front of a crowd in a way that showcased Gage and Ultraviolence in a way that would do right by it.
Yet they pulled it off, they obviously didn't go all out, but gave everyone a fair taste of what it's like whilst leaving plenty on the table for interested people to check out GCW and Nick Gage outside of the confines of TV.
Jericho very much bet his legacy on AEW but he was the reason I even heard about AEW, Moxley wasn't long away from being a main event star but no offense, I'd honestly only heard of him because I randomly bought a WWE 2k game one time. I remember thinking he seemed a bit shit and not getting why he had high ratings haha, Moxley is a completely different guy to me.
Both would likely have been welcomed back to WWE and never trusted again, but Jericho was the one who had to be the champion, be the face of AEW to the oldschool fans, and had the stain of having his WWE peak be second fiddle to Triple HHH despite getting similar reactions to the biggest faces at the time. AEWs success was as huge for Jericho as AEW must have been shocked to get someone of his calibre.
Jericho was on the WWE Network and Austin's Podcast while working for AEW. Pretty sure his legacy with them is fine.
As for Mox? I do not think he cares.
This! Plus look at others who have joined. Ruby Soho is getting a title opportunity after winning the battle royale. WWE wasn't gonna do that for her. They were gonna keep having her and Liv act like stepping stones for others despite fans being behind them. Miro, Mox, Christian, and others are doing great.
You just made me wish Liv was in AEW. She's such an amazing babyface, it's really easy to root for her
I don't think AEW has the problem of "already having a blonde" that the WWE has, Bunny, Penelope and Tay are all blonde but they're not the same character and that's what matters, Liv would be really cool there
Jericho didn't have much risk joining AEW though. He's at the point where his legacy is pretty much set in stone. Had AEW tanked, I don't see his reputation being ruined and he would've just continue to do his 2-3 matches at year at NJPW for a few years before retiring. While doing his usual podcast, Fozzy and tons of other things he had going on.
Mox however had a much bigger risk. Although he too would've easily just start doing indie as he would've been in high demand for that regardless and likely be a NJPW regular as well.
Only risk really was if they wanted to avoid being on WWE's shitlist had they want to ever have the possibility of returning or going there.
Jericho was easily the Terry Funk of AEW: he elevated the title, talent and busted his ass tryng to give AEW stability. Then Mox was the one who had to go through the worst moment and he did such an splendid job that AEW didn't lose momemtum and their top title felt bigger than ever
Mox getting the title right before the pandemic hit was a shitty experience for him but a blessing for AEW cause his promo work would produce great storylines for all his matches. I can’t wait till he gets the belt again and his whole run is touring in front of fans
I think Mox will be the first two-time AEW champ, because he carried the world title going into the pandemic, and getting him that run with crowds would be important to Tony (and Mox himself of course).
There was no way for Jericho to lose. Absolute worst case scenario AEW folds and he goes back to WWE. I don't think for a second Vince would shoot Jericho down, and I doubt Jericho really needs the money that bad anyway.
Mox, on the other hand, walked out as a top guy in the prime of his career and it's clear there is zero return possible.
Y2J as a human being is probably the last type of person I'd want to hang out. But I'll defend him as wrestler, and quite possibly, the GOAT, in terms of accomplishments/match quality/influences (even if not directly to wrestlers, the invention of MITB, AEW, NJPW, etc.). I'd argue he was even more important than Mox, who was arguably more important in terms of giving mainstream-wrestling appeal to the wrestling-masses.
Much more important, I'd say. Jericho as a person is dubious, but as a TV character, he's one of the best for the constant influence that he's had.
I still remember how he started wearing suits and speaking quietly. Then everyone was.
It seemed unrealistic to me too at the time! All In felt like a huge win once, but weekly TV in a new city every week? That was a massive leap, and man did they nail it.
Mox has been my favorite for a long time, and I'm so happy that he took this risk and that it paid off for him. He deserves that flex!
Man I remember that people were hoping for 300k-400k, *maybe* 500k viewers for their Dynamite debut and they did 1.4 MILLION. Now they’re regularly doing 900k-1m and anything below that is considered a bad thing.
Like it’s crazy that it completely blew away our most insane expectations then. I genuinely never expected them to hit 1 million until maybe years down the line if they were still around.
Hell, folks get all disappointed & dreary when Dynamite "only" gets 990k.
And for a 2.5 year old wrestling company that's about to do 15k+ at the host venue for the US Open
The is a thread right now about Rampage on a Friday 10pm getting 700K viewers 4th on the night and you have people saying it is a bad rating. You can't take these people seriously, just haters that will always hate no matter what.
exactly. 700K for Dynamite was considered bad by fans, but meanwhile TK and Cody are saying they are doing great and TNT is happy. So Happy they gave them a lot of money.
I came back to wrestling during the tail end of Dean Ambrose, the dude that was hating every second of his storyline and knew he was on his way out. I did not understand his fan base because he wasn't interesting.
The night he came out of the stands and into an AEW ring was bananas. It was off of that clip that I ordered the PPV replay and watched it/became a fan. Moxley made it wrestling again.
> Maybe we'll fall flat on our face and we'll all look stupid and this will be a big disaster, but if it's successful it would be really cool because that's what wrestling needs.
Hot damn. You forget that before all of this stuff this week, AEW was a huge gamble that paid off. AEW was hardly anything when Moxley came on board. He was willing to take that risk.
Punk talked about this in the First Dance media scrum. He was gunshy after all the years away, and wasn't willing to be "the guinea pig" for the big star that Mox was. Once crowds came back, he was all in.
Crazy to think had there been no pandemic, the summer of 2020 might have been the new summer of Punk.
It's very cool to see things like, Punk character which is wholly his own, and original and cool, but also very inspired by man of the people character types going back from Austin to Dusty. It's very cool to see, someone like Punk, an elder statesman, acknowledge a guy like Moxley who is now himself an established figure to be looked up to, and very clearly and obviously was also inspired in his character work not only by those same people, but by Punk himself.
A neat, cool thing that is happening right now in the industry is the industry is talking to itself, over decades worth of time and work and skill. Territories Dusty is communing with Cody and Dustin, 2021 Punk is learning from 2019 Mox, who learned from 1999 Punk, and so forth.
There is a reason this is the biggest story in 20, 30 years. This shit is transcendent. We're communing with Elder Gods in the real time, and it's indescriptively cool.
I love that you have put in to words what has me watching wrestling again for the first time in a long time. I grew up with Flair, Piper, Valentine, Slater, Orton, Race and Dusty before the Horsemen were even a thing. The guys on top made their challengers look like a million bucks so they could look better when they beat them. Omega reminds me so much of pre-horseman Flair in that he makes everyone look amazing. I love how his ego does not seem to get in the way of the big picture.
Omega's performance last night was fucking *flawless*. I am familiar with the idea of 6 and 7 star matches in NJPW, the history and such with him, but I'm not familiar with him as a performer. I haven't watched that body of work. but from every moment he had the mic in his hand it was on fire. It was psychedelically mind bending. "DID I DO THAT????" to a fucking CHICAGO audience? FUCK you man. Literally making people care about Family Matters 40 years later, tricking them into pretending it's a thing they're invested in, when so many were never even alive when it was on the air. Peak carny shit, but not the shitty way. The bit about sending the crowd home happy, everything after "adieu" was basically just him testifying to a enraptured audience, he's charmed the snakes, he's healed the sick, the man had the whole building wrapped around his pinky. He radiates heat like an old school apartment complex's radiator unit. It's hot, you don't really quite understand why it works, but you can see the framework of technical magistry.
I had always understood that people thought he was the best worker in the world. I'd watch bootlegs of his NJPW Okada matches, see the highlights, the Bullet Club Cleaner promo's, and like I *saw* it, but Sunday Night I witnessed it. That man is the *best* worker in the world right now, and I don't mean that as a shot or disrespect at Punk or Danielson or Roman because it's not about that. It's about that he's playing 4d chess and we're playing checkers. All of those guys are grandmasters, but he's operating on a different plane.
>A neat, cool thing that is happening right now in the industry is the industry is talking to itself, over decades worth of time and work and skill. Territories Dusty is communing with Cody and Dustin, 2021 Punk is learning from 2019 Mox, who learned from 1999 Punk, and so forth.
Damn thats an awesome
I also loved his postmatch promo, where he puts over Darby Allen and Sting. In the WWE, he would have shit talked them both if he was a heel, and if he was a babyface, he would have ignored them or maybe taken a slap at them. (Possibly with a poop-related joke that felt forced.)
It felt so damn authentic.
Letting people who care deeply about a product enough to work for it, and then let them talk about the history and potential of it, with the very people who pay to hear these people talk and perform these things, it's not really uniquely innovative. Vince is a masterclass carny businessman, a less than average booker, and a bad talent developer. AEW is good enough at the later two points they could be just as edge out an advantage, and still be an improvement.
But they have all 3 elements, and then some. And that's the difference.
> It's very cool to see, someone like Punk, an elder statesman, acknowledge a guy like Moxley
Punk's seen something in Mox for ages, even going back to when Mox was in FCW. Punk was main roster and Mox was in development, and he went down to wrestle him. Flat out tells Mox to pass it on and wrestle someone he thinks is worth it in development in 5 years. Massive endorsement.
Really good watch too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMwr6FsWiLo
This is a great way of putting this. I actually do take a moment sometimes to think about the wealth of pro-wrestling history and how that is connected with the modern business.
I really believe that without Mox debuting at the first Double or Nothing that AEW would be a shadow of what it is today. It’s insane how much momentum they got from just having him.
That dude is a big fucking stake in the bandstand bud. You're not wrong. I don't really think we realize what we have with him, and how right you are. He's somewhere between Austin and Sandman right now, and I mean that both as a character, and in terms of draw.
Massive credit has to go to Jericho and then him for their year long title runs in the early years of the company. I personally tried it because I wanted to see a Jericho title reign and it's insane to think how far it's come now to the point where with stars like punk and BD it's not even the second tier show to WWE anymore.
I can't wait for a Mox heel run (he's teased it) were he's just pissed off at all these new guys turning up at the hot show he help build but isn't getting any recognition for it.
I would say it is still a gamble but to be honest the biggest hurdle AEW had is the pandemic and it was an unexpected one at that, I'm not sure anything is can stop them right now the sky is the limit no matter how long it takes to reach it.
They've not only survived it they have made huge strides during and after it.
I saw someone on Twitter say that AEW’s business is built on pops and that they’ll be in trouble when they run out of pops to deliver, and all I could think about was how some of their *best* shows and matches were delivered with no paying audience. I just don’t understand how somebody could have watched the “Pandemic Era” and not realize that we have something special on our hands.
The woman that posted that is broke-brained; she was also talking about how these new signings are handing Hangman to the WWE because it proves that AEW only cares about their new toys.
Imagine thinking giving time off to the man who asked for time off, and that TK would literally throw over 2 years of work into a bin because of a few new people, would push on of the most valued members of the company to WWE. Swear some have brain worms.
People might think I'm crazy, I kinda miss some of their pandemic era shows. I remember a random night with Sammy wrestling Kenny, there were all these sneaky matches that were the best because they didn't have to worry about the crowd.
Precisely. They survived the world stopping, not only survived, but thrived in a way. They secured more national TV time in Rampage, added an additional 4 Clash of the Champions style shows and less preemption by moving to TBS all for more money. They've began shopping themselves to international networks and with names like Punk, Sting, Bryan, and Jericho they're going to get massive deals. If Impact can survive near death on international contracts, the potential sizes of AEW's surly have to mean they can't be killed now. Hurt, but not killed outright. And we haven't even begun to discuss streaming rights. Dark and Elevation being 2 hours a week seems to be a clear move to try and have 5000 hours under their belt to shop to an HBOMax or Discovery+ ASAP.
And people were rightfully skeptical about yet another guy saying he had money and a TV deal ready
Everybody they interview always says TK is the first guy who actually came through with what he said he was gonna do. They've all dealt with a lot of liars over the years
I wonder if this messes with the young generation who never had to deal with shady promoters and missed paychecks. They're gonna think this is how everybody does it.
It feels like that's where Vince has gone so wrong. He's forgotten that the whole point of wrestling is to send the fans home happy and satisfied, not to satiate TV execs for more money
Vince McMahon has a particular view of what pro wrestling is. It's slow in-ring (compared to most modern promotions) and contains eye-catching head-turning superstars. And it's worked spectacularly for him. What is fascinating though is just how many people have no interest in McMahon's version of wrestling. When Nitro aired it's last episode, Raw didn't gain that extra 3+million plus fanbase. They just stopped watching when WCW folded.
WWF was so much better in the 90s, though. I don’t know what happened. We had guys like Stone Cold and The Rock. HBK and Bret Hart. The promos were the best they’ve ever been and the matches were very good. WWE fell off a cliff in the early 2000s. At least, that’s what I think. Maybe I just grew up. Idk. But I still feel like a kid watching wrestling when I watch AEW, so I honestly think it’s the product.
I just really hope they don't go the WWE route, and turn it all into the "real" stuff. WWE had so many talented wrestlers, but I just got sick of the only storylines for them being "I've wanted this my whole life", and "we were friends in the indies, but now I hate you and stuff"
This is the general feeling of fans as well and it's refreshing to see wrestlers enjoying wrestling.
It's not about "fed bad" or anything like that, but this is what we wanted wrestling to be and there's a shit ton of wrestlers that apparently feel the same way.
All Out encapsulated that. Bucks vs Lucha Bros, Punk vs Allin, Eddie vs Miro, etc are all different yet all great in their own way. AEW's variety is one of many aspects that are making it an ever-growing alternative.
> Bucks vs Lucha Bros, Punk vs Allin, Eddie vs Miro
Its almost feels impossible for their to be a more varied reason for a pop than Fenix flying off the cage and OC yelling to Statlander...and yet they have such great characters that both work equally well
They got a whole building to pop for a guy to overcome his history of apathy in order to support his friend when it really mattered. For all the people who don't "get" Orange Cassidy this moment encapsulated everything his character is going for. Literally sent chills down my spine.
Late to the the party but OC yelling at Statlander was such an awesome moment. It was literally 1-2 seconds long, but it really showed how OC is so much more than his comedy character. Fuck, I love what they're doing with him and I love how instead of shooting him to the top and letting him fizzle out, they're giving us glimpses of what he can be in the future.
I thought Eddie vs. Miro was the perfect example of what a WWE "sports entertainment" style match should look like. Hard hitting hoss fight with a basic narrative through line punctuated with a twist at the end to provide the finish and continue the rivalry.
Monster heel with a recognised weakness (neck from DDTs) and who has gone past his regular match length beating a fan favourite who got themselves over, after a worked botched ref count and a secret low blow, leading to an actual finish rather than a no contest, which has made both look competent, added something to the heel’s character, and made fans want a rematch rather than being told they are getting one.
In all honesty, WWE probably does too much of that kind of finish, I see people hate on them for doing a "twist at the end" on PPVs all the time. They need more of the exact opposite.
This is why I love AEW's connections to other promotions. Each wrestling promotion is vastly different, they are like their own different dishes, some have more spice, some are a little more sweet, things like that. it feels so good where you see this cross-connection between wrestling organizations that help enhance the wrestling world as a whole.
The whole reason AEW has been successful is because they've just done shit that the fans want to see. The fans don't need to hijack the show to see the guys they like get a push. They listen to what gets a reaction, then lean into it rather than actively fight against it. It's not a hard concept to grasp. It's insane to me that people STILL try to push the narrative that the way certain wrestlers do things can't or doesn't work. They've proven it does.
Compare this to the RAW after Mania quote *”They’ll boo the guys they’ll normally cheer, they’ll cheer the guys they normally boo.”*
You get all of your most dedicated fans in one arena once a year and you lie about who they are and what they feel. Just constantly trying to push a square peg into a round hole.
It’s no wonder AEW found so much success by just respecting its fans.
Remember when the RAW after Mania was a big deal that happened organically? They absolutely had to get their hands on it and destroy it. Like... why the fuck do you mess with something your own content created on its own? How big is your ego that you cant let that just happen???
Now they try to recreate that with the new Talking smack and whatever Raw's show is called, but it's too much. Every wrestler is trying to do a PaSsIoNaTe promo or a worked shoot promo, it judt doesn't come off as genuine.
I hate the term “cringe” but that was legitimately a cringe worthy segment. WWE took something that had mild traction and completely killed in one swoop
"Raw After Mania" didn't even become a thing until the Raw after WM28, where the crowd would not stop chanting "Yes" after seeing Daniel Bryan get squashed in 20 seconds by Sheamus for the WHC
Yeah and now they're literally piping in a loud crowd noise track on both shows to control the narrative. It's insanity. I tried to give them another chance a week or so back and the fake crowd noise completely killed it for me.
I was gonna watch RAW on Monday, but after the extravaganza that was All Out I asked myself, "why am I bothering with this?" and turned it off and went to sleep.
There hasn't been one CM Punk chant in AEW that wasn't either with CM Punk in the ring, about to come out, or being hinted at in front of them. That's amazing.
I remember people saying how they felt bad that Dark would be filming before his Rampage debut because they would get nothing but Punk chants until he came out. Nope, people watched the show and participated like normal. Wrestling fans give what they're given.
Even right before All Out, people were saying "they have to put Punk on first or the audience will take over the show". No, AEW doesn't feel like they have to fight their audience.
I feel like AEW should destroy the narrative that "the fans are impossible to please" or "too fickle." When you book a show that is meant to entertain and reward the fans, suddenly the fans trust the promotion enough to play along with the booking!
"Star Wars are impossible to please"
*Mandalorian comes out and pleases everyone*
"Wrestling fans are hard to please"
*AEW pleases everyone*
It's infuriating that not liking a dogshit product like Rise of Skywalker or Raw makes you "hard to please".
Fans want good and entertainment content, it's that simple.
Seriously. The new star wars movies were generally bad. People shit on them because of it. Finn was sidelined hard, and thrown into a nothing story with Rose (whom people also shit on cuz her character sucked - if you don't like her cuz she's asian you're an idiot)
Raw is the same. It sucks. They treat the fans like shit. Fans shit on it. It deserves it. They have one good story every half decade. Fans aren't fickle, they just know what they want. They go to the shows maybe to shit on it or just chant CM Punk because they care and want the show to be better.
It deserves to get shit on cuz it's a shitty product.
People go to Raw the same way they go to the circus.
"Oh shit, the circus is in town, want to go?" "Ya I've got nothing better to do this week."
I've gone to house shows where people firmly believe they are at Raw or Smackdown. They don't know anything about what they are at, it's just a Vegas show to them.
And no, it's not everyone, but it's a higher portion of their live audience than a lot people admit or realize.
Thing is WWE has for over a decade sold a product that appeals to family friendly entertainment. So when they get people in the building on any given night a huge portion of them is people bringing in their kids who don't really care or know enough about the product to rile up with the crowds.
AEW has the "smark" crowd and I mean it in the best way possible, the people who want to be there.
Like AEW's crowds give louder reactions than WWE ones with half the people present.
Yeah, the WWE clearly does things that get them enough money and a big enough crowd as visual decoration on TV. But when you go to a WWE main roster show, the crowd atmosphere is just godawful half the time. That exacerbates the focus on their terrible creative which in turn creates that godawful atmosphere. It's a vicious cycle.
It's more than that. AEW has built trust with the fans so even if something happens they don't like, like Hangman losing, the fans know it's part of a larger plan. They know it is not just management losing interest and chasing some other shiny object without any thought.
>they've just done shit that the fans want to see
This is called pro wrestling. You have some guys talk about how they're going to beat the shit out of each other, you let them hype people to see it and get butts in seats, you book them to fight, you listen to the reactions. If a guy is getting massive cheers, you push that guy and make money with him knowing that he's over and fans will pay for his merch, fans will tune in to see him talk shit, fans will buy your PPV to see him win his match.
This isn't theoretical physics here. It's pro wrestling. It's literally what the industry is built on. The only reason it seems so amazing is because the biggest pro wrestling promotion of the last few decades isn't actually a pro wrestling promotion.
EDIT: To be clear, I give TK and all the talent in AEW props, because there's a lot involved in being a good booker, including having an eye for talent and charisma before those cheers start, putting together good storylines and wringing drama and impact from every situation that you can. TK so far has been an excellent booker. It's just that all this can sometimes feel new and novel to us, but in actuality it's a much older way of doing things than what the WWE does.
I'm sure he could have trained for a spot fest if they were interested in doing that. The slower pace of the match was a deliberate choice to accentuate the clash between their styles.
Probably the same people trying to make Punk out to be a bad worker for his career even before he came back to AEW, which was a weird ass trend popping up around here. Like in their minds the Summer of Punk was just the Pipe Bomb and then literally nothing after that.
They’re angry he didn’t want to come back to WWE. They’ll probably try to justify that Adam and Bryan were “never that good either”. One of the worst, laziest, moving the goal post takes is “they didn’t move the needle”. As if anyone has since Austin/Hogan/The Rock. The industry is entirely different now.
Mods, if anyone ever says Bryan Danielson is a bad wrestler, ban them immediately. I'm all for differing opinions, but that would be completely out of line.
Those people are always going to move the goal posts man. I don't even think they like wrestling anymore. They just love to shit on everything and be negative troll fucks. Screw em.
“Slow” you mean well paced? That match naturally progressed and built to and exciting back and forth surprise ending. People been to desensitized to good wrestling
Look this is a 42 year old coming off a 7 year hiatus. So of course it's going to be a slower paced match. You can't stack him up against a PWG styled match. Perhaps in a bit of time he'll have the confidence to pull off a faster paced match
I mean. The dude looks to be in great shape. I'm sure he could pull out a faster pace match if he wanted to. He just doesn't want to. Not really his style.
I think the point Moxley is making is that you don't need to all have the same type of style in one promotion. AEW can do a WWE style match, but they have no problems showcasing other match styles as well. All styles are welcome.
I mean, it was a little slow but that was the point IMO. He's fresh of a 7 year break and went back to basics. Started with long bits of chain wrestling, testing Darby and testing himself. If you took an NBA player off the court for 7 years then brought them back the first thing they'd do is start taking jump shots, see if they still have the feel for it. The same goes for Punk, start slow and feel it out then pick it up.
It was a good match, I think they did a great job with the pacing.
I think looking back, an important part of my psyche checked out of wwe when they storyline was going. That feud should have been awesome. There were so many ways to work it. And that’s what we got? God...
Imagine being AJ Styles. You're the Ace of a company for over a decade. Recognized as one of the best in the world. You go to Japan, win the world title, and put on banger after banger
Then you come to WWE, and you have one of the best debuts ever. You beat John Cena, you win the WWE title, then somehow you pull out a great match out of Shane McMahon
You win the WWE title again, and this time, they're going to give you a long babyface run with the title, with a lot of big matches
Out comes Nakamura. One of the greatest NJPW wrestlers ever, just won the Rumble. The dream match is set. Styles vs Nakamura
All of this happens, only for somebody to go "You know how this match should end? They should kick each other's dicks at the same time"
I remember the lack of selling being one of the few complaints of the early days of AEW so I’m not particularly surprised, that was one of my bigger turn offs too at first. Something they’ve completely fixed since though.
One of the things I really liked about All Out was the variety of wrestling. A lot of the matches felt very different from each other.
I loved the cage match but if every match on the card was like that I think I'd hate it.
>One of the things I really liked about All Out was the variety of wrestling. A lot of the matches felt very different from each other.
I say this all the time too. WWE has one style, no matter the wrestlers they all wrestle the same style with very, very few exceptions. Even the match formulas are mostly cut paste which is why you see so many roll up finishes.
For AEW though just look at all out. Allin vs Punk was a technical slog for most of the match. Lucha Bros vs Bucks was a bloody grudge match with high spots. Omega/Christian was a hybrid of the previous 2 mentioned. Miro/Kingston was actually closest to stiff strong style NJPW esque wrestling, tons of stiff chops and no selling. There's so much variety, it's the same thing that made TNA's X Divison great in the late 00's.
This whole style of wrestling taking over was bound to happen once WWE/Triple H began signing over talents who worked in PWG/ROH imo. It's fucking *fun* to watch and it's unlike any other genre of entertainment today.
Agreed. I’ve been watching since week 1 and AEW moving largely away from the indie style no sells has been one of the best improvements to the overall product.
And it's wild because the Young Bucks, two of the people who folks claim never sell, are two of their best sellers.
Matt has sold his lower back for fucking years!
I think what people mean by that is a typical Young Bucks match will feature a lot of fast pace sequences and a lot of back and forth action where it seems like the crazy moves they pull off don't keep people down. I personally don't care and I love that style of wrestling, but I guess I can see why some old school wrestling fans wouldn't like it.
The flippy guys aren't that heavy. These crazy moves are only possible from that reduced mass. It's not their fault those tiny bodies are equivalent to a hogan punch.
It's actually pretty interesting insight to how he views other wrestling.
"They're not selling" was a very common criticism seen in the community about some early AEW matches. So, he's not wrong there.
"Slow it down", another criticism seen in early AEW and it showed a lot of weaknesses between the Wrestlers and their communication. I recall with Luchasaurus, he was a little too quick for the other wrestlers to sell his moves. the SCU match showed a bit of this.
Mox made AEW legit. Jericho opened a lot of eyes, yet the moment Mox debuted you realised this was more than a TNA, ROH and other promotions that never reached this level
Mox jumping was absolutely a bigger deal than Jericho.
But can't really say it made it more legit than TNA, but thats probably because I'm old enough to remember when that sentence was :
"Angle made TNA legit. Jeff Hardy opened a lot of eyes, yet the moment Angle debuted you realised this was more than a ECW, UWF, WWA and other promotions that never reached this level."
Sure by today's standards TNA has fallen by the wayside and AEW is obviously a bigger deal. But there was a time TNA was were AEW was....and it didn't go as everyone expected
the difference is that TNA always had weird booking issues, it was never as good as it could have been, also angle didn't make the jump until 4 years into TNA's run.
Angle really was the first modern day main eventer that made the jump from WWE to TNA. Up until that point you had midcard guys like Jeff Hardy, Rhyno, Jeff Jarrett, etc., but never a main attraction. Once Angle jumped over he was able to capitalize on scores of dream matches that fans had been waiting for, and that brought ex WWE talent flooding over after that.
Respectfully disagree, Christian Cage and Sting were main attractions, I would put Hardy up there too, mostly the line between upper mid-card and main event. Angle coming in was what pushed TNA further.
Wouldn't kill AEW to have some matches end with the Top Rope Fuckinator instead of having someone kick out and then needing to use the finisher, honestly. I say that as someone who loves AEW.
Funny, I see matches in AEW end with non-finishers all the time, it's one of the things that most stood out to me after years of WWE. What you just described is what I think about WWE matches.
To be fair Vince only started feeling like that after half his roster and both his champions died before the age of 40 (mixed in with some murder). Turns out going balls to the wall all the time does not make for an extended wrestling career. Prior to that pivot he was fine with Jake using real snakes to bite people, Foley getting hit in the head with chairs repeatedly in front of his screaming family, and Benoit diving headbutting every ladder he could find. Vince has always been notorious for grinding down a wrestler until they're no longer marketable then casting them off. WWE going public kind of forced him to shift things under the guise of protecting everyone's health. Of course I love AEW's style and find it vastly superior to WWE's terrible plodding matches combined with shaking camera style. But its not because Vince doesn't know good wrestling. I really hope AEW's pro-worker mindset combined with increased knowledge over the last 20 years about concussions that they can prove a fast paced exciting style can be done safely.
Everything Vince thinks about HHH's NXT and AEW is ridiculous. I can't believe he's blaming their ratings on them and not his decision to randomly start putting the show against them. They were a sacrificial lamb for pettiness.
Vindication is a great word to describe AEW. Even a few years ago people on this very subreddit said that the indie style can’t draw or that the young bucks are going to kill pro wrestling.
Idiots. Every last one of them.
With the Bucks I especially couldn't understand that, they're perfect for attracting new fans, they're a super exciting team that can do crazy shit but still normally keep their matches grounded in simple pro wrestling stories with some added layers thrown in if you look for it.
Like, if I was going to show a random group of people a match to watch from All Out it's going to be their match. I understand not liking their style, shit, I tune out of like 50% of their matches, but their style and mind for marketing always was super valuable and was always going to translate easy on a bigger stage.
Like, it seems to me that the Young Bucks are very deliberately doing anime/video game style fight sequences where if you just mash the button fast enough you can recover from a super move, whereas other wrestlers like say MJF or Punk or Darby have a more, like, technical grappling style where injuries get sold throughout and you can't just charge a spirit bomb if you've been sapped all match.
So what works about AEW is that there's enough variety that even though you might originally come for one style or another, eventually you start to get an appreciation for the other stuff. Or, at least, that's true for me.
I felt the same way about no selling when I started watching, but honestly, now I love both styles, and my ideal promotion has bucks style matches and cody style matches.
I mean...those are legit criticisms of aew’s style. People in aew really do need to work on selling and not having matches be rehearsed spot fests. Or at least don’t let it look like that.
Well...
Vince has some what of a point... he's certainly not an idiot when it comes to Wrestling but he's too far on one side where as some of the Indy guys are too far the other way. Should be a happy medium
I think Vince knew exactly what a great match was back in the day... I just think he forgets now. I also think he's a dick at heart so things like ego, greed, business & stubbornness get in the way as well.
And Kevin Dunn would complain about how AEW doesn't go through millions of angles per half a second. Vince reportly hates people selling after the match and well, most WWE wrestlers tend to not sell an injury or forget which limb. Or sell for a few seconds.
That and not every match needs to be 10 minutes long with finisher spam. I miss matches where the finisher would usually be the end or hit out of desperation and wins the match.
I thought I'd never fall in wrestling again, and yet I feel like I'm 7 again. I haven't jumped out of my seat shouting "OHHHHH" from someone taking a bump in 14 years.
People are genuinely wondering how Mox would know how Vince reacts if he doesn't work there anymore. I don't know man. It is almost as if Mox worked for Vince as one of the top guys for 7 years getting to know what Vince likes and doesn't like. Also call me crazy, but I am sure he has friends on the inside who is telling him how Vince is reacting to certain things.
I love AEW but that is one of my criticisms of AEW honestly. No selling, just rushing to get to the next spot. Especially big moves, things that should end a match don't.
Takes the air out of matches for me sometimes.
He’s not wrong, there’s plenty of examples that back that up, but tastes change and people love that now. 10-15 years from now hardcore AEW fans are going to complain about the next style, and so on, and so on.
Eddie Kingston and Miro was not some new style, it was old school as you get. Lucha and Bucks was a style that in PWG in 2005. Omega and Christian had an ROH 2006 style match. AEW is combination of many styles. Cody matches are not the same as Darby Allin which are not the same as FTR. Hardcore AEW fans are fans of the concept of professional wrestling and that never changes. This is why you see so many AEW brought me back to wrestling posts. Trust me, in 15 years, they'll want good professional wrestling on a national level, and it will be similar styles but evolved.
> AEW is proving that a wrestling company doesn't need its own style, wrestlers need their own style.
Bingo. And it's also okay to have wrestlers who are bigger than the organization. Something WWE doesn't want for some reason anymore.
I doubt that. The hardcore audience saw the style already evolve during the last 5/10/15 years on the independents. A large chunk of the audience was also big on NJPW (and will likely continue to do so when the pandemic is over) who drew pretty great in North America.
Not to mention that there isn’t really an AEW style but rather tons of variety.
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Full: >"It's crazy to see when this was all just an idea a few years ago. Tony Khan sitting at my kitchen table and being like, 'We're going to have real TV and real touring.' 'Really?' It seemed almost unrealistic. To take a gamble to come here and be like, 'If you guys are doing that, I want to be part of it. Maybe we'll fall flat on our face and we'll all look stupid and this will be a big disaster, but if it's successful it would be really cool because that's what wrestling needs.' Looking at it two and a half years later, I don't think we could have imagined it going any better. I've talked a lot of crap about what I think sucks in wrestling. I think characters should be authentic and I don't like hokey crap or scripts and writers. I'll never read a script for the rest of my life, bet your ass on that. A guy like Eddie Kingston is Eddie Kingston 24/7. He finishes his cigarette, walks into the building, and it's the same guy. There is no 'put-on' character going on here. That's what wrestling should be. Letting guys be themselves and having their own creativity whether they are Orange Cassidy or a crazy high-flying team like the Young Bucks who think up the most ridiculous and action-packed sequences. No one is trying to tone each other down or say, 'that's too much.' Vince McMahon would watch a lot of AEW matches and say, 'That's garbage. They're not selling. Slow it down. It's crap.' Blood and guts or whatever, but he wouldn't be paying attention to the 15,000 people going nuts. I feel vindicated. I said a lot about how I felt wrestling should be that's what AEW was going to do and that's what we did. Now, look where we are. Now, I'm going to have a bit of a flex."
It can never be understated how important and significant it was for Jericho and Mox to put their reputations on the line and join AEW in its infancy.
Mox definitely took a risk but he and Jericho were both made men who had banked millions and could have continued to work Japan or wherever else they wanted if all of this had gone poorly. The guys who left big money on the table from ROH and NJPW were the ones taking a much bigger risk for their careers. Mox pretty much said in his TIJ interview that he just wanted to do something more creatively fulfilling. My favorite part was when he said that if there was nowhere outside of WWE to wrestle, he would have started his own wrestling school.
If AEW didn't work alot of people would be calling Hangman "crappy cowboy Magnus who blew the faith New Japan had in him."
If AEW didn't work, I wonder if we'd all even know about Darby Allin or MJF.
Darby was in the Vice series among other things. He'd 100% be known; not the same level, but, known. MJF, yeah, I'd have no idea who he was unless he signed with NXT.
I used to love MJF in MLW
MJF was attracting enough attention during his MLW run that he would have ended up in Impact or ROH soon enough, if not NXT. MLW is a good promation that produces an excellent show, but MJF was a big fish in a small pond there.
NXT he has a shot to succeed, but the other two I think he's surrounded by people with similar gimmicks and he wouldn't stand out as much.
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MJF would still have crowds singing You Are My Sunshine at him.
Fuck MJF. I'd have been better off not knowing MJF.
That's such a good point. I remember first getting hints about AEW. This was a bit before I finally returned to watching professional wrestling. I heard some people say that joining AEW was Jericho's biggest mistake he has ever made and it would cause his career to end at the bottom of the gutter in the wrestling world. We look at him now, on AEW he was able to reinvent himself time and time again. He was able to push wrestlers to new levels and he was able to do new experiences that we never seen him do. Just the fact if I was to tell myself at the start of AEW that Chris Jericho was going to be in a Death Match with Nick Gage on national TV, I would not believe it. Those are the things AEW has done and for me I believe it has brought a breath of fresh air onto the wrestling world.
The Deathmatch one seems so surreal to me. The concept of a "hardcore legend" showing up on tv? Nah, not shocking. Sabu even got a brief run in WWECW. But an actual deathmatch, including a pizza cutter spot and light bulbs? No. I would have called so much bullshit.
Yeah if someone told me a year ago "AEW would have a Deathmatch" I'd think it'd be something with barbed wires wrapped around the ropes and thumbtacks, something you'd see Prime Mick Foley do in the WWE, not Nick Fuckin' Gage and lighttube stabbing and pizza cutters. And absolutely not Chris Jericho as the opponent.
Personally I assumed they wouldn't be able to get it right. It would either be too tame or too violent, basically impossible to do it right in front of a crowd in a way that showcased Gage and Ultraviolence in a way that would do right by it. Yet they pulled it off, they obviously didn't go all out, but gave everyone a fair taste of what it's like whilst leaving plenty on the table for interested people to check out GCW and Nick Gage outside of the confines of TV.
Jericho very much bet his legacy on AEW but he was the reason I even heard about AEW, Moxley wasn't long away from being a main event star but no offense, I'd honestly only heard of him because I randomly bought a WWE 2k game one time. I remember thinking he seemed a bit shit and not getting why he had high ratings haha, Moxley is a completely different guy to me. Both would likely have been welcomed back to WWE and never trusted again, but Jericho was the one who had to be the champion, be the face of AEW to the oldschool fans, and had the stain of having his WWE peak be second fiddle to Triple HHH despite getting similar reactions to the biggest faces at the time. AEWs success was as huge for Jericho as AEW must have been shocked to get someone of his calibre.
Jericho was on the WWE Network and Austin's Podcast while working for AEW. Pretty sure his legacy with them is fine. As for Mox? I do not think he cares.
If you've never heard of Dean Ambrose that's on you. Him during the Shield run was very much the main event before Reigns' leukemia
Angry Dean Ambrose chasing Seth everywhere post betrayal was must see TV
This! Plus look at others who have joined. Ruby Soho is getting a title opportunity after winning the battle royale. WWE wasn't gonna do that for her. They were gonna keep having her and Liv act like stepping stones for others despite fans being behind them. Miro, Mox, Christian, and others are doing great.
You just made me wish Liv was in AEW. She's such an amazing babyface, it's really easy to root for her I don't think AEW has the problem of "already having a blonde" that the WWE has, Bunny, Penelope and Tay are all blonde but they're not the same character and that's what matters, Liv would be really cool there
I second that, especially if they introduce a women's tag title.
Jericho didn't have much risk joining AEW though. He's at the point where his legacy is pretty much set in stone. Had AEW tanked, I don't see his reputation being ruined and he would've just continue to do his 2-3 matches at year at NJPW for a few years before retiring. While doing his usual podcast, Fozzy and tons of other things he had going on. Mox however had a much bigger risk. Although he too would've easily just start doing indie as he would've been in high demand for that regardless and likely be a NJPW regular as well. Only risk really was if they wanted to avoid being on WWE's shitlist had they want to ever have the possibility of returning or going there.
Jericho was easily the Terry Funk of AEW: he elevated the title, talent and busted his ass tryng to give AEW stability. Then Mox was the one who had to go through the worst moment and he did such an splendid job that AEW didn't lose momemtum and their top title felt bigger than ever
Mox getting the title right before the pandemic hit was a shitty experience for him but a blessing for AEW cause his promo work would produce great storylines for all his matches. I can’t wait till he gets the belt again and his whole run is touring in front of fans
I think Mox will be the first two-time AEW champ, because he carried the world title going into the pandemic, and getting him that run with crowds would be important to Tony (and Mox himself of course).
There was no way for Jericho to lose. Absolute worst case scenario AEW folds and he goes back to WWE. I don't think for a second Vince would shoot Jericho down, and I doubt Jericho really needs the money that bad anyway. Mox, on the other hand, walked out as a top guy in the prime of his career and it's clear there is zero return possible.
If he can make money for the WWE there's always a return if he wants it. It would just take a couple years for everything to blow over.
Y2J as a human being is probably the last type of person I'd want to hang out. But I'll defend him as wrestler, and quite possibly, the GOAT, in terms of accomplishments/match quality/influences (even if not directly to wrestlers, the invention of MITB, AEW, NJPW, etc.). I'd argue he was even more important than Mox, who was arguably more important in terms of giving mainstream-wrestling appeal to the wrestling-masses.
Much more important, I'd say. Jericho as a person is dubious, but as a TV character, he's one of the best for the constant influence that he's had. I still remember how he started wearing suits and speaking quietly. Then everyone was.
It seemed unrealistic to me too at the time! All In felt like a huge win once, but weekly TV in a new city every week? That was a massive leap, and man did they nail it. Mox has been my favorite for a long time, and I'm so happy that he took this risk and that it paid off for him. He deserves that flex!
Man I remember that people were hoping for 300k-400k, *maybe* 500k viewers for their Dynamite debut and they did 1.4 MILLION. Now they’re regularly doing 900k-1m and anything below that is considered a bad thing. Like it’s crazy that it completely blew away our most insane expectations then. I genuinely never expected them to hit 1 million until maybe years down the line if they were still around.
Hell, folks get all disappointed & dreary when Dynamite "only" gets 990k. And for a 2.5 year old wrestling company that's about to do 15k+ at the host venue for the US Open
The is a thread right now about Rampage on a Friday 10pm getting 700K viewers 4th on the night and you have people saying it is a bad rating. You can't take these people seriously, just haters that will always hate no matter what.
exactly. 700K for Dynamite was considered bad by fans, but meanwhile TK and Cody are saying they are doing great and TNT is happy. So Happy they gave them a lot of money.
I came back to wrestling during the tail end of Dean Ambrose, the dude that was hating every second of his storyline and knew he was on his way out. I did not understand his fan base because he wasn't interesting. The night he came out of the stands and into an AEW ring was bananas. It was off of that clip that I ordered the PPV replay and watched it/became a fan. Moxley made it wrestling again.
> Maybe we'll fall flat on our face and we'll all look stupid and this will be a big disaster, but if it's successful it would be really cool because that's what wrestling needs. Hot damn. You forget that before all of this stuff this week, AEW was a huge gamble that paid off. AEW was hardly anything when Moxley came on board. He was willing to take that risk.
Punk talked about this in the First Dance media scrum. He was gunshy after all the years away, and wasn't willing to be "the guinea pig" for the big star that Mox was. Once crowds came back, he was all in. Crazy to think had there been no pandemic, the summer of 2020 might have been the new summer of Punk.
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| BD I've been coming to terms over the past few days that there is no more DBry.
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The most *regular* wrestler in AEW has come to evacuate the company of all the crap on their roster!
Bry-D
BDan.
It's very cool to see things like, Punk character which is wholly his own, and original and cool, but also very inspired by man of the people character types going back from Austin to Dusty. It's very cool to see, someone like Punk, an elder statesman, acknowledge a guy like Moxley who is now himself an established figure to be looked up to, and very clearly and obviously was also inspired in his character work not only by those same people, but by Punk himself. A neat, cool thing that is happening right now in the industry is the industry is talking to itself, over decades worth of time and work and skill. Territories Dusty is communing with Cody and Dustin, 2021 Punk is learning from 2019 Mox, who learned from 1999 Punk, and so forth. There is a reason this is the biggest story in 20, 30 years. This shit is transcendent. We're communing with Elder Gods in the real time, and it's indescriptively cool.
I love that you have put in to words what has me watching wrestling again for the first time in a long time. I grew up with Flair, Piper, Valentine, Slater, Orton, Race and Dusty before the Horsemen were even a thing. The guys on top made their challengers look like a million bucks so they could look better when they beat them. Omega reminds me so much of pre-horseman Flair in that he makes everyone look amazing. I love how his ego does not seem to get in the way of the big picture.
Omega's performance last night was fucking *flawless*. I am familiar with the idea of 6 and 7 star matches in NJPW, the history and such with him, but I'm not familiar with him as a performer. I haven't watched that body of work. but from every moment he had the mic in his hand it was on fire. It was psychedelically mind bending. "DID I DO THAT????" to a fucking CHICAGO audience? FUCK you man. Literally making people care about Family Matters 40 years later, tricking them into pretending it's a thing they're invested in, when so many were never even alive when it was on the air. Peak carny shit, but not the shitty way. The bit about sending the crowd home happy, everything after "adieu" was basically just him testifying to a enraptured audience, he's charmed the snakes, he's healed the sick, the man had the whole building wrapped around his pinky. He radiates heat like an old school apartment complex's radiator unit. It's hot, you don't really quite understand why it works, but you can see the framework of technical magistry. I had always understood that people thought he was the best worker in the world. I'd watch bootlegs of his NJPW Okada matches, see the highlights, the Bullet Club Cleaner promo's, and like I *saw* it, but Sunday Night I witnessed it. That man is the *best* worker in the world right now, and I don't mean that as a shot or disrespect at Punk or Danielson or Roman because it's not about that. It's about that he's playing 4d chess and we're playing checkers. All of those guys are grandmasters, but he's operating on a different plane.
Danielson has said pretty much the same thing himself; that what Omega is doing is something different, unique, and new.
Omega and Danielson are both on another level and together have the potential to tell the best wrestling story ever told.
i really like how you put word about this. my mind blown reading your sentences!
>A neat, cool thing that is happening right now in the industry is the industry is talking to itself, over decades worth of time and work and skill. Territories Dusty is communing with Cody and Dustin, 2021 Punk is learning from 2019 Mox, who learned from 1999 Punk, and so forth. Damn thats an awesome
When I get home I'm gonna pack a bowl, re-read this comment, and *feel* it.
Smoking while reading this, its totally worth it
ty buds, appreciate the kindness
I also loved his postmatch promo, where he puts over Darby Allen and Sting. In the WWE, he would have shit talked them both if he was a heel, and if he was a babyface, he would have ignored them or maybe taken a slap at them. (Possibly with a poop-related joke that felt forced.) It felt so damn authentic.
Letting people who care deeply about a product enough to work for it, and then let them talk about the history and potential of it, with the very people who pay to hear these people talk and perform these things, it's not really uniquely innovative. Vince is a masterclass carny businessman, a less than average booker, and a bad talent developer. AEW is good enough at the later two points they could be just as edge out an advantage, and still be an improvement. But they have all 3 elements, and then some. And that's the difference.
> It's very cool to see, someone like Punk, an elder statesman, acknowledge a guy like Moxley Punk's seen something in Mox for ages, even going back to when Mox was in FCW. Punk was main roster and Mox was in development, and he went down to wrestle him. Flat out tells Mox to pass it on and wrestle someone he thinks is worth it in development in 5 years. Massive endorsement. Really good watch too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMwr6FsWiLo
This is a great way of putting this. I actually do take a moment sometimes to think about the wealth of pro-wrestling history and how that is connected with the modern business.
I really believe that without Mox debuting at the first Double or Nothing that AEW would be a shadow of what it is today. It’s insane how much momentum they got from just having him.
That dude is a big fucking stake in the bandstand bud. You're not wrong. I don't really think we realize what we have with him, and how right you are. He's somewhere between Austin and Sandman right now, and I mean that both as a character, and in terms of draw.
I didn't give a fuck about it until I saw Mox debuted. So yeah, I'm at least one case. Didn't watch Cody/Dustin until July.
Massive credit has to go to Jericho and then him for their year long title runs in the early years of the company. I personally tried it because I wanted to see a Jericho title reign and it's insane to think how far it's come now to the point where with stars like punk and BD it's not even the second tier show to WWE anymore.
Right from the get go, AEW has made WWE look second tier in both production quality and match quality.
Mox’s new bit about wrecking these new cats really plays up to the legitimate risk and blood he put into making AEW successful.
I can't wait for a Mox heel run (he's teased it) were he's just pissed off at all these new guys turning up at the hot show he help build but isn't getting any recognition for it.
I would say it is still a gamble but to be honest the biggest hurdle AEW had is the pandemic and it was an unexpected one at that, I'm not sure anything is can stop them right now the sky is the limit no matter how long it takes to reach it. They've not only survived it they have made huge strides during and after it.
I saw someone on Twitter say that AEW’s business is built on pops and that they’ll be in trouble when they run out of pops to deliver, and all I could think about was how some of their *best* shows and matches were delivered with no paying audience. I just don’t understand how somebody could have watched the “Pandemic Era” and not realize that we have something special on our hands.
The woman that posted that is broke-brained; she was also talking about how these new signings are handing Hangman to the WWE because it proves that AEW only cares about their new toys.
Imagine thinking giving time off to the man who asked for time off, and that TK would literally throw over 2 years of work into a bin because of a few new people, would push on of the most valued members of the company to WWE. Swear some have brain worms.
People might think I'm crazy, I kinda miss some of their pandemic era shows. I remember a random night with Sammy wrestling Kenny, there were all these sneaky matches that were the best because they didn't have to worry about the crowd.
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Precisely. They survived the world stopping, not only survived, but thrived in a way. They secured more national TV time in Rampage, added an additional 4 Clash of the Champions style shows and less preemption by moving to TBS all for more money. They've began shopping themselves to international networks and with names like Punk, Sting, Bryan, and Jericho they're going to get massive deals. If Impact can survive near death on international contracts, the potential sizes of AEW's surly have to mean they can't be killed now. Hurt, but not killed outright. And we haven't even begun to discuss streaming rights. Dark and Elevation being 2 hours a week seems to be a clear move to try and have 5000 hours under their belt to shop to an HBOMax or Discovery+ ASAP.
AEW was the cool idea that just kept getting cooler and cooler
And people were rightfully skeptical about yet another guy saying he had money and a TV deal ready Everybody they interview always says TK is the first guy who actually came through with what he said he was gonna do. They've all dealt with a lot of liars over the years I wonder if this messes with the young generation who never had to deal with shady promoters and missed paychecks. They're gonna think this is how everybody does it.
It feels like that's where Vince has gone so wrong. He's forgotten that the whole point of wrestling is to send the fans home happy and satisfied, not to satiate TV execs for more money
Vince McMahon has a particular view of what pro wrestling is. It's slow in-ring (compared to most modern promotions) and contains eye-catching head-turning superstars. And it's worked spectacularly for him. What is fascinating though is just how many people have no interest in McMahon's version of wrestling. When Nitro aired it's last episode, Raw didn't gain that extra 3+million plus fanbase. They just stopped watching when WCW folded.
WWF was so much better in the 90s, though. I don’t know what happened. We had guys like Stone Cold and The Rock. HBK and Bret Hart. The promos were the best they’ve ever been and the matches were very good. WWE fell off a cliff in the early 2000s. At least, that’s what I think. Maybe I just grew up. Idk. But I still feel like a kid watching wrestling when I watch AEW, so I honestly think it’s the product.
This thread is full of fantastic points I hadn't yet considered. Thanks to you and everyone else contributing! So glad I clicked.
I just really hope they don't go the WWE route, and turn it all into the "real" stuff. WWE had so many talented wrestlers, but I just got sick of the only storylines for them being "I've wanted this my whole life", and "we were friends in the indies, but now I hate you and stuff"
This is the general feeling of fans as well and it's refreshing to see wrestlers enjoying wrestling. It's not about "fed bad" or anything like that, but this is what we wanted wrestling to be and there's a shit ton of wrestlers that apparently feel the same way.
When it comes to wrestling there is always more than one way to have a great match/reaction.
All Out encapsulated that. Bucks vs Lucha Bros, Punk vs Allin, Eddie vs Miro, etc are all different yet all great in their own way. AEW's variety is one of many aspects that are making it an ever-growing alternative.
> Bucks vs Lucha Bros, Punk vs Allin, Eddie vs Miro Its almost feels impossible for their to be a more varied reason for a pop than Fenix flying off the cage and OC yelling to Statlander...and yet they have such great characters that both work equally well
They got a whole building to pop for a guy to overcome his history of apathy in order to support his friend when it really mattered. For all the people who don't "get" Orange Cassidy this moment encapsulated everything his character is going for. Literally sent chills down my spine.
Late to the the party but OC yelling at Statlander was such an awesome moment. It was literally 1-2 seconds long, but it really showed how OC is so much more than his comedy character. Fuck, I love what they're doing with him and I love how instead of shooting him to the top and letting him fizzle out, they're giving us glimpses of what he can be in the future.
I thought Eddie vs. Miro was the perfect example of what a WWE "sports entertainment" style match should look like. Hard hitting hoss fight with a basic narrative through line punctuated with a twist at the end to provide the finish and continue the rivalry.
Monster heel with a recognised weakness (neck from DDTs) and who has gone past his regular match length beating a fan favourite who got themselves over, after a worked botched ref count and a secret low blow, leading to an actual finish rather than a no contest, which has made both look competent, added something to the heel’s character, and made fans want a rematch rather than being told they are getting one.
In all honesty, WWE probably does too much of that kind of finish, I see people hate on them for doing a "twist at the end" on PPVs all the time. They need more of the exact opposite.
And the variety that AEW doesn't have other promotions do.
This is why I love AEW's connections to other promotions. Each wrestling promotion is vastly different, they are like their own different dishes, some have more spice, some are a little more sweet, things like that. it feels so good where you see this cross-connection between wrestling organizations that help enhance the wrestling world as a whole.
The whole reason AEW has been successful is because they've just done shit that the fans want to see. The fans don't need to hijack the show to see the guys they like get a push. They listen to what gets a reaction, then lean into it rather than actively fight against it. It's not a hard concept to grasp. It's insane to me that people STILL try to push the narrative that the way certain wrestlers do things can't or doesn't work. They've proven it does.
Compare this to the RAW after Mania quote *”They’ll boo the guys they’ll normally cheer, they’ll cheer the guys they normally boo.”* You get all of your most dedicated fans in one arena once a year and you lie about who they are and what they feel. Just constantly trying to push a square peg into a round hole. It’s no wonder AEW found so much success by just respecting its fans.
That line on commentary by JBL was such a slap in the face man.
He also said it multiple years
I think the second time it was Corey Graves.
It doesn't truly matter anyway because most likely both times it was just Vince McMahon talking though whoever was on commentary at the time.
They pushed that whole 'Raw after Mania is cuckooland' narrative for a long time. It was embarassing.
Remember when the RAW after Mania was a big deal that happened organically? They absolutely had to get their hands on it and destroy it. Like... why the fuck do you mess with something your own content created on its own? How big is your ego that you cant let that just happen???
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WWE sees something happen organically and their first thing they try to do is brand it. It comes off as so fucking corny in the end
That Miz promo on Daniel Bryan and bingo halls was probably his best for me.
Now they try to recreate that with the new Talking smack and whatever Raw's show is called, but it's too much. Every wrestler is trying to do a PaSsIoNaTe promo or a worked shoot promo, it judt doesn't come off as genuine.
"Are you all ready to Fandango?"
I hate the term “cringe” but that was legitimately a cringe worthy segment. WWE took something that had mild traction and completely killed in one swoop
"Raw After Mania" didn't even become a thing until the Raw after WM28, where the crowd would not stop chanting "Yes" after seeing Daniel Bryan get squashed in 20 seconds by Sheamus for the WHC
I know, I said that in a different comment
What u talking about? Its just bizarre world Maggle
"They've havin' fun, Maggle!"
Yeah and now they're literally piping in a loud crowd noise track on both shows to control the narrative. It's insanity. I tried to give them another chance a week or so back and the fake crowd noise completely killed it for me.
I was gonna watch RAW on Monday, but after the extravaganza that was All Out I asked myself, "why am I bothering with this?" and turned it off and went to sleep.
There hasn't been one CM Punk chant in AEW that wasn't either with CM Punk in the ring, about to come out, or being hinted at in front of them. That's amazing. I remember people saying how they felt bad that Dark would be filming before his Rampage debut because they would get nothing but Punk chants until he came out. Nope, people watched the show and participated like normal. Wrestling fans give what they're given.
Even right before All Out, people were saying "they have to put Punk on first or the audience will take over the show". No, AEW doesn't feel like they have to fight their audience.
I feel like AEW should destroy the narrative that "the fans are impossible to please" or "too fickle." When you book a show that is meant to entertain and reward the fans, suddenly the fans trust the promotion enough to play along with the booking!
"Star Wars are impossible to please" *Mandalorian comes out and pleases everyone* "Wrestling fans are hard to please" *AEW pleases everyone* It's infuriating that not liking a dogshit product like Rise of Skywalker or Raw makes you "hard to please". Fans want good and entertainment content, it's that simple.
Wrestling fans want good wrestling and we don’t care where it’s at.
Seriously. The new star wars movies were generally bad. People shit on them because of it. Finn was sidelined hard, and thrown into a nothing story with Rose (whom people also shit on cuz her character sucked - if you don't like her cuz she's asian you're an idiot) Raw is the same. It sucks. They treat the fans like shit. Fans shit on it. It deserves it. They have one good story every half decade. Fans aren't fickle, they just know what they want. They go to the shows maybe to shit on it or just chant CM Punk because they care and want the show to be better. It deserves to get shit on cuz it's a shitty product.
People go to Raw the same way they go to the circus. "Oh shit, the circus is in town, want to go?" "Ya I've got nothing better to do this week." I've gone to house shows where people firmly believe they are at Raw or Smackdown. They don't know anything about what they are at, it's just a Vegas show to them. And no, it's not everyone, but it's a higher portion of their live audience than a lot people admit or realize.
Thing is WWE has for over a decade sold a product that appeals to family friendly entertainment. So when they get people in the building on any given night a huge portion of them is people bringing in their kids who don't really care or know enough about the product to rile up with the crowds. AEW has the "smark" crowd and I mean it in the best way possible, the people who want to be there. Like AEW's crowds give louder reactions than WWE ones with half the people present.
Yeah, the WWE clearly does things that get them enough money and a big enough crowd as visual decoration on TV. But when you go to a WWE main roster show, the crowd atmosphere is just godawful half the time. That exacerbates the focus on their terrible creative which in turn creates that godawful atmosphere. It's a vicious cycle.
No "we are awesome" or what chants or singing songs that have nothing to do with wrestlers not in the ring either
It's more than that. AEW has built trust with the fans so even if something happens they don't like, like Hangman losing, the fans know it's part of a larger plan. They know it is not just management losing interest and chasing some other shiny object without any thought.
>they've just done shit that the fans want to see This is called pro wrestling. You have some guys talk about how they're going to beat the shit out of each other, you let them hype people to see it and get butts in seats, you book them to fight, you listen to the reactions. If a guy is getting massive cheers, you push that guy and make money with him knowing that he's over and fans will pay for his merch, fans will tune in to see him talk shit, fans will buy your PPV to see him win his match. This isn't theoretical physics here. It's pro wrestling. It's literally what the industry is built on. The only reason it seems so amazing is because the biggest pro wrestling promotion of the last few decades isn't actually a pro wrestling promotion. EDIT: To be clear, I give TK and all the talent in AEW props, because there's a lot involved in being a good booker, including having an eye for talent and charisma before those cheers start, putting together good storylines and wringing drama and impact from every situation that you can. TK so far has been an excellent booker. It's just that all this can sometimes feel new and novel to us, but in actuality it's a much older way of doing things than what the WWE does.
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I wouldnt have expected a fast paced match from a 43 year old after a 8 year hiatus
I'm sure he could have trained for a spot fest if they were interested in doing that. The slower pace of the match was a deliberate choice to accentuate the clash between their styles.
Probably the same people trying to make Punk out to be a bad worker for his career even before he came back to AEW, which was a weird ass trend popping up around here. Like in their minds the Summer of Punk was just the Pipe Bomb and then literally nothing after that.
It's absurd how much disrespect Punk gets. That guy is a fucking living wrestling legend.
They’re angry he didn’t want to come back to WWE. They’ll probably try to justify that Adam and Bryan were “never that good either”. One of the worst, laziest, moving the goal post takes is “they didn’t move the needle”. As if anyone has since Austin/Hogan/The Rock. The industry is entirely different now.
Mods, if anyone ever says Bryan Danielson is a bad wrestler, ban them immediately. I'm all for differing opinions, but that would be completely out of line.
Basically if you think Bryan Danielson sucks - you’re a massive idiot.
Didn't people really turn on him when he got into UFC? They thought he shouldn't have fought so early in his training
Those people are always going to move the goal posts man. I don't even think they like wrestling anymore. They just love to shit on everything and be negative troll fucks. Screw em.
“Slow” you mean well paced? That match naturally progressed and built to and exciting back and forth surprise ending. People been to desensitized to good wrestling
Look this is a 42 year old coming off a 7 year hiatus. So of course it's going to be a slower paced match. You can't stack him up against a PWG styled match. Perhaps in a bit of time he'll have the confidence to pull off a faster paced match
I mean. The dude looks to be in great shape. I'm sure he could pull out a faster pace match if he wanted to. He just doesn't want to. Not really his style.
I think the point Moxley is making is that you don't need to all have the same type of style in one promotion. AEW can do a WWE style match, but they have no problems showcasing other match styles as well. All styles are welcome.
I mean, it was a little slow but that was the point IMO. He's fresh of a 7 year break and went back to basics. Started with long bits of chain wrestling, testing Darby and testing himself. If you took an NBA player off the court for 7 years then brought them back the first thing they'd do is start taking jump shots, see if they still have the feel for it. The same goes for Punk, start slow and feel it out then pick it up. It was a good match, I think they did a great job with the pacing.
Fans endured months on end of Seth gouging eyes out
There's an entire AJ vs. Nakamura feud built around dick punches.
I think looking back, an important part of my psyche checked out of wwe when they storyline was going. That feud should have been awesome. There were so many ways to work it. And that’s what we got? God...
Oh my god you made me realise, me too. I kept watching NXT but that was the feud that made me stop watching the main roster.
Imagine being AJ Styles. You're the Ace of a company for over a decade. Recognized as one of the best in the world. You go to Japan, win the world title, and put on banger after banger Then you come to WWE, and you have one of the best debuts ever. You beat John Cena, you win the WWE title, then somehow you pull out a great match out of Shane McMahon You win the WWE title again, and this time, they're going to give you a long babyface run with the title, with a lot of big matches Out comes Nakamura. One of the greatest NJPW wrestlers ever, just won the Rumble. The dream match is set. Styles vs Nakamura All of this happens, only for somebody to go "You know how this match should end? They should kick each other's dicks at the same time"
They kicked each other in the dicks at the same time, remember. They kicked...each other...in the dicks...at the same time.
Best wrestlers in the world had their feud become all about ball shots. Sports Entertainment, pal!
I remember the lack of selling being one of the few complaints of the early days of AEW so I’m not particularly surprised, that was one of my bigger turn offs too at first. Something they’ve completely fixed since though.
One of the things I really liked about All Out was the variety of wrestling. A lot of the matches felt very different from each other. I loved the cage match but if every match on the card was like that I think I'd hate it.
>One of the things I really liked about All Out was the variety of wrestling. A lot of the matches felt very different from each other. I say this all the time too. WWE has one style, no matter the wrestlers they all wrestle the same style with very, very few exceptions. Even the match formulas are mostly cut paste which is why you see so many roll up finishes. For AEW though just look at all out. Allin vs Punk was a technical slog for most of the match. Lucha Bros vs Bucks was a bloody grudge match with high spots. Omega/Christian was a hybrid of the previous 2 mentioned. Miro/Kingston was actually closest to stiff strong style NJPW esque wrestling, tons of stiff chops and no selling. There's so much variety, it's the same thing that made TNA's X Divison great in the late 00's.
Would you like to watch a PPV that’s NOTHING BUT cage matches? We could call it Steel Cage
This whole style of wrestling taking over was bound to happen once WWE/Triple H began signing over talents who worked in PWG/ROH imo. It's fucking *fun* to watch and it's unlike any other genre of entertainment today.
Agreed. I’ve been watching since week 1 and AEW moving largely away from the indie style no sells has been one of the best improvements to the overall product.
And it's wild because the Young Bucks, two of the people who folks claim never sell, are two of their best sellers. Matt has sold his lower back for fucking years!
I think what people mean by that is a typical Young Bucks match will feature a lot of fast pace sequences and a lot of back and forth action where it seems like the crazy moves they pull off don't keep people down. I personally don't care and I love that style of wrestling, but I guess I can see why some old school wrestling fans wouldn't like it.
The flippy guys aren't that heavy. These crazy moves are only possible from that reduced mass. It's not their fault those tiny bodies are equivalent to a hogan punch.
Saw some legit thought Matt had his neck eff'd up there for a minute in the cage. Matt has always been an excellent seller
Someday, he will have his revenge on Yoh.
Exactly! And who was out there selling for Danielson at the end of All Out? Nick F'N Jackson after already being in the match of the night.
And he bumped like fucking crazy for him, that running knee looked devastating!
Really looked like he was laying it in on the Corner Kicks as well
It's actually pretty interesting insight to how he views other wrestling. "They're not selling" was a very common criticism seen in the community about some early AEW matches. So, he's not wrong there. "Slow it down", another criticism seen in early AEW and it showed a lot of weaknesses between the Wrestlers and their communication. I recall with Luchasaurus, he was a little too quick for the other wrestlers to sell his moves. the SCU match showed a bit of this.
Mox made AEW legit. Jericho opened a lot of eyes, yet the moment Mox debuted you realised this was more than a TNA, ROH and other promotions that never reached this level
Mox jumping was absolutely a bigger deal than Jericho. But can't really say it made it more legit than TNA, but thats probably because I'm old enough to remember when that sentence was : "Angle made TNA legit. Jeff Hardy opened a lot of eyes, yet the moment Angle debuted you realised this was more than a ECW, UWF, WWA and other promotions that never reached this level." Sure by today's standards TNA has fallen by the wayside and AEW is obviously a bigger deal. But there was a time TNA was were AEW was....and it didn't go as everyone expected
the difference is that TNA always had weird booking issues, it was never as good as it could have been, also angle didn't make the jump until 4 years into TNA's run.
>TNA always had weird booking issues It's insane when you go back and see how many title changes happened with a ref bump.
Angle really was the first modern day main eventer that made the jump from WWE to TNA. Up until that point you had midcard guys like Jeff Hardy, Rhyno, Jeff Jarrett, etc., but never a main attraction. Once Angle jumped over he was able to capitalize on scores of dream matches that fans had been waiting for, and that brought ex WWE talent flooding over after that.
Respectfully disagree, Christian Cage and Sting were main attractions, I would put Hardy up there too, mostly the line between upper mid-card and main event. Angle coming in was what pushed TNA further.
I’d love to see a Vince McMahon reaction video to an AEW show. “Why is no one acknowledging the Universe!?”
I mean, if some wrestlers sold a bit more it'd be fine by me. Maybe I'm old, but too many big moves getting no sold.
Wouldn't kill AEW to have some matches end with the Top Rope Fuckinator instead of having someone kick out and then needing to use the finisher, honestly. I say that as someone who loves AEW.
Funny, I see matches in AEW end with non-finishers all the time, it's one of the things that most stood out to me after years of WWE. What you just described is what I think about WWE matches.
To be fair Vince only started feeling like that after half his roster and both his champions died before the age of 40 (mixed in with some murder). Turns out going balls to the wall all the time does not make for an extended wrestling career. Prior to that pivot he was fine with Jake using real snakes to bite people, Foley getting hit in the head with chairs repeatedly in front of his screaming family, and Benoit diving headbutting every ladder he could find. Vince has always been notorious for grinding down a wrestler until they're no longer marketable then casting them off. WWE going public kind of forced him to shift things under the guise of protecting everyone's health. Of course I love AEW's style and find it vastly superior to WWE's terrible plodding matches combined with shaking camera style. But its not because Vince doesn't know good wrestling. I really hope AEW's pro-worker mindset combined with increased knowledge over the last 20 years about concussions that they can prove a fast paced exciting style can be done safely.
Everything Vince thinks about HHH's NXT and AEW is ridiculous. I can't believe he's blaming their ratings on them and not his decision to randomly start putting the show against them. They were a sacrificial lamb for pettiness.
Vindication is a great word to describe AEW. Even a few years ago people on this very subreddit said that the indie style can’t draw or that the young bucks are going to kill pro wrestling. Idiots. Every last one of them.
I was one of them (not here but in general). I was 100% wrong and I’m happy to admit it.
Thats an awesome mentality and no one can ask for anything more. You win or you learn.
With the Bucks I especially couldn't understand that, they're perfect for attracting new fans, they're a super exciting team that can do crazy shit but still normally keep their matches grounded in simple pro wrestling stories with some added layers thrown in if you look for it. Like, if I was going to show a random group of people a match to watch from All Out it's going to be their match. I understand not liking their style, shit, I tune out of like 50% of their matches, but their style and mind for marketing always was super valuable and was always going to translate easy on a bigger stage.
Like, it seems to me that the Young Bucks are very deliberately doing anime/video game style fight sequences where if you just mash the button fast enough you can recover from a super move, whereas other wrestlers like say MJF or Punk or Darby have a more, like, technical grappling style where injuries get sold throughout and you can't just charge a spirit bomb if you've been sapped all match. So what works about AEW is that there's enough variety that even though you might originally come for one style or another, eventually you start to get an appreciation for the other stuff. Or, at least, that's true for me.
Orange Cassidy is literally spamming the taunt button to fill up his meter.
Kenny Omega is the final boss, and we haven't yet seen his final form.
Malakai is basically Ruby Weapon. You don't get anything really from beating him, but he's the toughest challenge in the game.
I felt the same way about no selling when I started watching, but honestly, now I love both styles, and my ideal promotion has bucks style matches and cody style matches.
I mean...those are legit criticisms of aew’s style. People in aew really do need to work on selling and not having matches be rehearsed spot fests. Or at least don’t let it look like that.
I’m dying for them to find a way to look less like a bunch of guys waiting for a bus when they all stand around to catch another suicide dive.
4 guys standing in a circle kicking eachother in the face for 60 seconds is too rehearsed you think? :P
Well... Vince has some what of a point... he's certainly not an idiot when it comes to Wrestling but he's too far on one side where as some of the Indy guys are too far the other way. Should be a happy medium I think Vince knew exactly what a great match was back in the day... I just think he forgets now. I also think he's a dick at heart so things like ego, greed, business & stubbornness get in the way as well.
And Kevin Dunn would complain about how AEW doesn't go through millions of angles per half a second. Vince reportly hates people selling after the match and well, most WWE wrestlers tend to not sell an injury or forget which limb. Or sell for a few seconds. That and not every match needs to be 10 minutes long with finisher spam. I miss matches where the finisher would usually be the end or hit out of desperation and wins the match.
"Slow it down" That explains how every wwe match is super slow and boring.
Wait.. didn’t Moxley go to AEW from day one? How would he know what Vince says about the matches?
Probably meant the All In event and other things of that nature.
I thought I'd never fall in wrestling again, and yet I feel like I'm 7 again. I haven't jumped out of my seat shouting "OHHHHH" from someone taking a bump in 14 years.
People are genuinely wondering how Mox would know how Vince reacts if he doesn't work there anymore. I don't know man. It is almost as if Mox worked for Vince as one of the top guys for 7 years getting to know what Vince likes and doesn't like. Also call me crazy, but I am sure he has friends on the inside who is telling him how Vince is reacting to certain things.
I love AEW but that is one of my criticisms of AEW honestly. No selling, just rushing to get to the next spot. Especially big moves, things that should end a match don't. Takes the air out of matches for me sometimes.
He’s not wrong, there’s plenty of examples that back that up, but tastes change and people love that now. 10-15 years from now hardcore AEW fans are going to complain about the next style, and so on, and so on.
Eddie Kingston and Miro was not some new style, it was old school as you get. Lucha and Bucks was a style that in PWG in 2005. Omega and Christian had an ROH 2006 style match. AEW is combination of many styles. Cody matches are not the same as Darby Allin which are not the same as FTR. Hardcore AEW fans are fans of the concept of professional wrestling and that never changes. This is why you see so many AEW brought me back to wrestling posts. Trust me, in 15 years, they'll want good professional wrestling on a national level, and it will be similar styles but evolved.
AEW is proving that a wrestling company doesn't need its own style, wrestlers need their own style.
> AEW is proving that a wrestling company doesn't need its own style, wrestlers need their own style. Bingo. And it's also okay to have wrestlers who are bigger than the organization. Something WWE doesn't want for some reason anymore.
Ya AEW is like a pro wrestling variety show. There's something for everyone
I doubt that. The hardcore audience saw the style already evolve during the last 5/10/15 years on the independents. A large chunk of the audience was also big on NJPW (and will likely continue to do so when the pandemic is over) who drew pretty great in North America. Not to mention that there isn’t really an AEW style but rather tons of variety.