Banned ideas

[The King of Old School]

I think its something AEW have never done, setting up the main event with an interrupted promo at the start of a show.

I really like how AEW always has a full card lined up a few days before the show.

I also used to like how sometimes they had matches set up a few weeks in advance, seems like they have stopped doing that for some reason though.

[air_raid]

The whole concept of earning title shots needs an overhaul in WWE. The old fashioned approach of simply announcing who the “championship committee” had determined was the top contender and getting the next title shot without doubt took less real life thinking and planning but nevertheless FELT less lazy than the current process of the number one contender match, repeatedly thrown out the night after the previous PPV, facilitated usually by nothing more than two wrestlers arguing about who gets the title shot, and the authority figure deciding that merits them getting their chance.

The last strong memory I have of a challenger being announced by invisible board instead of top contenders match or beating the champion non title (ugh) is probably Steve Austin being announced as getting his shot at The Undertaker for IYH A Cold Day In Hell, and it felt completely logical given his long term momentum. He’d won the Royal Rumble and never got his shot, and just come within an eyelash of a decisive win over Bret Hart who he promptly sent to hospital. It felt earned and made sense and was far more rewarding than “Who deserves the next shot? Have two blokes fight it out, just like last month.”

[BomberPat]

I think AEW have a decent balance by having the TNT Title to be open challenge while the World Title relies on a ranking system - and I assume it'll be the same with the TBS Title compared to the existing Women's Title. It means there's logic and legitimacy to one set of rankings, while not stopping them from booking "champion is challenged to a match" or open challenge set-ups, best of both worlds, really.

I love the idea of an invisible championship committee. Aside from having someone to credit for decisions like who gets title shots and whatnot, it feels tailor-made for infrequent cameo appearances - you don't need an authority figure on TV every week, but you can trot out a committee member every now and then. Got a retired legend that's available for a booking, and not sure how to use him? Kayfabe him as a member of the championship committee. And, again, by adding the concept in there, already I can think of ways it could set up other kinds of story.

A variation on that is when you have people fight to "earn their spot" in the Royal Rumble. So you have upper midcard or main event talent that have to win a match to earn a place, but then how did Hornswoggle or Michael Cole get in there? How do you explain the cameo returning legend or comedy midcarder appearances in a way that keeps consistency with full-time talent having to earn their place? 

[Chris B]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Similarly, I don't think there's anything wrong with throwing two singles guys together for a tag team run - some great teams started out that way - but there should be a story there. Why are they a team now? How do they perform as a team? And I don't mean "how can they co-exist", but show that there's a distinction between a singles wrestler and a tag team wrestler. Two thrown together singles wrestlers shouldn't be beating top teams on their first attempt, because full-time tag teams should be inherently better at tag team wrestling. So much in wrestling just misses the story points and the logic, because there's a sense of "because wrestling" behind everything. You always do what you've always done, without asking why any more.

On the 'how can they co-exist' point, one of my first memories in wrestling was the build-up to SummerSlam 92, with the 'SummerSlam Spectacular' - I don't know if it was shown here, but it sounded like the most anticipated Nasty Boys match ever, as they took on Savage and Warrior, who were being forced to tag together. With that one, it was all about just increasing the animosity between Savage and Warrior, as they were driven further apart by Perfect and Flair and end up losing to the Nasty Boys. 

As a basic build-up to a major match, the idea of two rivals having to team as a one-off, purely to promote the event and give them more reason to be annoyed at each other, is something I'm surprised to have seen so little of afterwards.

[BomberPat]

A lot of the uniqueness of that sort of thing, like Survivor Series, disappeared when "main eventers thrown together in tag team matches" became the default booking template for RAW in the Attitude Era and beyond; hard to build around a rare opportunity to see two stars in the ring together when you see it every week.

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

A variation on that is when you have people fight to "earn their spot" in the Royal Rumble. So you have upper midcard or main event talent that have to win a match to earn a place, but then how did Hornswoggle or Michael Cole get in there? How do you explain the cameo returning legend or comedy midcarder appearances in a way that keeps consistency with full-time talent having to earn their place? 

Having qualifiers for a 30 man match is laughable to begin with and something I only tolerated at peak Vince/McMahon-Helmsley Regime era as a comedic method of them trying to disqualify particular babyfaces from entry. It really peaked as unnecessary by about 2012, which surely must be the most weak-as-piss roster ever. Ricardo Rodriguez had to make up numbers but I bet some losers still had to qualify.