AEW - what needs to change?

[Mr.Showtime]

The only things that make me groan really are the interviews being interrupted in 5 seconds almost every time, and too many low blows in matches and angles. So, so lazy. With anything else for now, I always look on the bright side - I could be watching WWE, feeling sad for the likes of Ricochet as he waits in the ring for 17 minutes while other shit goes on, then has a 3-minute bout with a DQ finish.

[Nick James]

Which madman is giving O'Reilly a 5 year deal? Which I presume will be the same for Cole and potentially Fish. The NXT lot aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/kyle-oreilly-says-he-signed-a-five-year-aew-contract?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter 

[simonworden]

Firstly stop writing the show to appeal to men in their 30s or older who miss the attitude era and early ROH. Start writing for a demographic you want to attract that will increase viewership. 

Change the look more, less black like it's (see above). It's all over the place with the apron, ropes, barriers. Change the stage from the giant WWE/TNA love child. 

Get regular ROH shows running even if it starts from the Dark arena. Slice a nice chunk of people from your roster who are not being used/need a break/are rotten people and stick them down there building to IPPVs. That reduces the roster down.

Get back to building up the original talent, they are doing a better job that TNA ever did but I feel things in 2022 are on the ex-WWE line.

Make more matches on TV 5-10 minutes, nobody has the time or attention span for 15-20 minute classics each week.

Get someone in to sort the women's division out.

Turn Punk heel and stick the belt on him.

Stick Cole, O'reiley and Fish in a box addressed to Hunter's new bachelor pad and tell him to stop dumping his shit round your place. 

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, Nick James said:

Which madman is giving O'Reilly a 5 year deal? Which I presume will be the same for Cole and potentially Fish. The NXT lot aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/kyle-oreilly-says-he-signed-a-five-year-aew-contract?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter 

I can't tell you how deflated I felt when I read this, and I also hope it's not reflective of the kind of offers made to people like Andrade, Matt Hardy, Keith Lee and Jay Lethal. 

[Duke]

As always in threads like these, there's some astute observation and some weird, and occasionally a mixture of the two. Asking them to build more around their homegrown guys AND give Punk the title is a little contradictory, and reveals that we only have a problem with ex-WWE guys if they're ones we don't like. 

As much as I quite like them all as acts, reuniting Undisputed Era has been a mistake. That stable had very definitely run its course in WWE, and while I'd have been fine with ReDragon being a thing, and Cole being a thing, the three of them together is too much Deja Vu. I think they're the only reason that it feels very ex-NXT at the moment, as all the other old WWE guys are at least doing something slightly different, but those guys are all over the show and doing what they've always done. I had some interest when it looked like Cole was trying to play both sides, but now they're just a unified act because Kenny is out longer than they realised.

It's actually really hard to not sign a lot of ex-WWE talent at the moment, because for a little while they hoovered all the best talent up. That being said, I don't think anyone has a problem with FTR, Moxley, Danielson, Punk, PAC, or Jericho (or at least not for that reason); It's Andrade, Black, Cole, Nese and Lee (and I guess the Hardys. It wasn't really a problem when just Matt was there, but adding Jeff hasn't helped). The problem isn't that they're ex-WWE, it's that they're ex-WWE and haven't shown us anything else. I still have some hope that Lee will be able to get back to his previous levels, but an extended run in the tag division with someone like Swerve will help him loads, and I think House of Black will be fine when they start feuding with someone else other than the 6 people they've spent all eternity with, but Andrade needs a fairly drastic rethink and Nese feels like he could replaced by lots of different people. As he always does.

I don't think that the roster size is a detriment though. Or at least not inherently. AEW is endeavouring to avoid falling into a rematch hole like WWE has, so they need a big roster to be able to do that. What they're doing well is cycling guys in and out for a bit so as to give them longer screen time. The focal points are clear: MJF, Punk, Mox, Jericho, Bryan, Page, Jungle Boy, Britt Baker, Jade Cargill.  The Bucks, for eg, were less of a thing on TV for a little while after losing the tag belts. Varsity blondes had a cycle on for a bit, they're now cycled off.  Even Sami, who is still on TV, is mostly only on Rampage at the moment. Derby Allin is still around, but he's less of a central character than he has been. I think that's a good thing, personally, it means double or nothing has some fresh matches on it. 

That being said....

There are some patterns they've fallen into. The interrupted interviews. The low blows. The lights out debuts. All of those could do with some freshening up and some changes. The Owen Hart tournament has felt like a bit of a mess all the way through. But the biggest thing remains the women. I don't really know what's wrong, at this point. Having Serena Deeb be Thunder Rosa's next opponent was the obvious choice, but I think forcing both women to do lots of talking has been such an error. I also think Supes is right that they need to have more shorter term storylines with clear pay off.

I'm still enjoying AEW every week, I feel like I can stay up to date with all the stories and there's a good mix of a few different things on there that I can enjoy. Their ratings are still doing well, they have characters I'm invested in and I can see some great opportunities for the future.

They do need to bin off the nonces though.

Oh and push the acclaimed.

 

[Nick James]

1 hour ago, simonworden said:

Change the look more, less black like it's (see above). It's all over the place with the apron, ropes, barriers. Change the stage from the giant WWE/TNA love child. 

Can't agree with this at all. The best thing about AEW is the look and feel of the shows which are akin to Nitro etc, they even raised the lighting on fan request the other week to highlight more of the crowd. Other than the entrance being two tunnels, I definitely don't get a WWE / TNA knockoff vibe from it. 

I could take or leave the ramp to the ring, but I wouldn't say I'm clambering for them to take it away. 

[The Gaffer]

Yeah the look is spot on for me as well. It was one of the best things about it right out of the gates. You want a weekly show that looks well produced and well attended whilst still feeling like it's basically all about people in weird costumes kicking each other about. 

I'd actually go more WCW on the PPV themes and push for interesting locations, thematic sets etc a bit more. But if it looked the same for the next year or three I'd have no complaints. 

 

[RedRooster]

26 minutes ago, Duke said:

As always in threads like these, there's some astute observation and some weird, and occasionally a mixture of the two. Asking them to build more around their homegrown guys AND give Punk the title is a little contradictory, and reveals that we only have a problem with ex-WWE guys if they're ones we don't like. 

I don't think it's contradictory - there's nothing wrong with signing WWE wrestlers, but there's something to be said for being selective. Initially, ex-WWE wrestlers were coming in sporadically, and this let people like Brodie Lee, Miro, Pac, FTR, Jon Moxley and even Shawn Spears and Jake Hager establish their own identities, and really remove themselves from their previous life as WWE wrestlers. Who looks at Jon Moxley and thinks "Dean Ambrose" anymore? Heck, who looks at Shawn Spears and thinks "Tye Dillinger"?

Punk, Danielson and Samoa Joe are no-brainer signings. But outside of that, you could part ways with almost any recent AEW signing, and the show would become better as a result. For example, would anyone really say a single show featuring Keith Lee, Jay Lethal, Andrade, Matt Hardy and Cole, Fish and O'Reilly is a more appealing prospect than a show featuring Ricky Starks, Powerhouse Hobbs, Hook, The Acclaimed, Penta, Fenix, Jurassic Express and The Gunn Club?

 

[Duke]

9 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I don't think it's contradictory - there's nothing wrong with signing WWE wrestlers, but there's something to be said for being selective. Initially, ex-WWE wrestlers were coming in sporadically, and this let people like Brodie Lee, Miro, Pac, FTR, Jon Moxley and even Shawn Spears and Jake Hager establish their own identities, and really remove themselves from their previous life as WWE wrestlers. Who looks at Jon Moxley and thinks "Dean Ambrose" anymore? Heck, who looks at Shawn Spears and thinks "Tye Dillinger"?

Punk, Danielson and Samoa Joe are no-brainer signings. But outside of that, you could part ways with almost any recent AEW signing, and the show would become better as a result. For example, would anyone really say a single show featuring Keith Lee, Jay Lethal, Andrade, Matt Hardy and Cole, Fish and O'Reilly is a more appealing prospect than a show featuring Ricky Starks, Powerhouse Hobbs, Hook, The Acclaimed, Penta, Fenix, Jurassic Express and The Gunn Club?

 

Forgive me, but that's not what I said. The contradiction isn't "put the title on punk" and "stop signing WWE guys" it's "put the title on punk" and "build the show around your homegrown talent". 4 of the 5 belts AEW have at the moment are on talent that feels like it's primarily theirs, and the one that isn't is probably their least prominent.  

You're kind of proving my point in the second paragraph, with the exception of the acclaimed (one of whom is injured, right?) and the Gunn club, who I don't think are ready, all of those talents are on the pay per view in featured matches.  As of this moment, Keith Lee is in a tag team, Jay Lethal isn't wrestling on Double or Nothing, Andrade is being defeatured, Matt Hardy is in a tag team in a swansong type of match after which we won't see much of them, Cole is on the show, Fish isn't and I'm expecting O'Reilly to lose to Joe and therefore not be in a match on the show.  Those guys are on dynamite, sure, but so are the second list you've mentioned. 

 

[69MeDon]

For one thing, get all the ROH stuff off of AEW TV. It is taking time away from AEW stories and talent. If people wanted to watch ROH, they'd have been doing so before they got bought and they wouldn't have had to downsize to a super indy with no contracted talent.

[Factotum]

Put your top stars near the top of the card.

[Untouchable]

For me, and i'm a huge fan, i'd take away finishing the show week after week on beat downs. I can't even imagine how many of the shows have ended with beat downts / interruptions from outside during or after a match. They just instantly make me groan .

[Merzbow]

Obviously what AEW needs to get the originals back on TV properly is a reset with that new blood Vs the ex WWE millionaires.

[The Gaffer]

2 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Obviously what AEW needs to get the originals back on TV properly is a reset with that new blood Vs the ex WWE millionaires.

Wrestling's 100% batshit enough that if Tony Khan gets bored of the project or they run into some serious network/funding issues, AEW will have a Hogan/Bischoff era in 2025. 

[RedRooster]

12 minutes ago, Duke said:

Forgive me, but that's not what I said. The contradiction isn't "put the title on punk" and "stop signing WWE guys" it's "put the title on punk" and "build the show around your homegrown talent". 4 of the 5 belts AEW have at the moment are on talent that feels like it's primarily theirs, and the one that isn't is probably their least prominent.  

But that isn't a contradiction. No one here is suggesting that AEW should consist entirely of non-WWE talent. Once again, though, it's about being selective. Bringing in - and pushing - people like Punk, Danielson, Moxley and even Jericho is a no-brainer. Punk and MJF are easily the hottest acts the company has right now, so it makes absolute sense to make one of them champion. 

That doesn't have any real impact on the rest of the card, though. And the fact the other belts are on "homegrown" talent, doesn't change the fact that Dynamite, at the moment, heavily features acts who feel like WWE cast-offs, acts who don't exactly help AEW feel like its own entity. If more of them were connecting and feeling fresh, people wouldn't make making this point, but I don't think it's hard to argue that they are actually taking TV time away from acts who are connecting, and who do feel fresh. 

54 minutes ago, Duke said:

You're kind of proving my point in the second paragraph, with the exception of the acclaimed (one of whom is injured, right?) and the Gunn club, who I don't think are ready, all of those talents are on the pay per view in featured matches.  As of this moment, Keith Lee is in a tag team, Jay Lethal isn't wrestling on Double or Nothing, Andrade is being defeatured, Matt Hardy is in a tag team in a swansong type of match after which we won't see much of them, Cole is on the show, Fish isn't and I'm expecting O'Reilly to lose to Joe and therefore not be in a match on the show.  Those guys are on dynamite, sure, but so are the second list you've mentioned. 

Firstly, you're making an assumption on Matt Hardy, and there's no evidence to suggest the team won't be used after the PPV. 

But putting that aside - you're right, some of these wrestlers are getting TV time, but my point isn't so much that they're not, it's that they're interesting, and the former WWE acts getting featured are not. In addition, the wrestlers in question aren't getting pushed as prominently as they would had the ex-WWE guys not come in. For example, would Dynamite be more entertaining if Ethan Page, Ricky Starks or Penta was receiving Adam Cole's push? Or if The Acclaimed (or Max Caster, in the absence of Bowens) was pushed as a top level act? There are other examples I could give, but hopefully you can see my point.