POLL: Are you satisfied with AEW/WWE's booking right now?

[RedRooster]

Firstly, this isn't an AEW vs. WWE thread; at least, not in the typical sense. I thought it might be interesting to see how people feel about the booking in each company right now though, given that the pendulum seems to have swung in WWE's direction as far as what people are enjoying more goes. 

I should also clarify, this isn't a question of whether or not you're enjoying either company; and answering no doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad...just that they could be better. 

However, it would also be interesting to hear what you think needs to change if you're not satisfied; or, on the flip side, why you do feel positively about what you're watching. 

This thread might die on its arse - it's a fairly basic question, admittedly. But hopefully enough people are as curious as I am about how UKFFers are feeling about each company. 

Edited October 9, 2023 by RedRooster

[Chris B]

Could you add 'view results' as an option to both? I only watch AEW, but it's insisting on an answer to the WWE question as well.

[RedRooster]

15 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Could you add 'view results' as an option to both? I only watch AEW, but it's insisting on an answer to the WWE question as well.

The option to do that doesn't seem to exist - so I've added an "I don't watch AEW/WWE" option to each question to account for that. Hope that helps!

[DavidB6937]

I went with Yes for both, but I'd say for different reasons.

Overall I'd say I'm enjoying WWE more as a complete package. I love the hot crowds. I'm enjoying NXT again. When it all comes together, I am a WWE guy because that's where I fell in love with wrestling and so nothing will ever come along and compete with that if they're doing a good job.

AEW has become more of a.. how can I say it - alternative that I can dip in and out of. They have a lot of great matches but I'm not necessarily as emotionally invested as I would like to be. Sure, there's a few things that are working, but on the whole I'm currently enjoying AEW more on a superficial level like I used to enjoy watching ROH. Good wrestlers. Good matches. Not a whole lot more beyond that.

But to be honest that's okay for me at the moment. I like having those two things going on right now. Obviously I wish sometimes AEW could have more depth and there's still issues with flavour of the week and people getting forgotten about etc - but then you get a run of shows like they have had and it's hard to wipe the smile off your face.

They're two very different beasts despite both being wrestling. WWE's audience couldn't give a fuck about a PPV mixed with a bunch of Japanese guys.

[Chris B]

I'm satisfied with AEW - there's enough good stuff in there that I don't find what I watch (Dynamite, PPVs and occasional other shows) to be a chore, and there's usually some really good stuff on it. It's easy, it's fun and occasionally excellent.

I'd love to be blown away more often, though. They tend to be a little clunky starting off feuds, and they hold off on the big matches enough that they just end up feeling like they never happen. And sometimes, I want focus where it gets crowded - like, Takeshita vs Omega should feel bigger than it is. But somehow, it's now become primarily about Chris Jericho.

But after years of not feeling like I was being catered to, a product that's isn't quite as good as it could be still feels like a step up.

[King Mal the Glorious]

Satisfied? Yes. AEW could definitely be better, but it's still way ahead of the "what is the point of any of this?" period that turned me off WWE for good.

[BomberPat]

I haven't watched WWE in a while, but try and keep up with what they're doing, and that tends to reinforce that it's just not for me. I think it's difficult to watch their stuff without a kind of cynical analyticism that I don't have with AEW - any decision in WWE comes with a background of endless micromanagement and corporate decision-making; I'm rarely watching their show thinking I want Wrestler X to win, or even that Wrestler X should win for creative and storytelling reasons, it tends to be more "Wrestler X will probably win here, because they have the Saudi Arabia show coming up, or because they want X vs. Y for Wrestlemania", it all feels very clinical.
I've said plenty of times since the last Wrestlemania that everything in the last year would have made more sense with Cody Rhodes winning, and I still stand by that. They're a company that does well in spite of itself, and that seems to resent its audience. Whenever I tune in, anything that suggests a new direction or an interesting idea is usually abandoned within a month or two, any time you get invested, it feels like they go right back to business as usual at the next opportunity, and you feel stupid for ever caring.

I think tomorrow's NXT/Dynamite clash is pretty telling. AEW's card is stacked, but with big matches from their roster, some that are important because of what's lead into them, some because of what they might mean moving forward. Whereas NXT is just a case of cynically throwing big names at the show. One rewards the audience for regular viewing, the other has little faith in their audience, and just resorts to short-termist ratings grabs to prove a point. There's no kayfabe justification for The Undertaker to show up in NXT, it's transparently just a matter of beating AEW on TV, and I find that typical of WWE - you're never really watching the product free from everything that surrounds it.

 

AEW is infuriating right now. The TV is generally okay-to-good, but the booking makes very little sense. The World Champion is doing opening match comedy, stars like Hangman Page that should be made men are stuck in an endless loop, feeling like AJ Styles in TNA, where even after winning the top title the company still treats them as a star-in-waiting rather than already being a top guy. Talented and popular wrestlers disappear off TV for weeks or months at a time with no explanation. Some of these aren't new problems, but it feels like there's a greater combination of them than ever before.

I think a typical problem with Tony Khan's booking is that he has big long-term ideas - I'm sure everything going on with Omega and Callis was plotted out years ago - but if anything throws a spanner in the works, he doesn't know what to do; if somebody gets injured or is otherwise unavailable in the middle of a story, he just hits the pause button on that storyline until that person's back, rather than pivoting to somebody or something else, and that means everyone else involved is just cooled off until he's ready to go back to The Plan. I can't imagine that the plan for MJF as World Champion would be what he's been doing, and I imagine he'd have probably been getting involved with CM Punk by now if he were still around - I actually think that Jay White stealing the belt recently is to try and get to whatever the plan had been for MJF and Punk's "Real World Title", had he stuck around. While I do think that AEW rewards investment and repeat viewing far more than WWE, it also has its times where it feels like, less intentionally than WWE, it still somewhat spites you for getting invested in a big win or the climax to a story, because sometimes after that big win you won't see the wrestler again for weeks, or they won't do anything significant again for months. 

[RedRooster]

13 minutes ago, Chris B said:

I'd love to be blown away more often, though. They tend to be a little clunky starting off feuds, and they hold off on the big matches enough that they just end up feeling like they never happen. And sometimes, I want focus where it gets crowded - like, Takeshita vs Omega should feel bigger than it is. But somehow, it's now become primarily about Chris Jericho.

 

This is interesting, because this is a big reason for why I voted "no" for AEW. The potential is so obvious, but it's very rarely fulfilled - take the masked man angle from a few weeks ago. It was really intriguing, but it was made to feel like it doesn't matter through its subsequent treatment. AEW isn't good at making storylines feel like they matter at the moment, and I think that's partly down to there being too much content - imagine concentrating the best elements of Dynamite, Rampage and Collision all into one show - you'd have a red-hot show each week. As it stands, it all feels so diluted. 

Similarly, ROH hangs around like a bad smell, really taking away from AEW programming. Who is Shane Taylor, and what is Shane Taylor promotions? Who is Prince Nana; is he supposed to be a real prince? What's the exact nature of his relationship with Swerve? I find it all a bit confusing, and I can't be the only one. Plus there's the way Tony Khan treats his female roster. Athena is doing career-best work, but you wouldn't know it. Willow Nightingale has such obvious potential, but it doesn't matter. Then you have Emi Sakura, Shida, Nyla Rose, Statlander and others - a high potential women's roster that is made to feel superfluous. 

On the other hand, I voted "yes" to WWE. Raw and Smackdown aren't perfect, and WWE has made mistakes along the way with The Bloodline, but on the whole, I'm finding the shows very entertaining. The wrestling is good, and plot lines aren't suddenly dropped as they once were - there's reason to read into things they choose to do. It feels like anyone can show up, and shows generally feel hot, especially Smackdown. 

There's no reason why AEW couldn't feel that way too - they have the roster - and they have felt incredibly hot at various points in their existence. Hopefully they'll get back to feeling that way, but I do worry that Tony Khan is going to end up his own worst enemy; much as Vince McMahon was for WWE, for the longest time. 

 

[DavidB6937]

19 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

While I do think that AEW rewards investment and repeat viewing far more than WWE, it also has its times where it feels like, less intentionally than WWE, it still somewhat spites you for getting invested in a big win or the climax to a story, because sometimes after that big win you won't see the wrestler again for weeks, or they won't do anything significant again for months. 

That's an interesting one as I've felt less like I've needed to tune in week on week. I've felt like I can dip in and out and I'm not really missing a huge amount because there's a lot of generally casual combinations of people in their PPV matches. And as I said, that's not really a bad thing for me sometimes because it means I don't need to invest a huge amount of time into both companies, but I also see why it can be incredibly frustrating.

I think for me anyway it's more down to high hopes for AEW not being met too often vs low hopes for WWE being exceeded.

[Chris B]

12 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

This is interesting, because this is a big reason for why I voted "no" for AEW. The potential is so obvious, but it's very rarely fulfilled - take the masked man angle from a few weeks ago. It was really intriguing, but it was made to feel like it doesn't matter through its subsequent treatment. AEW isn't good at making storylines feel like they matter at the moment, and I think that's partly down to there being too much content - imagine concentrating the best elements of Dynamite, Rampage and Collision all into one show - you'd have a red-hot show each week. As it stands, it all feels so diluted. 

Similarly, ROH hangs around like a bad smell, really taking away from AEW programming. Who is Shane Taylor, and what is Shane Taylor promotions? Who is Prince Nana; is he supposed to be a real prince? What's the exact nature of his relationship with Swerve? I find it all a bit confusing, and I can't be the only one. Plus there's the way Tony Khan treats his female roster. Athena is doing career-best work, but you wouldn't know it. Willow Nightingale has such obvious potential, but it doesn't matter. Then you have Emi Sakura, Shida, Nyla Rose, Statlander and others - a high potential women's roster that is made to feel superfluous. 

On the other hand, I voted "yes" to WWE. Raw and Smackdown aren't perfect, and WWE has made mistakes along the way with The Bloodline, but on the whole, I'm finding the shows very entertaining. The wrestling is good, and plot lines aren't suddenly dropped as they once were - there's reason to read into things they choose to do. It feels like anyone can show up, and shows generally feel hot, especially Smackdown. 

There's no reason why AEW couldn't feel that way too - they have the roster - and they have felt incredibly hot at various points in their existence. Hopefully they'll get back to feeling that way, but I do worry that Tony Khan is going to end up his own worst enemy; much as Vince McMahon was for WWE, for the longest time. 

 

I don't disagree with any of that. 'Satisfied' can mean different things though - "My hotel room was satisfactory" vs "My hotel room was fantastic". 

It's satisfactory, not thrilling. It meets the minimum requirements for me - which, to be fair, was only very rarely met by WWE when I watched that. WWE was generally good at setting things up in an exciting way (think of the amount of times we all thought 'oh, this could be different' or 'they might finally make Randy Orton interesting'), but it didn't tend to move forward or pay off in a satisfying way. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

24 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

This is interesting, because this is a big reason for why I voted "no" for AEW. The potential is so obvious, but it's very rarely fulfilled - take the masked man angle from a few weeks ago. It was really intriguing, but it was made to feel like it doesn't matter through its subsequent treatment. AEW isn't good at making storylines feel like they matter at the moment, and I think that's partly down to there being too much content - imagine concentrating the best elements of Dynamite, Rampage and Collision all into one show - you'd have a red-hot show each week. As it stands, it all feels so diluted. 

Similarly, ROH hangs around like a bad smell, really taking away from AEW programming. Who is Shane Taylor, and what is Shane Taylor promotions? Who is Prince Nana; is he supposed to be a real prince? What's the exact nature of his relationship with Swerve? I find it all a bit confusing, and I can't be the only one. Plus there's the way Tony Khan treats his female roster. Athena is doing career-best work, but you wouldn't know it. Willow Nightingale has such obvious potential, but it doesn't matter. Then you have Emi Sakura, Shida, Nyla Rose, Statlander and others - a high potential women's roster that is made to feel superfluous. 

On the other hand, I voted "yes" to WWE. Raw and Smackdown aren't perfect, and WWE has made mistakes along the way with The Bloodline, but on the whole, I'm finding the shows very entertaining. The wrestling is good, and plot lines aren't suddenly dropped as they once were - there's reason to read into things they choose to do. It feels like anyone can show up, and shows generally feel hot, especially Smackdown. 

There's no reason why AEW couldn't feel that way too - they have the roster - and they have felt incredibly hot at various points in their existence. Hopefully they'll get back to feeling that way, but I do worry that Tony Khan is going to end up his own worst enemy; much as Vince McMahon was for WWE, for the longest time. 

 

 You either have the same match ups on WWE or you have such gems as Gunther vs Champa leading to a DIY reunion. Top booking! Add in a champion who hasn't had a title defense in 100 days, the will they won't day Judgement Day saga, whatever the Bloodline is supposed to be now days and unless you love modern day Fandango, LA Knight, nothing to make you care about Smackdown either. I AM interested to see what happens with Jade Cargill though.

Do you ask the same questions about WWE talent? Like why is the Judgement Day a stable? Why is Jay Uso now called Main Event? Why is LA Knight? Most of the questions you have about AEW have been answered elsewhere. Does it matter if Prince Nana is a prince (he is by the way, and they also explained the new connection with Swerve months ago) or what Shane Taylor Promotions is. The masked men angle is not even 2 weeks old yet, you cannot write it off already.  But that is because AEW Fans, or the expectation of AEW fans, is to consume other media. Whether that is through vlogs and podcasts, watching historical content etc. Generally you may get a video package, but it is more likely going to be referenced on commentary. And that's not good for the casual fan, but pays off for the more invested one. Whilst with WWE you could go months without watching and then watch a PLE because there will be a video package if its important.   

I haven't cared less about WWE then I have in the last 3 or 4 years, and that is down to a decent alternative coming along, and wrestlers I don't care about being front and centre of their shows with storylines I don't like. AEW came in at a time I thought I was going to have to stop watching wrestling as it was a chore. 

That said, if people only watch WWE and enjoy it, good for them. But if you watch both and think WWE booking is better than what AEW are doing, especially if you compare the last 6 months, I don't know what to say. I do still watch some WWE out of habit, and if I am up when it's on, but I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a whole episode of Raw or Smackdown. 

@Chris B That's a good point. The number of times you thought they were going to do something different is what started to turn me off, because instead of getting something exciting or new we got the status quo.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Hannibal Scorch

[RedRooster]

10 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I think for me anyway it's more down to high hopes for AEW not being met too often vs low hopes for WWE being exceeded.

I think, for me, there was an initial enthusiasm for AEW based on the idea of it being a major wrestling company formed with a vision that opposed the narrow lens through which Vince McMahon operated.

Unfortunately, it’s instead filtered through the lens of another billionaire who has his own quirks and bad habits that has a negative impact on his programming. If Tony Khan was removed from the booking process, and someone else was responsible for the results AEW is getting right now (dwindling crowd numbers, falling viewership for Rampage and Collision, confusing and often messy storytelling), I suspect he’d have replaced them by now.

[SuperBacon]

Some of the ways you lot watch or view wrestling sound exhausting to be honest.

 

[RedRooster]

Sorry @Hannibal Scorch, I wasn't ignoring you - I wrote my previous post before I realised you had posted yourself.

9 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

You either have the same match ups on WWE or you have such gems as Gunther vs Champa leading to a DIY reunion. Top booking! Add in a champion who hasn't had a title defense in 100 days, the will they won't day Judgement Day saga, whatever the Bloodline is supposed to be now days and unless you love modern day Fandango, LA Knight, nothing to make you care about Smackdown either. I AM interested to see what happens with Jade Cargill though.

There's a lot to unpack here, but if people are eating it up, none of the above really matters; and they absolutely are - WWE is performing to sell-out crowds, and they tend to be pretty hot. The reception to the DIY reunion was lukewarm, but that's an outlier. With the greatest respect - calling LA Knight a 'modern day Fandango' is ludicrous. For whatever reason, Knight is getting some of the best babyface reactions we've heard in WWE for a long, long time - he's possibly the most over babyface since peak Daniel Bryan. And WWE is actually pushing him and giving him an opportunity. People complained about them ignoring their audience for so long - but they're not doing that anymore. 

13 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Do you ask the same questions about WWE talent? Like why is the Judgement Day a stable? Why is Jay Uso now called Main Event? Why is LA Knight? Most of the questions you have about AEW have been answered elsewhere. Does it matter if Prince Nana is a prince (he is by the way, and they also explained the new connection with Swerve months ago) or what Shane Taylor Promotions is. The masked men angle is not even 2 weeks old yet, you cannot write it off already. 

All of the questions you asked about WWE were answered on WWE television. Judgement Day were a stable formed by Edge, who broke off from him. Jey Uso became 'main event' after his first feud with Roman Reigns. LA Knight became LA Knight after ditching the Max Dupri moniker on Smackdown. 

You kind of explain the problem with the AEW approach in your own post - the questions 'have been answered elsewhere'. Not on AEW television. If you feature something on your programming, explain what it is there. I could level the same criticism at WWE, to be fair - Triple H tends to assume everyone watched the 'black and gold' era for NXT - but they generally do better at making sure everything makes sense without you having to resort to Google. 

As for the masked man angle, I've not written it off - simply observed that they kind of fucked the initial follow-up. They turned what could have been an intriguing 'whodunnit?' into a 'whocareswhodunnit?' - none of the wrestlers directly affected seemed bothered, there was no notable speculation on who the masked men were (outside of whether or not MJF was under the devil mask) and everyone just kind of moved on. They had something that could have been red hot, and poured ice on it. 

24 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

But that is because AEW Fans, or the expectation of AEW fans, is to consume other media. Whether that is through vlogs and podcasts, watching historical content etc. Generally you may get a video package, but it is more likely going to be referenced on commentary.   

It is? Says who? 

24 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

And that's not good for the casual fan, but pays off for the more invested one. Whilst with WWE you could go months without watching and then watch a PLE because there will be a video package if its important.   

It's not really good for AEW either though, as their live crowd numbers have dropped massively. I don't really buy into the premise of what you're saying, what even is a "casual fan"? AEW should be looking to make everyone "more invested" in what they're doing - and they're failing at that. The frustrating thing for me is that the changes required to do that are either very obvious, or very minor - but they'd make such a big difference. 

[The Gaffer]

They're both satisfying me in different ways right now. Reading through this thread's reinforced a general feeling for me though that I'm not nearly as bothered by WWE's terminal in-house idiosyncrasies as others are. I'm not saying that makes me a better viewer or anything, it just is what it is. If anything I've basically just willingly allowed them to beat me down over the last few years to the point where I'm just taking them at face value now. You're meant to just hitch up and get a few small scoops from the big pot that is their weekly TV, I think. Drinking the whole thing would make me sick. 

WWE for me is about 30 mins of Raw, 30 mins of Smackdown and the usually very watchable premium live events. I know it's going to be that over-produced, hyperreal theme park to itself. But it's also so much better than what it was in the years leading up to and during the pandemic I find. It's like being on dirty eccies and allowing it drastically drop your standards in the music playing and the people around you. Don't think about what could have been. Don't think about how it should be shaping up. Just be in the moment. And there in the moment you have John Cena getting his homecoming king flowers, LA Knight in the ascendency, Jey Uso & Cody Rhodes getting massive pops as the Two Dudes With Gratitudes, Judgement Day still over and poised to go any direction you like. How does it look? Show for show I reckon Survivor Series, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania are all going to be great. It's all I want from them. Big dumb bollocks. Job done. 

AEW I've sacked off Rampage and Collision for the time being. Collision I might go back to, but I started getting them sad, final days of Thunder vibes from it last time I tuned in. Dyno feels weird in that creatively it feels slightly in the ascendancy again but without any sort of buzz. Even with Edge there, it just feels like they're still down from the massive peak in the rollercoaster and still chugging through those bends in the track waiting for the next sharp incline.

I know somebody's going to come along and say "If you enjoy what they're doing, why does it matter?" Well because it's wrestling, it's all part of the package and it does. AEW's emergence out of the pandemic and all through most of the Punk era was bonkers. Brilliant fun and hot to the touch. Even for the first half of this year then, you had a bit of Punk intrigue still lingering and the build up to what - as soon as the trajectory of the ticket sales became immediately apparent - was nailed on to be one of the biggest shows ever. 

Since then I've mostly enjoyed the booking but man those Dynos feel a little quieter. A little darker. They feel like WWE felt in the fall of 2004 right about now to me. You can just about sense that if they play their cards right, the start of next year should be a bright spot, but it's a whole lot of building work going on right now. 

All in all though, I'm more than satisfied with both products in their own way. These are the good times.