Paid Members LaGoosh Posted January 28 Paid Members Posted January 28 (edited) To spice up AEW well I'd say their main problem is the usual booking problems that constantly derail and cool the product down I could go on all day about that and what I think they should do but I think all the issues are pretty obvious to anyone who watches regularly. But to summarise the booking needs to be cohesive and consistent. So a collection of rambled thoughts below... Really I think the show could do with a huge overhaul and freshening up from a production/visual perspective. That would do wonders to spice things up. At the moment the shows are messy, WWE-lite looking affairs with a lot of the dead air, vacant visual space and cheap movie/daytime soap feel of WWE TV. In fact all modern wrestling is stuck in some boring WWE 2010 visual vortex. AEW really needs to cement and stamp down their own visual language that is more vibrant, realistic, energetic and vibrant than the cold, stale and stagnant look of modern day TV wrestling which no one seemingly wants to step outside of. New intros! AEW's media team already regularly produces really brilliant stuff that feels realistic, exciting and original for its online stuff but most of it never reaches TV. I'd like them to fully embrace that style and expand upon it on their weekly shows. Make your characters feel like they are real people in the real world. Film them doing stuff outside the arenas in tangible locations filled with loads going on. Ideally, they should just avoid doing anything that WWE does. No watching the TV at a weird angle, no contract signings, no lifeless backstage interviews with nonsensical lighting where people appear magically from off camera, no "cinematic" segments. They should focus entirely on creating their own unique formats and segments. Have documentary-like segments which deep dive into the characters (that excellent Hangman documentary from last year should have been shown in chunks over several weeks of TV). Hey(ew)! may be dead but why not give RJ City his own new interview format show on TV each week where he speaks to wrestlers about their current stories but in a comedic fashion? You can get a wrestler more over with a clever 5 minute segment than you can a 15 minute match most times so more of that - Technique by Taz last week got MJF move over in 2 minutes than one of MJF's terrible boring weekly promos did. During the pandemic because of necessity they were willing to experiment and try new things - they should just keep doing that. Don't feel obliged to always stick with the normal format of wrestling TV. More licensed music! I'm not saying they need to shell out the big bucks on top acts because that's not feasible but surely there's loads of fresh, new and exciting music you can get fairly cheap. Something to inject more energy into things that the usual generic wrestling butt-rock that is so widely prevalent. Fucking Sum 41 in 2026? Get some fresh bands like Turnstile or whoever all over your shows. Just really getting behind certain people and doing all you can to really make them feel special each and every week. And unique things to do too, not just matches and generic wrestling promos. That's how you have real main event acts and not just an entire roster of upper mid-carders all on the same level. That was all a bit of a mess but hopefully you get the idea. Edited January 28 by LaGoosh Quote
AshC Posted January 28 Posted January 28 I would determine the 10 or so top stars and have them at the top of the card and in the top angles, week-in, week-out, ala late 90s WWF. I get the idea of having loads and loads of potential headliners that you alternate between, but there's that theory that if everyone's a star, nobody is. Essentially, they have far too many people. But they can afford it and that's what they want, so can't see it changing. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted January 28 Paid Members Posted January 28 (edited) The top 10 don't even need to do anything substantial or time consuming. As long as it's something and it moves them or whatever story they are in forward then it's worthwhile. Definitely don't have anyone in a major story just vanish from TV for a week or two. That will always kill anything you've got going stone dead. I'd also like to see more stories carried across individual episodes. Plenty of times I watch stuff on Dynamite and I think hey if you just dotted this out in a few segments over TV rather than in one big chunk and made a few small changes you'd have a nice little show long story which would have got you to the same place but in a more engaging way. Edited January 28 by LaGoosh Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 28 Paid Members Posted January 28 100% agreed with everything @LaGoosh said; fix the format and the presentation first, everything else can follow. Do away with the visual language of WWE, with invisible camera backstage segments, and with backstage promos filmed wherever they could fit a camera - there was a bit on Dynamite last week where Samoa Joe was stood in front of a TV screen showing the Dynamite logo at the top of a flight of stairs; what was that space supposed to be? Either you've filmed him in a random bit of the backstage area, or it's an interview segment with the screen set up, but it looks rubbish when it's trying to be both. There's been a lot of talk lately about Excalibur being knackered and probably needing a bit of a break; my solution to that is to take away a decent chunk of his "running down the cards for the next two weeks" segments, and hand that over to a dedicated Control Room segment. RJ City would be a perfect fit for a slightly tongue-in-cheek Sean Mooney role, but that segment could be expanded with other pundits, guests, interviews, and so on - it might not work for a live crowd, so why not just do the Event Centre style stuff on Dynamite, and the more extended punditry side of things on a pre-taped Collision? It gives the show a different feel, it means it's not formatted exactly the same as every wrestling TV show since the '90s, and it gives people space to cut promos and be interviewed and show some character, or to set up angles and future matches, outside of identikit backstage promos or a hundred variations of "babyface interrupts heel promo". Just something different. Beyond that, it's just focus. Better agenting to cut down on the amount of repetition on shows, and to ensure that promos and matches are all achieving something different, and that everything makes logical sense. As an extension of that, a better sense of what each championship is for. I don't think the problem is necessarily "too many" titles, just the lack of differentiation between them, too many of them floating around too small a group of wrestlers, and the recurring avoidable problem of double champions or champions challenging for other belts. It used to annoy me as a kid when the Intercontinental Champion entered the Royal Rumble, because they already have a belt, so why are they getting a chance to win another one? I haven't really budged on that opinion as I've got older and smarter to wrestling either - I think it devalues a title if the champion would rather challenge for a second belt than take pride in defending the one he has, yet we end up in that situation over and over again in AEW. They could introduce actual kayfabe rules about under what circumstances a champion could challenge another champion, but they shouldn't have to, they could just not keep booking it to happen. I know the Trios Titles are one of my main bugbears, but since August 2024 they have been wrapped up in main event singles feuds - they were on the Death Riders, then The Opps, now JetSpeed & Hangman, so they've just been props to a World Title picture, rather than a focal point of what could be a fun division in its own right. In that time, they could have been on The Demand or The Hurt Syndicate while they were in a never-ending Trios feud. They could have been on a high-flying team to create an excuse for big spotfest matches on the undercard. They could have been a way to get guys on the card who weren't booked otherwise. Same goes for the Women's Tag Team Titles; they had been around five minutes before they got the TBS Title on Willow too, pretty much guaranteeing that the Tag belts become an accessory to women's singles matches, rather than creating a spot for an additional women's match on the show, or an opportunity to find something to do with some of the other women on the roster who aren't in the title picture. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted January 28 Paid Members Posted January 28 I think it says a lot that the most successful stories in AEW history (Hangman's two title chases, Better Than You Bay-Bay, Toni/Mariah, Punk/MJF, the Sting & Darby team, Hangman vs Swerve, Orange Cassidy's International title run as a few examples) are stories that feel like they could only have been successfully pulled off in AEW. They really need to lean into being different. It's their biggest strength. If WWE or TNA can do it then AEW should never do it. Quote
Paid Members Chris B Posted January 28 Paid Members Posted January 28 I was thinking earlier of the idea that if someone holds onto a title for a year, they can cash it in for a world title shot. Could be a useful way to do something with some of the smaller titles they have. It could give an easy way to slot an Okada, a Ricochet, etc into position further down the year. And, also, potentially, a story in them choosing not to, declaring their own title the real prize. I always like, in the PPVs, when they have the presenting team in the audience - why not have that as part of their regular show, with, as @BomberPat said, someone like RJ City, Renee or even Jarrett there to do those run-downs. Unless they're just terrified of people turning the channel. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 28 Paid Members Posted January 28 1 hour ago, Chris B said: I always like, in the PPVs, when they have the presenting team in the audience - why not have that as part of their regular show, with, as @BomberPat said, someone like RJ City, Renee or even Jarrett there to do those run-downs. Unless they're just terrified of people turning the channel. They do at least seem to be trying some of these things; Technique by Taz coming back is one thing, and they've had Renee doing little ringside analysis bits before Continental matches, which is something new at least. I just think the format of constantly having the same two or three blokes deliver all the information to you across a live show is so tired. There's a balance in not losing the live crowd, but it's just a question of having another way of relaying the same information rather than just having Excalibur do it at breakneck speed while some graphics appear on-screen - have a special set or panel just for that bit, and let Excalibur focus on commentating the actual matches. Throw to different broadcasters for different parts of the show and different jobs. Quote
AshC Posted January 28 Posted January 28 I'd like to see them get to the point where they don't advertise the cards, at least not outside of a main event. Have people think, 'I'll watch this as it's AEW and I trust them to deliver'. Sometimes they post these long cards up or announce them ahead of time and it actually puts me off watching the show. Just create one hook (lower case) or two and let the rest play out during the show, people like to be surprised watching a wrestling show. Quote
RedTwoster Posted January 28 Author Posted January 28 5 hours ago, LaGoosh said: More licensed music! I'm not saying they need to shell out the big bucks on top acts because that's not feasible but surely there's loads of fresh, new and exciting music you can get fairly cheap. Something to inject more energy into things that the usual generic wrestling butt-rock that is so widely prevalent. Fucking Sum 41 in 2026? Get some fresh bands like Turnstile or whoever all over your shows. A tremendous post, I agree with every part of it. Your point about music is something I’ve thought for a long time. They’ve been very good at latching on to viral wrestling trends/characters in the past, if they essentially did that but with music that’s getting popular through platforms like TikTok and Instagram, they’d be able to latch on to popular, contemporary music without breaking the bank. Heck, maybe they could do something a bit different like having a featured new artist for each PPV theme, or even do it on a weekly basis to open Dynamite - a highlights package of the previous week with a different featured artist being the intro rather than what we’ve previously seen. That in itself could be used as a TikTok package each week to promote the company that bit better. Small touches like that, to make them seem fresh, cool and not as corporate as WWE would go a long way towards recapturing the energy and excitement they once had. For me, one of the biggest obstacles to them shaking things up is the fact pretty much every show is objectively decent in isolation. Tony Khan generally can look at any given episode of Dynamite and say ‘good show, guys’. The problem is that they very rarely do anything that makes you want to see what happens next; to grip you into watching that next episode. I don’t even mean in terms of cliff-hangers or noteworthy angles, I mean in terms of ongoing storylines and character arcs. Quote
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