All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is a competing wrestling brand to that of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It has enjoyed success with viewership and roster appeal. It's been so attractive that several wrestlers have jumped ship from WWE to join the AEW bandwagon. However, it has lately suffered problems that might make the interest and viewership decrease substantially.
Tony Khan is the owner of AEW. His father owns the Jacksonville Jaguars, which affords Tony a large bank account. He used this to be AEW’s financial provider. The Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega had a vision and Tony Khan had the money and a vision of his own. AEW started as All In, an independent promotion run as a challenge for a company other than WWE to put 10 000 people in an arena for a wrestling show. The show sold out in under 30 minutes, as did AEW’s first official PPV, All Out. The shows were sell out after sell out. AEW Dynamite was soon announced and again, it was sell out after sell out despite WWE’s NXT being conveniently moved to the same night. AEW did so well that they sent NXT packing and forced them to move back to their original night.
As the years have gone by, people have seen a shift in the company. They are repeating the same mistakes as other promotions such as World Championship Wrestling (WCW). People have started to see AEW just hire any wrestler that came from WWE, as if that was suppose to ignite a bigger flame.
This is where the problems started. The company has became way too saturated with ex-WWE wrestlers and Tony Khan just didn’t or still doesn’t, know how to juggle a roster like his.
The first issue is marketing. This is the main point of anything in the world, from apps to food to electronics. Marketing is key to your success. AEW’s marketing seems to always be in the back in the mind of Tony Khan.
The wrestlers, themselves, seem to be promoting the company more than Tony Khan himself. He seems to rely too much on that aspect. He needs to hire a better marketing team and actually be involved in that department to expand his product to more people.
Social media is key to this. Other promotions thrive on social media. If you look at their social medias, there tends to be something new to read or watch about. They tell us what’s going to happen or what might happen. They give us ominous clues on what's to come.
AEW’s socials well…they tend to not be updated that often. Even more so, they don’t advertise the shows that are in town. When it comes to WWE, they bombard people with ads and commercials of them coming to town.
AEW doesn’t do that. It’s a bit of a "jock" move. They think word will spread if someone sees it in Ticketmaster.
AEW has gotten way too cocky in hiring all the WWE wrestlers that were released through the past years. Eventhough they have their own OG roster, there’s just too much unused talent.
Just because someone from your competition releases a wrestler; it doesn’t mean you have to immediately sought out for them and make them promises you will not keep. Out of the dozen of ex-WWE wrestlers hired, only a handful actually get TV time and actually get some sort of storyline.
What was the demise of WCW? The fact that wrestlers had too much creative control and no one wanted to be the loser. Their egos were at an all time high once that rule was put in.
AEW doesn’t have writers. They’ve always allowed for the wrestlers to make up their storylines and produce their own matches. This isn’t all bad, as a wrestler input could actually be a great thing. They’re inside the ring and they know what to do and when to do it.
AEW’s storylines haven’t always been the best. As hard as they try to blur the line between reality and fiction, most of them don’t catch your attention.
Competing with WWE is the biggest and deadliest reason AEW is in shamble. From the start you knew that this was going to be a competition for WWE. WWE welcomed it with open arms. AEW has always tried to out do WWE in someway. They did so when they gave us shock value.
There lies the problem. They rely too much on trying to out do them. No one is ever going to be WWE. WWE is the biggest wrestling promotion and will be untill the end of time. You created a new promotion, be different, don’t be the guys who need to win the battle every week.
Tony’s been obsessed with the idea of being the top wrestling company, that’s fair, everyone wants to be the top but it must be done organically. If they do a show in a stadium, they mustn't do a show in a stadium where your fanbase isn’t fully engulfed in your product.
Typically, if a professional wrestler gets any reaction or heat from a crowd, be it booming applause as a heroic good guy/babyface or thunderous boos as the villainous bad guy/heel, they’re doing their job well. Occasionally, however, a professional wrestler gets reactions that verge on apathy. Such is the case in AEW with professional wrestling legend, Chris Jericho.
Chris Jericho, one of the founding members of AEW in its humble beginnings five years ago, is, by all accounts, an all-time great professional wrestler. Not only is he a former WWE superstar but he’s a world-renowned talent who has his name in the annals of U.S. wrestling history with WWE and then-competitors WCW and New Japan Pro Wrestling. In many ways, Jericho’s involvement with AEW legitimised it as a new avenue for wayward WWE veterans and new talent alike. Unfortunately, however, most, if not all, of Jericho’s booking has hampered new talent rather than helping them flourish.
Traditionally, wrestlers enter into a feud with another talent that can last upwards of a month with a big payoff at a pay-per-view where the victor—typically a good guy—graduates into a bigger feud with someone who has a championship or is issued a rematch with their villainous competitor.
This structure allows companies to build new stars by having them overcome feuds with industry veterans or promising new talent. However, Jericho’s feuds—unaffectionately dubbed the "Jericho vortex" by fans—have had the opposite effect. Jericho’s booking only benefits himself while keeping younger talent like Konosuke Takeshita, Ricky Starks, Darby Allin and Hook caught in his nebulous orbit until he’s done with them.
AEW’s "Jericho Vortex" phenomenon started to take shape when fans noticed that the Canadian wrestler’s feuds with younger talent felt more like Jericho clinging to his coattails for relevancy. Any AEW fan knows that when a wrestler was entering a program with Jericho, it meant they wouldn’t see them do anything worth watching until the Jericho Vortex was done sucking up all their star power. Things have gotten so bad that fans began memeing the phenomenon on X, with videos of migrating WWE superstars interrupted by Jericho’s theme music—signaling that they, too, will be stuck in his vortex.
While this would typically be the part of the wrassling dissertation where a solution would be offered, there isn’t one here short of Jericho leaving the ring to go do something else. He’s a problem that would benefit AEW if he just went away. Whether he takes time off from AEW to appear on The Masked Singer again, or to go on tour with his butt rock band, Fozzy, or to take a vacation with his wife who may or may not have been "breaking the walls down" on 6 January. Fans need him off TV so they can finally breathe a sigh of relief, knowing his music won’t hit their ears the moment their favourite wrestlers are on AEW.
WWE has a lot of major names right now, with the likes of Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes firing on all cylinders. However, AEW suffered a big problem in the fact Tony Khan had to release CM Punk, who was arguably the biggest star in the locker room before that.
Punk brought a lot of eyes to AEW, as well as money due to his merchandise sales. Hence, losing him was a major negative. However, on top of that, Punk created a lot of drama that actually hurt the company at the same time, which is something that WWE isn't dealing with right now with no backstage fights happening there at the moment.
Live attendance is an important situation for any wrestling company; as it is an indicator of how much interest there is in the shows, plus the audience provides the atmosphere for the shows. When AEW first launched the company, they had no problem attracting fans and it led to some amazing attendances.
However, as time has gone on the company has begun dealing with some issues with live crowds. There have been many examples of AEW struggling to sell seats, which is not an issue that WWE has at the moment as the company is currently in a boom period.
Another reason behind WWE being more attractive is the leadership under the Paul "Triple H" Levesque era. This has come after Vince McMahon left.
While most of the wrestlers, such as Jon Moxely, who is currently in AEW, complained that he left WWE because of less creative freedom. It should be noted that after Triple H has taken over, there is an ample amount of creative freedom that is given to the wrestler.
What we saw Drew McIntyre doing during the match against Seth Rollins, where he tweeted something funny is an example of the same. While this would’ve not been possible when Vince was the head, it’s quite possible when Triple H is the creative head.
While Vince McMahon was more like an old school guy, Triple H, alongside Nick Khan, believes that just like other Sports Entertainment, WWE should also have sponsorships for its matches. Recently, Slim Jim and Mountain Dew have sponsored WWE for their battle royales and singles matches. One can see the Prime drink logo in the middle of the WWE Ring now, which makes it even better.
Most of the major wrestlers who were important to WWE were released in 2020-2022 because of the budget cuts. Eventhough Braun Strowman, Bray Wyatt and Karrion Kross were an important part of the WWE, they were released; but later on re-hired because of the demands that the WWE fanbase made. They were eventually re-signed and are working with WWE in a better way.
Wrestlers such as CM Punk, who said a lot about WWE in the past, also made his return and people are saying that this is because of Paul "Triple H" Levesque.
What happened in the main event of the biggest WrestleMania ever was quite a thing. With The Rock and John Cena going face to face once again and The Undertaker helping Cody win the Championship showed how the story was planned.
The Bloodline has been running the business for 4 years now and a lot has happened with the faction which shows how long and important the storyline has become and as fans have suggested, this could be one of the best storylines ever.
While AEW, the rival company of WWE have been doing press conferences for years, it is a new concept that WWE has tried. It was rarely a thing for WWE to do press conferences after the premium live events when Vince McMahon was the chairman, which has become a thing now after Triple H has taken over the creative control. As he said in one of his interviews, WWE is a sport and like every other sport, it should have press conferences too.
While WWE has changed a lot in 2 years because of Triple H’s takeover, one should think more about how it will progress in the coming years. With Vince not in the picture anymore, we can expect more returns soon.
Stay tuned for a review of the Mr. McMahon documentary series being released tomorrow (25 September) on Netflix.
I personally haven't watched AEW - apart from clips. I don't really see any appeal to it. It's just another wrestling promotion like Total Nonstop Action (TNA). Of the clips, it's the same old thing. However, I saw a clip that put me off the show and made me sick. Jon Moxley attacked Bryan Danielson and ended it by putting a plastic bag over his head until he passed out. There were alternative ways to end the attack.
Seeing actions like those make me question how this kind of subject matter is allowed to air on TV.