1 Don’t hire any and all ex-WWE talent
This is something that other promotions have struggled with. It seems line a no brainer, you have a chance to sign this performer that has been in front of millions of fans across the globe for many years. What could go wrong?
As we have seen in TNA, now Impact Wrestling, a lot. It is easy to understand why they did it. It was all for shock value. The problem is, unless your show is going head to head against the competition, there is not a whole lot of shock value to be had.
Ever since two major events occurred in wrestling companies have been trying to replicate the feeling. Those events being Lex Luger appearing on the first Monday Night Nitro show and Rick Rude appearing on Monday Night Raw and Monday Night Nitro simultaneously years before Vince and Shane did a similar thing in the WWE buyout.
Both were shocking to fans. Both required fans to choose one show over the other as they aired at the same time.
Today we don’t have that. Even if we did, digital video recorders (DVR) are prevalent and fans could simply record one and watch the other live rather than flipping back and forth.
Another problem with hiring ex-WWE talent is for the most part, you are not getting their gimmick, you are not getting much of their installed fanbase, you are not getting much for all that extra money outside of a bit of name recognition. Most of what made them famous/interesting to fans is locked away behind WWE’s paywall and no one has yet to cough up the dough for that. WWE has done it in the past for wrestlers with extremely popular gimmicks though, so it proves they are willing to work with others if they see an overwhelming positive in their favor to do so.
Another side effect of hiring ex-WWE talent is they usually get pushed above and beyond the homegrown talent. TNA did this repeatedly, pushing their own talent down a rung or two on the ladder for the latest ex-WWE signing. Imagine where AJ Styles, Robert Roode, Abyss, and countless others that were over with fans would be had they not been pushed down for a “bigger” name that just signed with the company.
Of the homegrown talent, I can only really think of one that could stand toe-to-toe with the latest ex-WWE talent.
Samoa Joe versus Kurt Angle.
Even then, they had Kurt deliver the first loss to Joe, eliminating an aura about him, and giving the push to yet another ex-WWE talent. Sure, it was Kurt Angle but still, he did not need a push like that to get over with fans or advance in the company. Almost like ending another streak that occurred in WWE – the payoff was nothing like it could have been had it been someone that needed it.
Hiring ex-WWe, or ex-other promotion talent is fine if they are held within the confines of your other talent. I understand egos come into play and people don’t like starting over when changing companies but sometimes, you must knock an ego down a bit.
Recent news from AEW is that they hired Dean Malenko as a talent enhancement agent (my wording, not theirs) to help with their homegrown talent. This is great. Now just don’t put Malenko in the main event picture and we are good.
2 Less talking, more action
This is something people complain about with WWE right now. Too much talking and not enough action. The thing is, go back and watch wrestling from just about any promotion at any time in history and you will see an obnoxious amount of talking versus how much wrestling you get. This is just part and parcel for the genre of wrestling, or sports entertainment if you want to call it that.
The point is, talking gets across the feuds, the storyline, etc. It is one thing to have an announcer talking over a match saying “such and such is mad at the other guy because of this” versus the pissed off wrestler yelling and throwing a fit over what the other one did.
The feud between Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage would not have been nearly as epic had it been Guerilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, and Vince McMahon relaying the story with voice overs on the matches.
Fans needed to see the cheap shots, hear the personal attacks from Savage, see the guilt and not understanding looks that Hogan gave early on, etc. That is all visual and it pushed the storyline farther than anything delivered by anyone else.
There are few instances in history where a third party was able to transcend the moment with commentary. One being when Vince McMahon chimed in the feelings of Shawn Michaels over winning the WWF Championship that first time while Michaels celebrated in the ring.
There are a few others that involve Jim Ross at commentary but that was delivery more than what was said.
Talking is needed for wrestling but it is how it is presented to the fans that makes a difference. Most of DX’s best clips are talking because of how it was delivered.
Delivery matters quite a bit. Even at the recent Double or Nothing pay per view that AEW put on – one scene stands out and there was very little talking in it. The scene where Cody destroys a very HHH-esque looking throne with a sledgehammer (favorite weapon of the WWE super star).
While they cannot do scenes like that every show, if done correctly they can be very powerful and get across to fans a much stronger feeling than words could ever reach.
Talking is powerful if done right.
3 Have feuds mean something
This one is a personal pet peeve with WWE. It is true, feuds don’t always run their course due to things out of the control of the company or the performers involved. This could be bad travel arrangements or simply an unexpected injury that postpones/ends a feud abruptly.
Then we have what I call the Dean Ambrose incident.
As most reading this already know, Jonathon Good, the performer behind the Dean Ambrose character, has left and now joined AEW under his former name, Jon Moxley. Nothing wrong with this, wrestlers jump ship all the time.
The problem I have with it is how he left WWE. This is just a glaring problem in WWE now, at least I think so. I am not going to go on a tirade about the whole Corban stable thing – though I could easily. No, I am going to focus on the Dean Ambrose incident as it is extremely relevant considering Good’s actions.
For those that do not know, Roman Reigns announced his Leukemia was back and he would be out of wrestling for a while during his treatment and healing period. This meant leaving Rollins and Ambrose alone to hold the Shield together. That same night the remaining members of the Shield won the Raw Tag Team Championships.
That same night, Ambrose turned heel attacking Rollins and ending the Shield for the second time since their inception. I know, they have semi broken up before but only two times they have done it with a hard exclamation point (Rollins doing it the first-time attacking Reigns and Ambrose with a chair).
This led to Ambrose and Rollins on and off feuding and weird cryptic talking segments that led nowhere. A huge waste of time. Some say this was the deciding point for Ambrose to leave the WWE, how his character was portrayed during this period (which was quite stupid at times).
Eventually Ambrose starts going down the road of “we are buddies, where were you” to Rollins after the crazy Shield member received a beat down – usually by Corban or another of his group. Rollins still playing the “we are enemies” angle showed decidedly disgusted expressions and confusion during these segments.
Then Reigns returns.
Reigns wants the Shield together one last time and that requires Rollins and Ambrose setting aside their differences (and Reigns too who was the butt of many personal attacks by Ambrose during this period).
The feud with Rollins went NOWHERE. The potential feud between Ambrose and Reigns never got off the ground. Reigns flat out ignored all the personal insinuations that Ambrose threw his way.
Nothing is what fans got from this stupid storyline.
Even when Jeff Hardy completely screwed the whole roster of TNA with his substance abuse before his big match against Sting, they still completed it with closure. They didn’t just throw the match out and expect fans to ignore the situation.
Don't get me started on the lack of closure to the feuds we see in the women's division of WWE. People give Impact Wrestling hell for their women's division feuds but at least they have closure and lasting impact on the story lines.
If you are going to have a feud, do it. Don’t drop the ball part way through.
At the recent Double or Nothing PPV, the match between Cody and Dustin had closure and setup something more for later while leaving room for a double cross later (by either performer). That leaves fans guessing if it will happen, if it does then which will be the one to turn, etc.
While every feud cannot end this way, at least it is closure for now and sets up something for later. That is how feuds should end.
4 Don’t do monthly PPV’s
This is a biggie. I remember back in the 80’s and early 90’s when pay per views were an event. People got together at a mutual friend’s home, or Pizza Hut who back then did PPV nights with a cover in their conference rooms. The point is, they were spectacles. They were special events. Storylines had time to build and get fans behind/against them and those fans demand clear end.
Maybe it was the Monday Night Wars that led to it, maybe just plain greed, but we have somehow come to monthly PPV events. Some months having two or more (additional events being “specials” on the WWE Network). The point is, PPV’s are almost relegated to “just a longer version of the weekly shows” and that is not good.
Feuds, storylines, etc don’t have time to build anymore. We see the same wrestlers facing the same wrestlers sometimes across several PPV’s. This waters down the excitement for the PPV event in many ways and it just turns fans off.
Storylines need time to build. Time to grow. And for goodness sake, have a heel be a freaking heel. I don’t want to see the people involved in the feud constantly fighting each week on television only to see them fight AGAIN at the PPV. This includes weekly fights as part of tag teams or whatever.
Who remembers back in the day when the good guy didn’t get their hands on the heel till the PPV? The heel would always find a way to weasel out of fighting them on the weekly television shows, only to be backed into a corner on the PPV. Back when heels acted like heels with cheap shots here and there, agreeing to matches but finding a loophole to get out, etc.
This is part of the vague statement “back when wrestling was fun”.
As I was writing this, I saw a short interview with Cody where he stated monthly PPV’s will not be in their future. Good. Thank you.
5 Don’t treat the women as an afterthought
This is something that wrestling in general needs to work on. Sure, there are some women only promotions out there, and that is great. The problem is when the company is mixed – women are almost immediately pushed to the back of the line. Don’t do that if you want your women’s division to be taken seriously.
We are well past the whole “women cannot put on a good show” excuse. In many cases the women’s matches are more interesting than what the men are putting on. It is time to let the women shine.
Much like the men’s side of the equation, don’t pick up just any ex-WWE cast off. Cherry pick the women that you bring onto the roster. If you plan on doing women’s tag titles then please, please, bring on enough women to make the titles worth having otherwise the titles will be useless and just become jokes. You don’t need jokes in AEW right now.
There you go, five things I think AEW needs to avoid. Later I will post my five things fans need to remember concerning AEW.
