Cheap Seats: AEW Lost Me…Again

 

Nothing I try to write works out for me this week. I’ve got a handful of docs with the makings of an opinion piece, but it all just seem to be either incomplete ideas, or not enough material to keep going, or it doesn’t hold my attention. It’s not from the lack of issues, between the on screen stories going on backstage happenings, coupled with breaking news, there’s plenty of topics, I’m just not feeling it. So, I’m going to attempt something different. I’m going to just wing it, and write what comes to mind. Maybe this will stay focused on one topic, maybe it’ll jump, so let’s just see where this goes.

And as I type this, I see a newsbit about Will Ospreay addressing those who have issues with him selling moves in a match.

I loved and adored AEW when it first began. For three years I was a dedicated fan. I watched live as they had the press conference to introduce the talent on the roster. I bought every Pay Per View that aired in that time span. I bought t-shirts, my kid has a replica belt. I even took her to her first live wrestling event: a way too long night that had three dark matches, Rampage taped, followed by Dynamite live, followed by a ROH taping, followed by reshoots for the two taped shows. A night that started at 5:30 PM didn’t end until nearly 1am. A late night for a 7 year old kid and her dad who has to be up at 4am for work.

There were things I didn’t like; there always has been and always will be with any wrestling show.

The Young Bucks and the bulk of their “clique” bore me. The style does nothing for me, it’s just flips, kicks, a dozen finishers and signature moves that becomes such a spectacle it’s numbing.

But I trekked on because it was edgy and different, bringing back a feeling of the 90s wrestling I loved so much.

Too many guys in AEW just really lacked any character or charisma to make me care. I get they could wrestle in the ring and flat out go, but all the talent in the world won’t make me care if I can’t connect with the wrestler, which was a good chunk of the roster.

I endured because I could really connect with names like Adam Page, Britt Baker, Eddie Kingston (but buddy, get new wrestling tights PLEASE), and Cody Rhodes.

I loved AEW because it gave us guys that were either wasted or never got that chance to reach their full potential in WWE. Names like Miro, Cesaro, Ruby Soho, and a few more. But then I realized that AEW just used them as the flavor of the week, then quickly forgot about them or moved when there was a new toy to play with because of an inflated roster.

I loved AEW because they introduced to me what I saw as the next crop of HUGE stars, namely MJF and Wardlow. Problem was MJF never grew, he just kept going back to the well, and never grew his character and it became stale, and it didn’t take long to realize that Tony Khan had no interest in maintaining a big push for a big man like Wardlow, the biggest travesty of wasted talent AEW has seen.

Time started to become an issue. I’ve got two kids, a wife, and a job where I work a lot of overtime. I’m an avid sports guy that never leaves my couch on Saturdays because it’s college football day. I’ve never found a baseball game I won’t watch, I don’t miss a Celtics or 49ers game. I’m a horror movie buff that used to write for a horror website, and I read a book a week. So when I could just watch 2 hours of Dynamite a week and a 4 hour Pay Per View 4 times a year, AEW was a good fit. But then I had an hour of Rampage added on Fridays, then two hours of Collision on Saturdays. Followed by ROH, then more and more Pay Per View Events now running 6 hours a piece. Fatigue started to set in.

The new car smell was wearing off. The problems became less of an inconvenience and more of impossible for me to overlook.

February of 2022 was the beginning of the end. Cody was gone from AEW. The show became less of a variety show with a little bit of everything and more about the things I didn’t care for: The Young Bucks style of a wrestling show mixed with whatever the hell Chris Jericho has become. As less and less of what I liked began to fade, I began to notice more and more about what I didn’t like. Blood every show, not reserved for big moments to make it special. Everyone no selling moves because it’s the “cool” thing to do. Contrived and overbooked endings with inept referees. Excalibur talking over guys at the announce table.

Tony Khan; his antics became too much. Say what you want about WWE; love it or hate it. Praise Triple H as the savior of WWE or paint him as a racist booker who won’t give people of color a fair shake, one thing can’t be denied; he doesn’t make a fool of himself in front of the press. He doesn’t give out attention seeking comments and attest to the whole “any kind of press is good press” philosophy that Tony Khan does. He may dodge certain questions in press conferences, but it’s what is expected when you are the figurehead of a company. You have to be above it all. He handles himself as a professional whereas Tony Khan just comes off as a man who needs a third hand to pat himself on the back all the time.

I wanted to hold, wanted to like AEW. I began watching WWE a little more on a regular basis, while limiting my AEW: I stopped watching Rampage, watched Dynamite via highlights on YouTube or read the results and picked out the parts I thought would intrigue me. My only must see event every week was Collision because what CM Punk brought to that show during the “soft” brand split was more of the product I wanted to watch.

Let me preface this part by saying that I’m not a CM Punk guy. I respect the guy. The guy is one of the most talented to ever do it both in the ring and on the mic, but just like Daniel Bryan, he’s never been my flavor. I jumped on the bandwagon during the Summer of Punk, but got off not too long after, so it wasn’t blindly following Punk, there was fault on ALL sides with what took place with him in AEW. But once Punk was gone, so was I.

I no longer cared about the product. The last nuggets of what I enjoyed, not Punk but his influence on the product, was gone. I was holding on to something I didn’t like just because I wanted to like it. I had trouble following a product I didn’t care for, run by a guy who was exposed as not being able to control his roster, along with a modern day version of the Clique running the politics backstage; all the issues became exposed for all to see and it was the nail in the coffin.

After Punk was gone, I was gone and never looked back and never regretted it. I devoted more time to the new look WWE, going from just watching Smackdown and highlights on YouTube to checking in on all three shows.

All this leads to what I’m about to say.

I tried again. Two things pushed me to try AEW again; one was I’m a writer here now. I don’t want to be that guy who does nothing but blindly loves the company I follow (WWE) while either insulting or ignoring AEW. I have no right to criticize AEW if I don’t watch, and I feel if I only follow half the major wrestling scene that I’m not as informed as I should be to write for this site. The other was the hope I was given that maybe things had changed for the better.

The last two weeks I dove back into AEW. I got access to All Out, so I took two weeks time and got caught up on AEW from All Out up to the most recent Dynamite.

I tried hard to watch it all again, but it was mind numbing. The few, and I do mean very few things I enjoyed weren’t enough to hold my attention. From the way the turn on Danielson was done purely for shock value, to the over the top gratuitous violence of Adam Page vs Swerve Strickland was way too much.

I’m a horror movie guy. Don’t get me wrong, I love my violence and blood. I’m not some conservative parent with their children. My 10 year olds absolute favorite movies include It, Bride of Chucky, and Deadstream, but the parent in me is saying “I want my kid to enjoy the wrestling the way I did as a kid, as a bonding experience with her daddy,” but this is far from what I want my kid exposed to in the wrestling world. That type of thing has no place in wrestling, save that gratuitous violence for R rated movies where they belong.

But I kept trucking along and watched Dynamite after Dynamite. I saw Daniel Garcia getting air time and treated like some big deal, but he has no personality behind him. Great talent in the ring, but nothing to make me care for him outside of putting on good matches. I saw inconsistent storytelling where I feel like things are being thrown against the wall with hopes of it sticking. I saw Jericho who has gone from an all time great to thinking “get off my TV, you’re the worst part of the show”. Mercedes Mone, was a midcard champion, presented as the biggest name in the women’s division, meanwhile she’s just not good. After three to four weeks of watching the show I can see a half dozen women at least who are better suited for her spot than she is, but money talks and so does Tony Khan’s fandom.

Then this past week, the show that is supposed to be more wrestling centric, had to use an overrun on a show titled “Title Tuesday” just to get in two more minutes of ring action than NXT, a WWE product, the company that calls itself Sports Entertainment as to opposed to the wrestling show that AEW is.

People can claim “it’s the go-home show, it’s supposed to be more of a set up show”, but is that a valid argument? If a company presents itself as more wrestling based, then shouldn’t a show titled “Title Tuesday” be more wrestling based, even if it is a go-home show?

I’m not going to knock those who love AEW, everyone has their own tastes, and I’m with the majority of the people in saying AEW isn’t for me. It works today because there’s a desperate need for “must see” live television. In a day and age of streaming and on-demand, anything presented even remotely close to live sports is vital for television. It’s why AEW got a new media rights deal, wrestling is designed to be watched live just like other sporting events, which means even for a niche market, it’ll draw advertisers.

So what can be done to make me care about AEW again:

Less programming and a smaller roster.

With the growth in the number of Pay Per View Events, for a week with a Pay Per View, there’s two hours of Dynamite and Collision, an hour of Rampage, two hours of ROH, along with five hours of a Pay Per View. So I have to commit twelve hours to AEW, the equivalent of a day and a half of work. The sad part is, even with twelve hours of programming on a Pay Per View week, still only a small fraction of the roster can get air time. Give me four to five hours tops.

Cut the roster down big time. It’s a business, run it like one. As a boss you can’t be someone’s friend. If you’re not going to use Wardlow, then let him go. If you’re not going to use Ricky Starks, let him go. If you’re worried they might run off to WWE and become huge stars, then obviously Tony Khan didn’t do his job right, because if you have that fear, then YOU give them television time, a good story, and set them up for success. Also get rid of the dead-weight as well. How many guys on the roster actually contribute to the show? I’m in my mid-40s, the world I live in, if you can’t contribute to your job, then you don’t have a job. If we are always overstaffed to the point people can’t get hours at work, and when I’m there I contribute less than anybody else, I’m no longer employed. Sure, I might have to sign a non-compete clause stating I won’t work for a competitor for 90 days, but I’m still unemployed.

Slow down on matches. I’m not against high risk spots, or the “flippy wrestling” but it’s mind numbing because they do it too much. Less is more in wrestling. When half your roster hits a shooting star press every show, I’m no longer impressed. When it happens once a show or once every couple of shows it has a better impact. If someone gets busted open every once in a while, like say Drew McIntyre, I stand up and pop for it in one way or another. When Jon Moxely has blood in every match he’s in (I know the extreme, but you get the point), I no longer care. It’s not the style; I can handle that, it’s the lack of restraint.

This also helps the roster stay healthy. The big spots have become such an expectation now, that wrestlers are always trying to top what was done before, or they put guys like Adam Copeland in a position to feel the need to take these risks. It’s wrestling, people get hurt, but be part of the solution not part of the problem.

Utilize big men. I know an ongoing joke with me and my wrestling buddies is the whole “you get a belt, you get a belt, you belt”, but AEW legit needs a new belt. Unlike WWE who don’t have an extremely deep roster of lightweight wrestlers, AEW has a deep roster. There is no reason why they couldn’t legitimately push two world titles, one for Heavyweights, one for Cruiserweights. Maybe this could lead to a sustained push for guys like Wardlow or Miro.

I think at this point it’s time I cut this off and edit this before this gets tagged TLDR, but I feel like I have so much more to say. Maybe I’ll do a follow up to this, explore more of what I didn’t like while also going over the very small handful of things I did like. Who knows?

This Weeks Playlist:
The Vessel and the Storm – 1349
The Monster – Rihanna and Eminem
After Death – Hate Within
Heroes – David Bowie
Infested – Bodysnatcher
Someone’s Daughter – Jinjer
Beneath the Veil of Flesh – The Fallen Prophets
A Work of Art – Ice Nine Kills
Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears
Wicked Game – HIM
Fostering the Divide – Immolation
Akudama – Alpha Wolf

Watched This Week:
Ghosts of Mars
American History X
Love Object
The Crow (2024)
Smile
Strange Darling
Little Bites
Blood Creek
The Hitcher
The Fun House
976-Evil
Would You Rather
Salems Lot (2024)