AEW – 6 things for 6 years – By Wrestle G

Hello to everyone in NoDQ.com land it’s your boy Wrestle G here to throw some more wrestling thoughts down on this digital paper.

Hope all is well with everyone, it’s been my anniversary recently, so I’ve taken some time away for some much-needed rest and relaxation. I have been keeping up on my graps though and I was shocked to learn that Dynamite is already 6 years old!

Those 6 years have flown by, when I think that Monday Nitro only ran for 6 and a bit year that felt like decades when I was younger. But congratulations to Tony Khan and AEW for staying the course and navigating pandemics and choppy global economic choppy waters to get through those 6 years.

So, since the anniversary addition of Dynamite a few weeks ago got me thinking what are the 6 things I think have been a great positive for AEW to bring to myself and maybe the wider wrestling world.

No messing about this week let’s get right to it

The 6 ways AEW have positively affected the wrestling business

1. Giving a platform – Eddie Kingston, Orange Cassidy, The Dark Order, Excalibur and a whole host of other performers are in my opinion ones who in 2019 were not going to be performers for a variety of reasons to be picked up by the WWE. What AEW has done is allowed Wrestlers a platform to go and test themselves on national TV. Some Swim and some Sink, but its important for the industry in my view that the chance is there. Kyle Fletcher for example I don’t think would ever have been given the freedom for his heel turn to flourish in the last year in WWE. We would have likely seen him on the shelf until Mark Davies returned.

   I’m not going to sit here and say that every single person given this shine has worked. But going forward there are so many more roster spots for hungry young guys and girls to go for. And that is a boost for the business.

2. PPV Quality – One thing I would find difficult for anyone to argue is that AEW doesn’t have the best catalogue of Pay Per Views of any wrestling company both now and potentially ever. Whether you like the match styles or not the effort and standard of wrestling across so many Pays Per views is mind blowing to me. I think I can count on one hand the number of events I have left feeling underwhelmed. For a time WWE PPV’s (or the grossly named PLE’s) felt like extensions of weekly television, angles and matches going through the motions. Since AEW has arrived we have seen the effort wrestlers have gone to in order to elevate the events. An AEW PPV is a mark of quality for me now in terms of in ring. I will absolutely take the criticism of the timings of the shows, and in many instances, I think some time could have been cut. But at the end of the day, I’m never going to sit here and complain about getting more for my money.
3. Wrestling Partnerships – Wrestling history is littered with uneasy alliances between promotions. And it’s no surprise when you think about it, every promoter wants their company to be the absolute best and sharing profits, proceeds, marketing and talent always carries an inherent risk. From pretty much day 1 we’ve seen AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling engage in a partnership where talent has appeared on the others show.

   For this relationship to have lasted over 6 years without there being any major fall out or issues or temporary pause of movement is testament to the professionalism and temperament of the respective owners. The success of this partnership has seen AEW expand to more with Stardom and CMLL and again this has seen success. More Unique moments have occurred and AEW has expanded to doing TV tapings in Mexico, talent like Mistico have had a second chance of life in North America and the pipeline of Female talent has bolstered the divisions.

   Now there is a case to be made that AEW has benefitted the most here, and certainly they have ended up with the bulk of top-level talent. But NJPW in particular also have ot take the blame for not forward thinking in bringing in or fostering new main event talent.

   We’ve seen the effects of the positive partnership on the other side of the street. WWE soon put something in place with TNA which has added a different and entertaining element to NXT, while the biggest news saw the outright acquisition of AAA in Mexico with events now taking place regularly under the WWE/TKO banner. Neither of these partnerships occur in my opinion without AEW taking those first steps and making the Forbidden Door PPV’s a success.

4. Sting – I don’t think I need to say much about this. Sting off of his TNA run was still a hot commodity. He then finally went to the WWE for what we all thought was his swansong. That horrible image of him hobbling around the ring after taking a buckle bomb was one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve witnessed while watching wrestling, and it looked like this would be the last act we saw of Sting in a professional wrestling ring. Fast Forward to AEW and Sting arriving at ‘Winters coming’ what looked like managerial role for Sting mentoring Darby Allin soon turned into Sting and Darby becoming a team. This team elevated Darby and gave Sting a new, fresh, last chapter as a performer. His final match with Darby against the Bucks saw Sting retire as a champion with his sons in full face paint by his side and in his corner. No more fitting way for a legend to retire and for me, its one of the most perfectly booked last runs of any legend.
5. All In – Make no mistake when the first All in London event was announced that was a crazy move. At that point in their tenure, AEW had no right to be booking the biggest stadium in the UK for their first ever UK show positioned as the second biggest Wrestling Promotion in North America.

   Attempting to sell 80,000 tickets at this point seemed like an embarrassment waiting to happen. But the UK fans showed up, they showed their enthusiasm, and Wembley sold a tonne of tickets (I’m not getting into the boring back and forth about turnstile counts….) the event was a huge success and spawned a sequel a year later and back in June AEW ran its first north American Stadium show.

   All In has shown that there is a desire for big shows outside of WrestleMania to run. The most intriguing thing for me now is that WrestleMania season In Saudi Arabia. I think this is ripe for a huge stadium event to take place in the US; there are going to be a tonne of fans being hyped for Mania but with no where to go.

   AEW would be foolish to run a show with mania on American Soil but with a vacuum created with the granddaddy of them all going overseas. The time to capitalise is then. Interesting times ahead.

6. Competition – Quite simply, when you have more competition, it raises the standards of everyone in volved. Since 2019 we’ve seen WWE achieve record gates, we’ve seen TNA rehabilitate, we’ve seen the return of other smaller companies such as MLW able to run regular shows.

   Wrestling certainly feels more connected around the globe, and I put that down to the fight for supremacy. I don’t think there is a war like there was in the 90’s, I think this is much more friendly competition. All boats rise with the tide, and I’m thankful AEW has played its part in another wrestling boom period.

Thanks for reading this week. I’ll be back next week looking at the Curious case of John Cena’s last opponent.

Please drop your opinions in the comments below, or you can carry on the conversation on X via @Wrestle_G or on TikTok via – @wrestleg

Until next time,

Cheers,

G