Why AEW is On Fire Right Now (And why it will last for years to come)

 

All Elite Wrestling is on fire right now. To be honest, they started to rebuild themselves since late 2024, but lately, their momentum has come full force (YIP!). Many wrestling influencers have praised the AEW product lately, many even skipping out on WWE programming in the mean time. And yes, these two are related, as you’ll see later…

As one example demonstrates below, in a video with over 68,000 views, a lot of fans aren’t too happy with the current WWE product, and are moving to check out AEW.

Note: The above video is well worth your time, be it a WWE fan or not. Trust me. It’s not the video you think it is. And furthermore, read the comments in the video. Get out of your comfort zone and read the opinions of thousands of others. Again, it’s worth your time.

(especially if you fall into and believe the unfortunate old narrative of “AEW dOesN’T hAVe sToRies”)

I say this because genuine perspective is important. When AEW was going through a bit of a slump in 2023-24, I stood by them. However, I wasn’t naive to the product’s faults, and even if I enjoyed parts of it, I still wanted it to get better — for the same reasons a lot of disgruntled fans who stopped watching AEW entirely did.

In addition, here is more evidence of unease about the current WWE product at the link below from current fans:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Stopped+watching+WWE

It’s not just some random dude online saying this. 

So what happened?

What AEW is doing, and has been doing since around 2025, is truly become the fans’ wrestling product — made for fans, by fans. That’s the explanation in a nutshell. It goes back to what Paul Heyman said about ECW in the famous Rise and Fall of ECW documentary: “Accentuate the positives, hide the negatives.”

Right now, Tony Khan is highlighting the positives, and doing so in such a way that many fans are starting to pay attention to this hot product.

But before we get into this, let’s focus on what this article isn’t.

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X Does Not Always Equal Y

There’s this notion online that opposites are exclusive to criticism.

Just because AEW is doing well means that WWE isn’t. Just because there’s an article praising AEW, that automatically means I’m critiquing WWE. Any positives I derive out of AEW somehow means I’m pointing out negatives in WWE. 

These are trash takes, instigated by tribal and toxic fans, influencers, and columnists.

Let’s get something on the level here. A WWE fan should want AEW to succeed. An AEW fan should want WWE to succeed. When one does well, or is on a hot streak, it forces the other to step up their game. Even if I am 100% not a WWE fan, and haven’t been in probably well over a decade now, their success is like a rising tide.

Anyone who consistency and actively wishes for one to go out of business, or merely pushes back on any positive news at all, is honestly an anti-fan. You are not a wrestling fan, but a terminally online cucked perma-bear.

I’m not perfect. Nobody is. But at some point, we should all try to move on and just respect the differences and appreciate what we can, both out of wrestling, and out of life.

Moving on…

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Consistency and Identity

As of the time of writing, AEW Double or Nothing on May 24 is sold out. Over 14,000 tickets sold. Unless you are a brainless tumor on the internet wrestling community, this can be nothing but good news. Over 14,000 in any market means good numbers overall for a wrestling company.

How have they done this?

They found their identity, and they’ve been consistent with it.

“Where the Best Wrestle” isn’t just a cute tagline, but a guiding creative direction. Yes, we have stories over here. Plenty. But you’re also getting marquee matchups just for the sake of booking them. Right now you have a fighting world champion in Darby Allin, putting on weekly bangers just because fans want to see it, albeit in story, wearing himself down, while an egomaniac (MJF) has been pushed into putting his hair on the line just for a shot at Allin’s AEW Championship.

Layered storytelling within the passion of competition.

In any sport, the guiding story is usually always competition. Not soap operas, backstage drama, or family fighting — but competition. With few exceptions, AEW has leaned heavily into that idea. In fact, with the exception of Stadium Stampede, nearly every match on Sunday’s Double or Nothing card revolves around the determination to win a championship, even if a story is built within the match itself, the focus is always on winning the gold.

Tony Khan has shifted the focus heavily to more pro wrestling and less promos. It was the way AEW was always supposed to be from the beginning before losing their way a little bit through 2023-2024. A wrestling-first company.

And unless you’re a true casual fan, it seems like a lot of online fans want more exciting pro wrestling out of their shows.

The rising numbers and sold out shows say as much.

Beloved and exciting characters who can put on fantastic pro wrestling matches every single week. This is the best of what pro wrestling is.

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Authenticity and Freedom

With recapturing their identity, fans, both old and new, are familiarizing themselves once again with what AEW is and always should have been:

A wrestling-first, gritty, violent product that won’t insult the viewer, but will listen to their fans.

While some love WWE’s heavily produced and polished look — others don’t. And that’s okay. But what WWE loses in grit and violence, AEW gains in authenticity.

What I believe is happening is that many fans are looking at TKO as the enemy in this equation. They see them as overly corporate, apathetic to the talent, and combined with the perceived increase in ads, promos, and ticket prices — many WWE fans are simply not vibing it. 

You know who AEW is by now. You know what you’re getting week in and week out. You know that you’re going to be treated to 4+ hours of pro wrestling on Sunday.

High spots, violence, and “indyriffic” wrestling. Sure, AEW can be an “Indies fed” if it helps some of you sleep at night. Though quite odd for an Indies fed to have a multi-year national major network cable and streaming deal while filling an arena with over 14,000 fans.

Anyway…

You get the wrestling buffet, and when a consumer can always count on that buffet to deliver fresh product, they’re going to keep going back for seconds. Authenticity is the product consumers are buying here, and it’s been a consistent sell for well over a year now.

However…

The biggest part of this is the freedom. 

The freedom for talent to express themselves how they wish. To carry themselves in-ring how they want to, look how they want to, talk how they want to. This is a company that wants to highlight their stars for who they are — not how they “should” be packaged.

And this is huge. Because it adds to the authenticity of the product itself. For every AEW original, this is who they are. For every former WWE talent now in AEW, who they are now is probably always who they wanted to be in the first place.

As a fan, I respect this so much.

From the talent becoming who they want to be without a creative repackage, to the action in the ring, you’re getting a product unfettered by too many hands in the cookie jar. More and more are starting to notice this, and more and more are starting to revisit AEW again.

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WWE’s Creative Downturn

Disclaimer: I do not watch WWE. However, everywhere I look online, I see mostly the same message: WWE is on a slight downslope, creatively.

It doesn’t mean they aren’t making money hand-over-fist — they are. However, the sentiment seems to be that they are in a bit of a creative rut right now. And this has only driven fans to check out the AEW product again.

Remember what I said at the beginning about listening to the fans. Well, Tony Khan listens to his fans. You cannot underestimate this. From dropping storylines dead in the water, to pivoting to push a certain hot talent — TK has grown accustomed to listening to his fanbase when needed.

This is partially what is driving some away from WWE, as I don’t think many fans feel that they’re being listened to.

It won’t last forever, though. Remember, early 90s WWF was creatively awful. However, in about 3 years, they turned it around once adopting a more adult-oriented product by following WCW (and mainly ECW’s) lead to birth the Attitude Era. WWE in 2019 was also pretty bad — but after somewhat following AEW’s influence, they rebounded.

I suspect the same will eventually happen again. Regardless, this has pushed some into the AEW product, and we’re happy to have them join the party.  I hope they stay a bit longer once WWE gets hot again.

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IWC Influencers Are Dying

There are a lot of assholes out there.

JobberNation, JDFromNY, AEWNeckbeard, etc. The list goes on of attic trolls that think they’re looking down at everyone, but in reality, can’t see shit through their natural clown makeup.

It’s becoming pretty obvious from what I can see that two things have become true:

-Their numbers and engagement are down.
-People have slowly long started to tune out their negativity.

Farming for rage-bait engagement is so 2021. It took the IWC some time to catch up, but we’re finally getting there. I think…then again, I’ve been away from the IWC for 9-10 months, so someone confirm or deny this for me.

In short, it’s simply not cool anymore to rip on pro wrestling online for a sad and pathetic living (was it ever?).

Sure, there will always be common cyber gnomes. It’s the nature of the internet. But the real ones — the ones who truly invest in pro wrestling as a whole and want to see the best from it — aren’t getting wrapped up in senseless and immature banter anymore surrounding grown men and women playfighting in tights.

These are man-children that parade as experts when everyone in the actual wrestling business thinks they’re clowns. Tribalism between the AEW and WWE rosters doesn’t exist. The only “war” happening is between these basement dwellers and a real date with a man or woman.

When the words of online trolls become less influential, it allows more folks to check out the AEW product — and it’s working.

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Matchmaking matchmaking matchmaking

“Where the Best Wrestle”. It’s that simple.

AEW has grown its roster to the point where there are few, if any, weak spots exist on it. Every division is stacked. Almost any talent can have a good to great match with any other on the spin of a dial.

This is what separates AEW from the rest right now. The ability to almost guarantee 3-4 solid or better matches every week per show, and an entire PPV lineup of great matches front to back. And it’s what their fan base wants, as well as the growing fan base of people either discovering AEW for the first time, or coming back over after a hiatus.

We’re to the point where from a pro wrestling perspective, nearly every single Dynamite and Collision offers a strong card, sometimes even PPV worthy. And right now, AEW has the depth in the roster to keep it up.

As an AEW fan, or just a fan of great in-ring pro wrestling in general, this is a winning combination. As MJF put it recently, and numbers can attest to this — AEW is growing again. 

Fans are tuning in, and many of them are not tuning out.

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Tony Khan Has Found Jesus

I’ll finish on this.

Have you noticed how calm TK has been over the last year and a half or so?

Cool, calm, and collected.

Apparently, he found Jesus. Cool. Good for him.

Jesus Christ is All Elite.

Tony did some not so great things in the past online. However, he has calmed way down, and I think the company has benefitted from that. It also helps that, according to a few like Darby Allin and MJF, that some of the “cancer” in the AEW locker room has been removed.

Why have guys on the roster that don’t want to be there?

It’s the same way I think he approaches the fans. If you know what the AEW product is at this point, don’t like it, and you’re still complaining about it –then why are you here?

But a lot of people do love it, and more and more people are joining the ranks of “sickos”.

It’s authentic, consistent, and a wrestling product truly for the fans. It’s an easy formula — TK just had to get out of his own way a little to perfect it, and now he has. 

While I want the best for all pro wrestling promotions in the world, even the ones I don’t watch, it’s nice to have my home promotion on a hot streak right now. I suspect that it’s not going to cool down anytime soon.

And with that, happy trails, ya’ll. Be back in another 10 months. 🙂

-TKW