AEW Double or Nothing 2020 POST Show, Hana Kimura w/ WH Park

Because I used to like wrestling before a vocal minority somehow managed corrupt it into a childish soap opera. I live in the hope that AEW stop indulging the “creative” childish whims of those in the company who crave the indy crowds validation and instead focus on presenting a product that appeals to a wider audience. A growing audience would promote competition and competition generally pushes the other organisations to improve their product as WCW proved with Nitro. A larger audience can only be good for wrestling and those who make their living from it.

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One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve observed is the idea that AEW is fundamentally different from WWE. You can think one is better or worse than the other or does certain things better or worse than the other. But the notion that one is “pro wrestling” and one is “sports entertainment” — or however you want to term it — is long gone.

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The line has been blurred for sure. I had high hopes that AEW was going to be closer to NJPW in presentation than WWE but it wasn’t the case.

I do prefer AEW over WWE but I wish they would have stayed true to their word and made it more sport-centric with more pro-wrestling.

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I’m not necessarily blaming AEW (well, maybe I am, I’d have to go back and see what they actually said). But I think a lot of their fans still carry water for them and push that “this is pro wrestling” narrative.

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The biggest thing for me is the creative freedom and personality that guys in AEW are allowed to show. Most of the wrestlers in WWE and AEW are fine in the ring but AEW guys talk and act like real people.

Zero chance that a guy like Sammy G ever becomes a big star in WWE - he’s too small. I find WWE to be badly scripted and way too much over acting. The in ring is fine but everything else is really bad.

I just find WWE so micromanaged and robotic. Nothing is spontaneous. Everything is designed for the entertainment of a 73-year-old man.

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I dont disagree for the most part, but I think it depends on the performers. I never see myself saying those things about guys like Owens, Orton or Edge for example.

Then if you take a Dana Brooke/Carmella segment, it’s so hard to watch and baffling that anyone actually thinks this is good. I truly have no idea how anyone who works on a professional television show could ever put that on the air. Either send these people to acting classes, or allow them to improvise.

I think Cody may be to blame for that. Here is an excerpt from a John Moxley interview:

“A year ago, we had a conversation on the phone and [Cody] said, ‘let’s bring pro wrestling back. Pro wrestling that you grew up on! Not crap, not sports entertainment, not scripted canned horsecrap. Pro wrestling!” Moxley said. “I’m telling you, it works! It’s like mac ‘n cheese, it’s always good, it always works and we brought that back.”

Personally I am fine with AEW doing what they are doing, the one issue I do have is some AEW wrestlers and fans acting as if what they do is “pure” and act as if they are above “sports entertainment” when in reality they do the same thing.

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Man I loved that Stadium Stampede match. So much fun and damn entertaining.

They had no intention of being sports centric. They only said that because people criticised WWE over it. It was an empty PR comment which should’ve been obvious because of the people involved.

I don’t think AEW had that in mind when doing it, maybe you could say they should’ve had that in mind and not done it but that’s being slightly too sensitive in my opinion. A lot of people on the forum who definitely struggle with double standards would definitely be screaming “Tone deaf!!!” If it was the WWE though, that’s for sure.

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Regardless, they kind of put this expectation on themselves. When you use the bait to reel people in, even if its just through a ton of interviews here and there and “PR”, then you give the viewer something else, people are going to criticize.

I’m all for people holding their feet to the fire and calling them out on it, I’m just saying that it’s not a surprise that they’re closer to WWE main roster than to New Japan. Not sure most people actually wanted “sports centric” with wrestling anyway, it was just a stick to beat WWE with. If they actually did want that then NXT and ROH would be a whole lot more popular. AEW fans are mainstream wrestling fans whether they like to admit it or not.

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Completely agree.

They had me fooled then. They came together in NJPW it lined up. I don’t mind it now, I do find the genre of wrestling you see in AEW depends on the program you are watching. If they start becoming prescriptive like WWE has become for me then I may bow out and move more attention to NWA.

It’s Omega and The Young Bucks. Their version of Bullet Club was them just being goofballs. No way were they gonna do a serious wrestling show.

Fair point, I started watching NJPW when Kenny was the cleaner even after when loosened up the gimmick he was still doing serious matches when he was in the US Title picture, and going after the IWGP title. His delivery was a bit more cartoon villain but there was a seriousness to it I felt.

I saw the Elite as a little on the corny side with BTE but when Kenny was doing angles for the title he came in with his game face on and put on matches that were amazing and felt really serious in nature.

I think my point is that they do have the ability of being serious and driven toward a goal while still cutting loose and it would work in a more sport-centric presentation.

I think that passion is what has been missing and it feels far more comedy overall and laid back. I’d love to see Kenny play that again he feels so much more like a background player lately and was supposed to be the promotions biggest draw…aside from Jericho.