The narrative of AEW

I usually avoid end of the year retrospective articles, as I see them as low-hanging fruit of topics already discussed, but in this case, I think the events of this year will have a much more direct impact on the next chapter of the industry in 2024 since much of what took place set the table for what's next rather than a simple continuation of the business as the page of the calendar turns to January of next year.

First, it should be mentioned that without All Elite Wrestling, for all of its rightful criticisms, the business would've been far less compelling the past few years. That said, the company's stalled momentum after the initial novelty of a new product wore off and its management blunders have seen the narrative shift within the sport.

As we know, the WWE had several years of drek when TNA was in the midst of a tax lien because of Dixie Carter's total incompetence in 2016 so the Vince McMahon empire could allow the corporate agenda, not fan demand, to direct the product. WWE brass wanted to make Roman Reigns the next John Cena so they shoehorned him into that role, and no amount of fan rejection or hostility was going to change that. Granted, Roman is a top-notch performer and management put him in a very tough position since they tried to force him to become the next Cena instead of allowing him to evolve organically into a main eventer as Roman Reigns. The point being, Roman looked great for the sponsors and thus the shareholders of WWE stock so there were many talents that had their momentum sacrificed in an effort to push baby face Reigns as the top guy. In retrospect, it was such a ham-handed attempt to cater to Vince McMahon's corporate agenda that it was almost cringe worthy. You can't blame the real-life Roman either, the guy did the best with what he was given, the problem was, it was often lame attempts at comedy that did nothing to endear him to an already hostile audience. It's ironic and should be a lesson to management that there's a reason that the audience reaction was used as the barometer in the past and can still measure fan demand today. It was a very unique situation since the fact that WWE was so far ahead of the pack with no legitimate competition for the sports entertainment dollar that they could look to serve the stockholders more than the audience. The bottom line is, if the general public was going to watch pro wrestling in the United States, they were going to watch WWE so management had the advantage of a basic monopoly as far as main stream sports entertainment.

It's no surprise that when Roman Reigns was allowed to naturally evolve as a performer in the role of a heel that he finally become the top star that the office tried to shoehorn for several years, and that heel persona is one of the reasons that the WWE is doing great business with its audience today. That's not to say that the WWE product is in a boom period, as that would suggest that it's a part of pop culture, which it's not, but the company has delivered a quality product that its audience is willing to pay premium prices for, both in terms of ticket sales and merchandise.

The competition, or at least the possibility of it, from All Elite Wrestling is one of the reasons that WWE had an upswing in its business, both because of the ability to maintain its market share and for the opportunities that it created for talent. Cody Rhodes ambitiously left WWE in 2016 when he was typecast as a mid-card comedy act and that exit gave the fans a reason to rally for his success. They knew he was underutilized and their support would prove that the corporate machine was wrong if he was successful outside of the WWE. He was one of the founding members of All Elite Wrestling and eventually familiarity breeds contempt when All Elite fans perceived that Cody was more about his outside of the ring projects than the overall success of the organization. In reality, Cody was just being a smart businessman and nobody can blame him for that, but regardless of the reasoning behind it, Rhodes became the New York Yankees of AEW so to speak. He wore the suits on TV and had his own reality show alongside AEW programming on the Turner networks.

The other side of the coin was part of the Jim Cornette philosophy, "how can we miss you if you don't go away?" and that allowed time for Cody to not only develop the American Nightmare persona that is now the top baby face in WWE, but it also allowed time for the fan demand to build for his return. Based on the fact that the debut edition of Dynamite in October 2019 drew the highest rating in the history of the company with a 1.4 rating, it's clear that a portion of wrestling fans sampled the show and it wasn't for them. That's completely fine because again, AEW is trying to establish an alternative to WWE, not a WWE lite product. Still, the WWE audience at least knew that Cody was still wrestling, they would just rather wait to see him in the "major leagues" than watch a different product, which speaks more to the brand loyal of the audience than anything negative about AEW.

The point being, without AEW, there's not the massive reaction for Cody's return and thus the set up for the storyline that will play out over the course of more than two years as a part of two Wrestlemania main events.

Much of the same can be said for CM Punk, who resurfaced in the industry after a lackluster attempt to pursue MMA in the UFC. Sure, the effort was there, but Phil Brooks didn't even have amateur experience before he tried to fight in the biggest MMA organization in the world. Obviously, that's the catch-22 of the situation, he had too much star power to fight in a regional group, especially if he wanted the most money possible to take legitimate punches in the face, but had no reason to compete in a company that could pay him that type of cash without prior MMA experience. Again, without AEW, and more importantly the fact that Tony Khan can offer comparable money to WWE, CM Punk probably would've sat on his couch. Make no mistake about it, Brooks is a smart businessman and knew there was a buzz after his turbulent dismissal from All Elite so he made a legitimately shocking return and already became the top merchandise seller for WWE. Would Punk have gotten that reaction if the last time he competed in public was a horrendously one-sided decision loss to ham-and-egger Mike Jackson in the UFC five year ago? Again, how can we miss you if you won't go away? There was a decade of demand behind Punk's return to the company and that will also be used for one of the WM main events next year.

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Jade Cargill, to a lesser extent, signing with the WWE sent a message about the status of the industry. Don't get me wrong, one of the benefits of two national groups is that there are options for talent and it can keep everyone fresh, but the point being the narrative of the business puts a lot of momentum on WWE's side. The novelty of All Elite Wrestling wore off and thus the substance rather than the sizzle of the organization determined its standing in the industry. Backstage problems, slapstick booking, and underutilized talent have been the story of All Elite Wrestling for two years, roughly half of its existence. That's not to say that AEW will fold, as we know, this vanity project will continue as long as Tony Khan's billionaire family wants to pick up the tab, but the time frame they have to expand will probably be determined in 2024. For example, there was a period of time in TNA from about 2005-2008 that there was an opportunity for the organization to attempt to take a bigger piece of the pie, but after Dixie Carer failed to make the most of that chance, the company became typecast as a secondary organization. All Elite Wrestling is in danger of being pigeon-holed in such a role if there isn't consistent progress made next year.

As much as I want to see AEW be as successful as possible, particularly for the benefit of the industry, Tony Khan isn't going to relinquish control of his organization, he booked E-fed angles on the internet for years in preparation to get to see it actually play out on-screen so unless someone else would be given the booker job, there's no reason to expect different results from the company. Keep in mind, Tony Khan invested more than $100 million of the Khan family's money to get the chance to play promoter and then winner booker of the year from Dave Meltzer (that and $2.50 can get you a cup of coffee) so he's not going to allow anyone else to run his company, even if he should. It's always a good story to see the underdog overcome the odds to be successful, and very few want to applaud the corporations, especially when most of them are sleazier than anything you will find in the carny wrestling business, but the bottom line is, the WWE is in firm control of the momentum of the industry ahead of 2024. However, the bigger story will be if All Elite Wrestling can expand its audience and most importantly, become profitable next year.