Professional wrestling has been around for nearly 6 decades and has seen many wrestling promotions come and go, but now there is an influx of new wrestling promotions being born. One such company is AEW which stands for All Elite Wrestling. Before we understand the way AEW changed the pro wrestling world we first must understand and learn about the faces behind the company. The sports world is being revolutionized by the Khan family. This billionaire family is led by Shahid Khan who is a Pakistani-American businessman and sports tycoon. Shahid owns not only the Fulham FC soccer team but also the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team. Shahid has a son Antony who runs and owns one of the biggest pro wrestling organizations in the world. Antony or Tony for short is the founder, co-owner, president, and CEO of All Elite Wrestling(AEW) which is a wrestling company made up of ex-WWE wrestlers both male and female who want some more freedom or in some cases a change of scenery. The part of the roster not made of ex-WWE wrestlers is made up of wrestlers who wrestled on the independent scene for companies like ROH(Ring of Honor) or NJPW(New Japan Pro Wrestling), or both, or even other independent wrestling companies. These wrestlers are called "Indie Darlings". AEW has four EVPs or executive vice presidents. Those being Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, Nick Jackson, and Nick's older brother Matt. While Cody has left AEW for WWE, he helped the other three men take AEW to the top ever since its inception in 2019. Many questions can arise about AEW but the one question that gets asked often and that I also wonder is: How has AEW changed not just WWE but also the pro wrestling landscape as a whole?
Blake Oestriecher, a contributor for Forbes.com has the answers. According to his article, How AEW Has Changed WWE And Pro Wrestling, "A little more than two years after AEW aired its first episode of Dynamite on TNT in October 2019, the landscape of pro wrestling has changed dramatically. Forever. Rest assured, WWE is still king, and financially speaking, that isn’t going to change anytime soon. But WWE is no longer like the NFL, the unquestioned place that all aspiring pro football players want to be. AEW has drastically altered–and raised–the game in a way that few thought was possible just three years ago. Without AEW, CM Punk probably isn’t wrestling again. Without AEW, Bryan Danielson is, in all likelihood, still Daniel Bryan. Without AEW, Darby Allin, MJF(Maxwell Jacob Friedman), Jungle Boy(Jack Perry), and Britt Baker aren’t household names. Without AEW, Ring of Honor which has, for much of its existence, slotted into a similar niche as AEW likely isn’t on hiatus or completely re-imagining the way it does business."¹ Why is that? Well, as the article further goes on to state "That’s because AEW, what in hindsight felt like overnight, leapfrogged Impact, ROH and New Japan Pro-Wrestling to become both a WWE alternative and WWE’s biggest competitor. Ever since The Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, and Kenny Omega left NJPW and ROH to take what was undoubtedly a huge risk by going all in on the upstart AEW promotion, neither NJPW or ROH has been the same."²
In the case of Cody Rhodes, this was a big risk because the Rhodes family has been a constant presence in WWE from him and his brother Dustin(Golddust) to his legendary father the late great Dusty Rhodes. Many felt that when Cody left, he was betraying his own creation when in actuality, he was leaving to let it walk on its own like a parent does when their child leaves home for college. What you see now in terms of creating stars is something that AEW has a model for and it is that model that finds WWE changing their product that has worked for them for decades. The article goes on to say that "AEW’s ability to create new stars has, whether WWE would admit it or not, completely changed the way WWE is trying to create new stars, too. That’s evidenced by the end of the NXT of old, as WWE has completely distanced itself from the NXT that once made five-star matches a common occurrence. NXT, now dubbed NXT 2.0, has done a 180, shifting its focus to transforming college athletes into WWE superstars instead of its previous long-running strategy of signing independent wrestling stalwarts who already had name value in the pro wrestling world."³ The wrestling world while often being a dog-eat-dog world is also a forever-changing world. Like I said before, there are always new wrestling stars being made, and with that, new wrestling promotions are being created.
AEW owes most of its success not only to its EVPs but also to Tony Khan himself. The article states "Let’s talk for a second about AEW President Tony Khan, who in a span of just a few years has demonstrated that he is a fantastic booker with a knack for quality long-term storytelling and connections that have already made AEW profitable and left WWE’s TV partners in a tizzy. Why? Because WWE has released top stars like Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman and missed out on guys like MJF that have knocked it out of the park in AEW.⁴ Another point that the article brings up is the thought of negativity in the wrestling world, thanks in part to AEW and Tony Khan. As the article states "All it takes these days is a quick scan of social media to see the growing divide between AEW diehards and the loyal members of the WWE Universe. The former is quick to praise AEW’s creative process, its ability to cultivate new talent, and its impressive roster. The latter remain accustomed to WWE’s way of doing things and see virtually anything AEW does—like signing an ex-WWE star, for example—as a WWE ripoff. That’s created a more negative atmosphere among the infamous Internet Wrestling Community, which is perhaps the worst thing to come out of the launch and subsequent success of AEW. Arguably the best, however, is that—after roughly two decades of WWE having no true competitor—AEW has given it just that and provided the world’s top wrestlers with a place not named WWE that allows them to perform on a global stage. This has been a breath of fresh air after a long stretch of WWE having no legitimate alternative, and it’s great for the potential longevity of AEW and pro wrestling as a pop culture phenomenon after it had begun to fizzle out over the past decade."⁵ The moral of the story is that wrestling comes in many forms and you can enjoy the sports entertainment you get with WWE while enjoying the rough around the edges grittiness you get with ROH and AEW.
WWE has its formula that works for that company but what makes AEW so great is that they find new innovative ways to bring fans a new perspective when it comes to the product. WWE and AEW both have fan conventions and other ways that fans can interact with the wrestlers but AEW works well with fan feedback. The downside to being a wrestling fan is the toxic behavior you often see in the wrestling fanbase. AEW works because it is not trying to be like every other wrestling promotion. Many fans critique AEW for utilizing ex-WWE guys and girls but the criticism is stupid. What these fans do not realize is that a majority of the WWE wrestlers that have gone to AEW and even some of the ones still there like Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Ricochet, and AJ Styles were indie darlings before WWE even came their way. AEW gives wrestlers a chance to return to their roots whereas the WWE system changes them so the persona they end up running with is a carbon copy of who they really are. This is not a dig at WWE but why they tend to go down in ratings many weeks is due to fan demand in AEW but also the competitive spirit of the company where every sport whether it is AEW or even the NFL is looked at as second best because WWE is always on top thanks to money and the fanbase. There should be no war between WWE and AEW. Let the fans enjoy whatever product they want. Wrestling is wrestling and at the end of the day, the wrestlers are not there to fill their pockets they are there to connect with the fans and put on stellar shows that can sell tickets. Wrestling regardless of the company is what fans make it. WWE and AEW are not competition, AEW is just a way for fans to get a different way of viewing not only former WWE superstars but also a way for them to view the world of pro wrestling in a way that is authentic and not scripted for television.
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