It’s no secret that The WWE is the leader in the sports entertainment industry, not wrestling because Vince McMahon has never truly cared about the wrestling athleticism part of the industry because to him, giving fans entertaining soap opera stuff in The WWE always sells, but nowadays, that old school mentality of “sports entertainment” and not wrestling athleticism selling has alienated many wrestling fans to the point of them stop watching WWE and attending the house and live shows as well because the current WWE product let’s be honest is absolutely stagnant and garbage, nor do I even keep up with it at all.
I’ve always been a fan of the wrestling athleticism side of the industry more than the glorified and over saturated sports entertainment side of it because the athleticism that comes from talented wrestlers have always held my attention and made me emotionally invested in them. Nothing against sports entertainment, but it’s become too over saturated in WWE nowadays to the point of it being extremely overkill with an example being the 3 hour Raw that’s polluted with too much filler content.
At the recent All Elite Wrestling’s “Double Or Nothing” rally just a few yards away from Smackdown Live had their taped show, All Elite Wrestling announced that they are officially a brand new wrestling promotion that will focus on truly giving fans what they wanted since WCW closed its doors in 2001: a much better alternative to WWE.
Here are top 5 reasons why All Elite Wrestling Is A Potential Gamechanger For The Wrestling Industry
1. The Women Will Be Treated And Paid As Equals - It was announced at the recent “Double Or Nothing” rally, it was revealed that women wrestlers in AEW will be given equal treatment and payment as the men. This news is huge given WWE’s notoriously sexist history of abusing and misusing their female employees such as former Diva Sable leaving The WWE and later suing them for $100 million claiming she was sexually harassed and that the company makes their working environment hostile and toxic towards its female employees. The WWE is also notorious for underpaying their performers especially female performers when former WWE Divas Champion AJ Lee pointed out in a tweet a few years ago that “women in WWE sell some of the most merchandise and are featured in some of the highest rated segments, but get an extremely small fraction of what their male counterparts get.” The so-called “women’s evolution” in WWE today is nothing more but propaganda and they still treat many female performers like shit particularly on the main roster.
2. Wrestlers Will Be Given Health Insurance - It’s no secret that I am a firm believer that anyone that works in any type of field especially the wrestling field should definitely have some type of health insurance that will cover the hospital stays, medical expenses, etc. For many years now, wrestlers of the past and present have openly spoken out about how there needs to be a union to take care of the wrestlers which also means that their employers properly take care care of and look after and they get adequate health coverage in case they require surgery or time out of the ring. WWE is notorious for not caring about the wellbeing of their performers because like Vince McMahon famously said in a 2000 promo “It’s All About The Money” because performers in WWE go through the most demanding and grueling schedule ever with performers being on the road away from their families and kids throughout the majority of the year and this had led to women divorcing wrestlers because of it. AEW will offer health insurance to their wrestlers to make sure that they are properly taken care of just in case they’re fighting an addiction or trying to get treatment.
3. Listening To The Fans - Even though they shouldn’t do it too much, but AEW made it perfectly clear at the “Double Or Nothing” rally that the fans will be heard and not being fully ignored like The WWE very often and the most notorious example of this was Vince McMahon deliberately sacrificing and burying his own performers for 4 years in his extremely desperate attempts to get his golden boy Roman Reigns over. With WWE forcing fans who they want them to cheer for like Roman Reigns for four years which failed and boo Becky Lynch last year which also failed, but AEW will not force the fans to cheer for who they want them to cheer for and boo who they want them to boo and I actually like that about AEW.
4. Social Media - One of the things about All Elite Wrestling is the fact that The Young Bucks utilize social media in ways that no other wrestler have ever done before such as pushing themselves and their friends like Cody Rhodes further into the spotlight that makes them truly stand out from the rest of the pack. One of the main reasons why “All In” was wildly successful last year because how Cody and The Young Bucks utilized the power of social media to get the word out about the event to their fans. Social media can be helpful to a wrestler’s career if utilized in the right way.
5. Valuing Quality Over Quantity - One of the main things that I absolutely loved about the “All In” event last year was the fact that there was the wrestling quality that made wrestling fans that greatly value quality over quantity like myself enjoyed with every match being a solid awesome match that was truly worth enjoyable. I actually expect that type of wrestling quality to continue with AEW. It’s no secret that the monopolistic sports entertainment juggernaut WWE greatly values quantity over quality nowadays and it clearly shows in the weekly programming in which they pump out 35-40 hours of mostly meaningless filler content a month which includes the over saturated three hour Raw which is currently one of the absolute biggest killers of the current WWE product.
Note: AEW also announced recently that their talent will not be micromanaged in the form of saying these garbage cookie cutter scripted lines force fed to them by garbage writers nor will they have any writers as the talent themselves will have full creative control over their character and will be allowed to dictate where the story goes and this is another thing that makes them entirely different from WWE which in turn will lead to better storylines, feuds, and better shows.
The Young Bucks talk about AEW TV Format
“Definitely not three hours, that's for sure. "I feel like three hours is too much. You get into a problem where you overexpose your talent and some people get tired of the talent you use because you're using them so often. A three-hour show, that's a long time. We do our mini-series on YouTube and it's 15 minutes once a week and people seem to love that. We can't do a 15-minute TV show or something like that. I think the sweet spot would be 1-2 hours at most.”
"I don't feel like every single character has to be on every week or every show. I feel like we don't want to shove each of the talents down our throats because then it's like I've seen enough of this guy already and then you grow tired of him. I feel like we're going to try and be mindful of that very thing."
The Conclusion - AEW has definitely made some very smart moves so far. I will say that in 3-5 years, they will indeed become a force in the wrestling industry.
By Kwame Shakir
