Maybe…
By Scott Keith on 9th April 2021
…AEW has lost their way because we're over a year into the crowdless covid-era? So much of AEW's success was how invested the live crowds were in the product, the new ideas, the characters and the wrestling match itself was a bigger focus. Tangible, visceral
crowd reactions drove many of the storylines, became a huge part of what made characters work, which in turn fed into the way we reacted
at home. The steady increase of mass-group run-ins and clusterfuck finishes, seems to be a response to the total lack of crowd-energy.
crowd reactions drove many of the storylines, became a huge part of what made characters work, which in turn fed into the way we reacted
at home. The steady increase of mass-group run-ins and clusterfuck finishes, seems to be a response to the total lack of crowd-energy.
'Sending for the circus' has become a crutch in virtually every feud. By comparison the womens division has massively improved during the same period, in part,
because they've kept the focus simple, feuds contained and the characters defined.
The best example I can give of a feud I think worked really well, was the Best Friends / Miro + Kip stuff. It was funny, smart, easy to follow, had solid matches and a limited cast of defined characters ending in great payoff. It also benefitted from not requiring
an NJPW wiki page open or a YouTube blog for context.
It's frustrating because some of the Omega/Callis stuff has been really great, on the precipice of something unique… now they're back to being bogged down in fitting six people around the table and it makes Omega as champion so much smaller.
See, for me the Miro feud is an example of something that DOESN'T work. The central premise of the feud (Kip's wedding) was basically forgotten for weeks at a time. They did a weird storyline with Chuck becoming a butler to kill time and had no real payoff for it. And it took months to get to the actual tag team match. But yes, I agree with your larger point, absolutely. I think that a major positive, however, is that Tony Khan has always been willing to adjust the thinking on the fly and make changes where the audience seems to indicate, and I'm assuming he can also course correct in this case as well.