Competition leads to quality

By Scott Keith on 23 June 2024

Hey Scott,

So, I promise I'm not trying to throw fuel to the fire after some brutal ratings for AEW as this thought mostly was on my head during the recent Death of WCW business, but I've had a question I'd like to see peoples opinion on. When AEW was starting out there was a lot of hype from wrestling fans who wanted the company to do well just cause having competition among major American wrestling companies would lead to both of them doing well. Just how WCW forced WWF to move away from the awfulness of the NEw Generation, AEW would light a fire under WWE's ass and improve the quality of their programming, this was a common thought, a regular idea that I saw bandied around in discussions. And now, WWE is pretty hot, and AEW is pretty not, and now the thought is “well WWE is so successful it's going to choke out all their competition.”

So, what is the deal? Does having a good wrestling product force other wrestling companies to step their game up and improve broadcast quality for everyone, or does the success of one company suck up all the oxygen in the room and lead to their downfall? If WCW being good forced WWF to improve their product, why did WWF being hot in 1999 destroy WCW? If AEW being the hot, fresh thing in 2019 made WWE make real changes and give us heel!Roman, how does top star Cody Rhodes and a hot WWE lead to AEW's downfall?

Thanks,

Because WWE is the incumbent promotion with a 40 year head start and that’s incredibly difficult to overcome. WCW literally had to throw four top WWF stars at them and spend millions just to get on an even playing field. And even then they choked like the Florida Panthers when given the chance to put a boot on Vince’s throat in 1997.