Scott's Mailbag
Rants

Developmental

By Scott Keith on 19 August 2024

I don't mean to sound disparaging in any way towards AEW when I say this. This following sentiment is more of a statement on how vile Vince was at the helm rather than belittling AEW.

In my opinion, there's a large number of wrestlers that are only there because of Vince McMahon. There's people on the AEW roster that were in WWE and Vince foolishly didn't see their value and didn't use them…or he did use them and saddled them with bad creative. There's also people on the AEW roster that were never in WWE and chose not to go there because of this fear.

From all reports, the creative freedom now in WWE under Triple H is unlike anything ever experienced there. This being said, do you think there's going to be a lot of guys choosing to come over from AEW in the next 5 years? Other than Tony paying way more than their worth, will guys actually choose AEW over WWE? Is headlining All In a young wrestler's dream over WrestleMania? They would choose NOT to work for the biggest wrestling company in the world?

I believe this could actually create a big problem for Triple H and Co. They are already giving TV time to TNA wrestlers on NXT. Now they could have an influx of talent coming over in the next couple of years. Then once again in NXT, homegrown developmental talent takes a backseat to other guys.

Should they really consider converting NXT Level Up into Evolve Wrestling and be a true developmental brand? Surely they are seeing the landscape shifting in the industry and need to look down the road, right?


I think Vince getting kicked out of the business was such a seismic shift that people just didn't know how to deal with it. We still don't. AEW's own audience has drastically shifted from 2019 until now and they're still trying to adjust to THAT with the TV shows as well. And yeah, looking down the road is always the key.