Is Comparing AEW and WCW Fair?

In 2019, oh such an innocent time, I said that AEW was a must-see thing. I also heavily criticized it for having some WCW, as the kids say, “vibes.” It’s a feeling I’ve not entirely shaken off, but almost two years on, I have had the time to watch more. Additionally, I’ve had more conversations on it, and I’ve got a slightly different outlook on it. Now, if you are unfamiliar, All Elite Wrestling is a promotion that started in early 2019. By mid-2019 it had a major TV deal for the US network TBS/TNT and FITE TV globally, I believe. Since then, the company and the overall wrestling world have ballooned with its success, taking on the titan of “sports entertainment,” WWE.

I won’t go through the entire history of the company and what led to its creation. For the most part, the business end centers around some well-known wrestlers, a Pakistani-American billionaire, and that billionaire’s wrestling fan son/co-owner. This sounds like a recipe for disaster: We’ve all see the spoiled rich kids in movies and reality TV who get massive opportunities, offer jobs to their friends, and have no business model to create something sustainable. Of course, last year as the still current pandemic started to take hold, wrestling might not have been the most profitable business to be in. Nonetheless, (via Cultaholic) Tony Khan reports the business will be all good this year.

With all that said, my point today is to (of sorts) refine my previous point about WCW and AEW. As soon as you tell anyone that’s even remotely heard of wrestling in the last 25-years about a company and compare it with WCW, the jump to conclusion is 2001’s buy-out of the Turner-Broadcasting owned company and the 2-3 years that led to that point. In some ways, I have and will maintain there is a touch of that sentiment in my statement. Any company that snaps up near enough every released talent from another while vying for the TV ratings domination, I’m going to draw that comparison. I know I’m tough, but it is fair.

All the same, I’ve also had two years of watching Dynamite, a few weeks of seeing Rampage, and catching clips from Dark and Dark: Elevation here and there alongside the PPVs over that time. In that time, I’ve also had conversations with the likes of David, I’ve listened to other opinions, and I’ve slightly changed that view. Mostly, as a result of some arguing that WCW is not AEW despite all its faults along with everything to do with Vince Russo, the existence of Hulk Hogan, and every horrible little bit that was the 90s. I know I’ve already started the anger in people who’ll repost this to Reddit or wherever, maybe even the comment section, saying that I hate AEW. I don’t, I prefer it.

The pandemic-era of wrestling is something that moderately killed that for a few months, as both major promotions in the North American wrestling world had to shutter themselves away from fans and lose the atmosphere. As everyone does, I did show up for WrestleMania last year (and this year’s Royal Rumble) from the Performance Center on the WWE side but dropped out again soon after. I returned to AEW when they limited fans at Daily’s Place, though only from time to time. I won’t complain about either company doing the best they can with the situation, but wrestling feels flat when there just isn’t that interaction between the fans and those in the ring.

Then late last year, wrestling offered you a kick in the teeth as the passing of Brodie Lee was announced. Days later, AEW hosted a tribute night to a man that no one had a bad word for. I’ll say it now: If you can get through that tribute show with a dry eye, I don’t think you are human. What that show did was place itself up there in terms of moments in wrestling that will make you cry, no matter who you are. It also provided some amazing moments later between -1 (Brodie Lee Jr) and Tay Conti, and even that one time his mother pulled him from the shows for slipping grades. That’s something wholesome and I love it.

Nonetheless, with every new release from WWE or a contract dispute occurs, we see the rumors and often eventual debut on the AEW roster. We’ve seen it time and time again, which is my biggest criticism of the entire sphere of AEW. Quite a few of the names and faces around AEW are those that 60-90 days before left WWE’s locker room. To some degree, that’s been handled moderately well. However, and this is my point with the comparison, that was the case with WCW until the upper card (Hogan) wouldn’t allow for upward mobility of the entertaining up-and-comers of tomorrow in the low to mid-card. Specifically, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit (yes, him), and a few others who would end up in WWE or then WWF before the pandas got the chairs out for lawyers.

This is the thing that David and I keep discussing when we talk about wrestling, or more so that I talk at him about wrestling and he begrudgingly points to a thing or two wanting me to shut up. How many of these big signings can AEW take on or feature in weekly TV without other talent being held lower in the card or on other lower-profile shows. I commented on it a few moments ago, but I have no interest in watching all of Dark or Dark: Elevation because they are YouTube shows. I hardly have enough time for all of Dynamite and now Rampage. For those four shows, it can be 5-hours or more a week of wrestling, minus the PPVs. WWE produces 7-hours over three shows, minus their PPVs.

I love some of the talent that has re-debuted lately on the AEW roster: Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Adam Cole (less so), and others throughout the last year and a half of releases. However, can you honestly put Bryan Danielson or CM Punk on Dark and Dark: Elevation week-in and week-out? I don’t think so, and I don’t think that will change in the coming weeks, months, or however many years each man has for their lengthy careers. It is easy to bump Paul White (no BS) or Mark Henry, they are in this semi-retired phase but are still hanging on to the business and giving “the rub” to these smaller names in the business (prior to AEW).

Over the last few weeks or months while catching up on wrestling news, the instant someone (anyone) is released it is spread across Twitter, Reddit, and comment sections galore, “X to AEW.” Bray Wyatt, The Iiconics (now The Iinspiration), Braun Strowman, Tyler Breese and Fandango, Lana, Buddy Matthews (formally Murphy), and so on. I’ve heard AEW mentioned for every one of them, even just as a whisper, while there are other promotions that could use every one of them. My point isn’t that the company couldn’t use them to their potential, I’m sure they could pull a lot out of some creative people that were held to messy creativity in the WWE. However, my point is that AEW already has a stacked roster that somewhat isn’t fully utilizing what it has.

The AEW Women’s division is (and this is an understatement) pretty much un-utilized outside of the odd match on Dynamite and Rampage. Yes, I’ve seen the graphics about Dark and Dark: Elevation wins and losses, I know that Abadon wins here and there, I know Tay Conti and Anna Jay get wins here and there. As I say this, the TBS Championship was revealed to be a second women’s title much like the men’s TNT title is, but I think the problem is also the fact the women’s title that’s already there sometimes doesn’t feel important enough. Credit where it is due, Britt Baker is a star, making that title shine like a diamond.

Nevertheless, it is a division that is lost in the noise of constant tag-team battles for the titles. It is lost amongst the TNT title, Kenny and his conscripts with faces so smug you want to put a brick through them, and on top of that, people walking through forbidden doors of wrestling. This is what I hoped Rampage was there to (of sorts) balance out a little more. No, you don’t need a 50-50 split every week, but at the very least, I want to feel like not only is the top star of the division important, but I want it to feel on the whole as important as anything else put on by the company. However, I’d argue it is constantly overshadowed by so much elsewhere in the chaos that is the wrestling world right now.

I want to make it clear, the division itself is solid and brings wonderful match-up after wonderful match-up. Furthermore, this is a good problem to have for a company that is actively trying to make waves in an industry that has (for a long time) been dominated by one multi-national empire that has eaten or squashed all former competition. Nonetheless, it is a problem that is felt when you have people like me, who don’t care that much for men’s wrestling or stories because I’ve seen so much of it, and I want something a little sprightlier. Women’s wrestling now features so many amazingly diverse people of size, color, background, and general aesthetic that I’m more than interested, I’m hungry for it.

You may think I’ve gone very tangential and I’m just talking about wrestling because I like it. While that is true, and I do like it, I have a point. At the best of times, the highs of WCW were good and it took years for it to land at the lows of Hogan’s tower of terror. Though to be fair, Eddie Kingston selling that he was shot in the back of the head with a nuke after those sparklers went off at the end of the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch back at Revolution this year, that was hilarious. Thus far this year, Roman Reigns in that Last Man Standing match at the Royal Rumble only comes in second to that. Each company is going to have their bloopers, that’s why we’ve got BotchaMania.

The point being, for all the highs we’re experiencing now with AEW, we’ve seen something similar in WCW. That is what a comparison is, seeing two events in history and drawing a line from one to another. The thing is, while all these seismic shifts happen within the wrestling landscape and Punk, Danielson, and Cole, all appear on a different show with more freedom to them as people and characters, what happens when the well runs dry? Unlike WWE, AEW allows for cross-promotion appearances and offers appearances on national/international TV to unsigned indie talent. So there is still some water for the metaphorical bucket to bring up.

However, as an audience, after all these major signings that crossed the promotional lines, we’re trained to expect more. This is what causes so much contract-talk within the wrestling news world right now, such as the dates that Kevin Owens or Sami Zyan contracts expire within WWE. It becomes an expectation that when end dates are revealed or when the contract has just expired that within two weeks that wrestler will move from Vince McMahon’s toybox of beefy men (and sometimes women) to Tony Khan’s toybox of beefy and skinny men (and women).

I don’t believe that is healthy for the business, at all. Once those that are, to return to the clumsy and dying metaphor, at the well to drink and can see it is running dry, they’ll stop coming as frequently or maybe even all together. Part of AEW’s overall appeal, as much as some might not like to admit it, is the nostalgia of several things. Things like Chris Jericho let loose, Jim Ross on commentary, wrestlers like Punk and Danielson for their successful storylines from 10-years ago+, and the competition that AEW brings that was last seen when WCW went head-to-head with WWE.

I think Tom Campbell put it best when he also ranted about this kind of thing in one of Cultaholic’s recent news videos, it is what we as wrestling fans have wanted for so long. I don’t want AEW to disappear, nor do I want to see WWE finally topple, unlike a Weeble. The competition is healthy for the industry as a whole. It makes for better TV despite the attitude that WWE is non-plussed about it all, and beyond the healthy idea of providing more wrestlers places to work, it provides different styles and approaches to the business. I made the joke already, but Vince is perceived as a spoiled child with his Action Men, while every time you see Tony Khan he’s an excited child loving every second.

Despite the comparisons, putting aside who I’d rather see from X or Y show, I hate the tribalism that has been embedded into wrestling discourse over the last two and a half years. Yes, those that turn to AEW are more likely dejected Attitude-Era (the mid-90s to early-00s) wrestling fans, while WWE depends more on advertisers and presents itself closer to a child-friendly brand, in spite of recent adult-themed phrases used. Yes, of course, you are going to prefer one over the other and you’ll most likely defend it to the hilt, but take this advice, just enjoy wrestling while it is at one of its peaks. Be it WWE or AEW, both have good moments, both have bad moments, and every so often each has a WCW moment.