Before Expectations Start Running Wild: A look at AEW’s television future
Before Expectations Start Running Wild: A look at AEW’s television future
We analyze what wrestling fans can expect to see when AEW makes its TV debut in the coming months
After selling out the GM Grand in less than five minutes and months of steady hype that had wrestling fans dreaming of a new golden age for spandex-clad entertainers, the new wrestling promotion “All Elite Wrestling” staged its first major show, Double or Nothing.
For the uninitiated, AEW is the brainchild of a coterie of indy wrestling savants and backed by the billionaire Khan family who also own the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham Football Club in England. AEW’s roster is loaded with the cream of the wrestlers plying their trade outside WWE and topped off by the star power of the legendary Chris Jericho.
Despite the odds being stacked against it- launching a new company in a monopolised industry, dealing with the unreasonable expectations of a rabid and hypercritical fanbase and a last minute change to the card after one of company’s biggest talents dropped out due to creative differences- AEW’s debut can be considered nothing less than a major success. Delivering stellar in-ring performances that catered to a wide variety of wrestling styles as well as providing genuine surprises that shocked and thrilled the audience, the internet wrestling community was left buzzing as they pondered what could happen next.
In the lead up to Double or Nothing, the company announced a TV deal with major network TNT that will see them launch a weekly wrestling show, rekindling memories of the fabled Monday Night Wars of the late 1990s. Despite the runaway hype social media and Reddit, AEW has been careful to reiterate that it isn’t trying to compete with the monolithic WWE but instead is promising to offer an alternative wrestling product to bored and lapsed fans who have become tired with what Vince McMahon and co have been serving up. Yet while it would be foolish to say the nascent AEW poses any kind of commercial threat to WWE, there can be little doubt that it does present the first genuine competition it’s faced in two decades.
In an ongoing series, the experts at Sound the Sirens analyse what wrestling fans can expect to see when AEW makes its TV debut in the coming months.
The Weekly Television Grind
Billy: One of the best things that AEW has going for it now is its scarcity in programming. Each AEW event is a big deal because we’ve waited months to see what they’ve concocted. The fear is that once the weekly television grind kicks in, the surprises and ideas that work become formulas, and then the formulas become repetition, and then the repetition becomes the grind. Like any good television show, the anticipation of any quality programming tapers off when the weekly wait becomes less- bi-weekly, or even daily. AEW events will become episodes and the fear is that the depth-pool of the AEW roster at the moment isn’t quite deep enough to sustain weekly television. Watching the Rhodes brothers feud weekly is a wonderful concept, and the thought of Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley battling it out week in and week out is fantastic, but what happens if Cody is out injured? Or Chris Jericho? What if Mox is out long-term like he was all through 2018? Sure MJF is a future heel superstar, but at the moment, Miz 2.0 isn’t going to cut it. You can sustain the drama when the injury replacement for a major title push is Kofi Kingston, but when it’s Jungle Boy? I don’t think so.
Brad: Anyone who doubts the impact that the weekly grind of television has on wrestling need only watch a few episodes of Raw and Smackdown. Even the epic Becky Lynch storyline that dominated the last six months of Raw huffed and puffed down the final stretch. As Mania drew nearer, the storyline became increasingly circular and convoluted as the creative team struggled to find ways to pad out an angle without actually moving it forward in any kind of way that would take away from the inevitable payoff at the Showcase of the Immortals.
This isn’t meant as a criticism of WWE, as the Lynch storyline was one of the best things to happen in wrestling for years, but a reminder of just how difficult it is to plot an ongoing weekly series and maintain audience engagement. This grind could be mitigated by keeping the show to two hours and perhaps using a periodic season break to allow the talent to refresh and audience interest to replenish.
There’s a reason that the unexpected return is one of wrestling’s greatest tricks- absence makes the crowd’s heart grow fonder.
How AEW manages the weekly format will be one of the biggest challenges it will face.
What has AEW and TNT brass learned from Nitro?
Brad: One distinct pothole that AEW has deftly sidestepped which doomed WCW and multiple reincarnations of TNA and Impact Wrestling, is opening up the checkbook to overpay for washed up or overrated WWE talent. Instead, AEW has opted to sign the best young talent available outside WWE with the intention of creating their own stars that they can mold and develop.
While some might point out that Double Or Nothing ended its show with WWE legend Chris Jericho in the main event and ex-WWE outcast Jon Moxley standing tall, both those signings serve distinct purposes. Jericho is the legend that brings gravitas to the fledgling brand and will help put over the younger but less identifiable talent on AEW’s roster. Meanwhile, Jon Moxley, criminally wasted and underutilized by Stamford, is still in his prime and already has fans fantasy booking matches with Kenny Omega and Hangman Page.
Billy: Television fatigue is a real thing, and while AEW has the luxury of a blank canvas, TNT does not. TNT is a television company that needs to abide by ratings and regulations- something AEW has not had to worry with their two PPVs.
In the WWE Untold episode ‘The Failed Relaunch of WCW’, we learn that the deal that would have seen Eric Bischoff’s Fusient Media buy WCW from Turner soured because then Turner executive Jamie Kellner balked at the idea of giving Fusient Media a weekly two-hour block on Wednesday night for WCW. In the end, the deal fell through because Kellner just didn’t want wrestling on TNT. It’s the nature of the television business as ratings rise and fall and executives come and go. AEW will now have to maintain quality week and week out, something they have not had to do.
One advantage WWE has right now is that if RAW stinks and Smackdown is a bore, you can watch NXT, or even 205 Live (or fire up the network to watch old episodes of RAW), but if AEW stinks, you just turn it off.
On the flipside, AEW has the advantage of being a surprise. Perhaps we have been absolutely ravaged by all the episodes of television ads interrupted by RAW, or that IMPACT has changed networks more times than we can remember that we’ve become so jaded and cynical about the potential of AEW on TNT. But maybe AEW will subvert our expectations of what weekly episodic professional wrestling can be and that TNT will let them do their thing. The best thing that can happen? Old curmudgeon channel changers like myself will be left eating crow every Wednesday night.
IN PART 2: Sound the Sirens turns our crystal ball on what we think will happen in the early days of AEW and who will be the breakout star.