10 Things We Learned From AEW's Double Or Nothing Announcement Party
9. Learning From Their Mistakes
We're about ready to go! #DoubleOrNothing #AEW pic.twitter.com/lV7NMRJzKC
— The Steel Cage (@thesteelcage) February 8, 2019
January's AEW rally in Jacksonville was (rightly) deemed a success on the strength of its announcements. PAC's arrival in his wrestling gear, the women's wrestling/equal pay promise, Double Or Nothing's unveiling, and Chris Jericho's unexpected debut were enough to carry the event above its obvious teething issues.
That the first rally looked cheap diminished its all-around impact, doing little to convince the cynics that AEW wasn't a second-rate operation. The steel background was tacky, the audio levels were all over the place, the footage was poorly-shot, and the team's inexperience shone through in every frame. Pyro was a nice idea, but in the daytime? Nah.
Fortunately, yesterday's presentation was a marked improvement from the original. The MGM Ground's surroundings looked beautiful. The night's sky provided a perfect backdrop for the lit palm trees, neon signs, and the big, daft swimming pool around which the masses were gathered. It was an entirely smoother production, too, and felt more like a big wrestling event than a low-rent press conference, showing that AEW learned from the first rally's shortcomings.
AEW isn't amateur hour; it's a big deal, and it felt like one last night.