10 "Perfect" Wrestling Feuds That Went Horribly Wrong
New AEW World Champion CM Punk recently said that his WWE run was wasted. Find out why here...
Pro wrestling isn't simple.
Getting a character over is difficult because there's no way of knowing who will. Consider Wardlow. The push seems easy now, but remember the landscape of 2019. Considering that kick pads were in vogue, and the first Wardlow vignette was perceived as a strange "Why are AEW debuting a Natural Born Thriller dude?" development, pushing him was actually a bold, experimental choice. When the experiment worked, AEW appeared to have followed through on a simple plan patterned after the Batista push - but Batista was hardly the kind of guy that AEW fans gravitated towards when the conditions were in place for the company to actually form in the first place.
Conversely, it is easy.
It is even easier when the public actively tells the promoter what it is that they want. In fact, it is probably the easiest thing in the world. Executing a simple instruction as a means of making lots of money and generating yet more good will isn't just incredibly easy; it is the astute thing to do. It is zero risk, high reward business. How do you botch it?
Leave it to the Fed...
10. AJ Styles Vs. Edge
The problem with WWE is that they don't do wrestling storylines. This, despite the second initial standing for "Wrestling".
They also don't do "entertainment" storylines, come to think of it. They establish the premise of a storyline and don't advance it in any meaningful way beyond reiterating the premise.
Fans were high on the idea of an AJ Styles Vs. Edge programme because it was a dream wrestling match between two expert wrestling craftsmen that would have complemented the daft, broad, fun sports entertainment strokes at WrestleMania beautifully.
The fans didn't get a wrestling-themed story, perhaps one based on how well the two incredible defensive wrestlers were able to counter one another's arsenals in tantalising, brief physical interactions. That way, fans would be hyped for the full experience, and the workers could establish storyline threads that would unfold during the match itself.
Instead, Edge blathered on about being a "god", AJ Styles acted as mystified as the rest of us, and the match was a ponderous, pretentious affair that buckled under the boring weight of its own presumed self-importance.