10 AEW Disappointments We Really Didn't See Coming

4. Production Failures (Various)

There can be no excuses, is what it is.

AEW is a company of tremendous creative expression, managed risk and intriguing experimentation. It's also a company that's offered one too many botches on big stages. It can be both things.

Tony Khan blamed the company that rigged the ring for Revolution 2021's disastrous Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch conclusion, as if that somehow absolved a wealthy show of the ability to test things first. Radio silence greeted Chris Jericho falling through cardboard at the climax of Blood & Guts, but it couldn't have been any worse than Matt Hardy missing his landing and nearly buying the farm at All Out 2020.

At Fight For The Fallen 2019, a major timing snafu resulted in an awkward post-show giant cheque bit airing in full on the pay-per-view rather than just playing out for those in attendance. The crowd were knackered, half the wrestlers were off the clock and the scene resembled David Brent in the car park with his emu outfit on more than a bit of philanthropic PR. That they're still tarred with this botch-laden brush - two and a half monied years on from the debacle - is too telling for its own good.