10 Troubling Things AEW Won't Change

4. The Bad Side Of Long-Term Storytelling

Effective long-term storytelling is a valuable tool; the slow-burn enhances audience investment, compels fans to watch week-to-week, and makes the destination feel essential and even elusive, when Khan is operating at the peak of his powers.

Ineffective long-term storytelling for long-term storytelling's sake is really just as pointless as 50/50 booking. Dither, and treat the characters as plot devices, and all heft is lost.

Remember Best Friends Vs. Miro and Kip Sabian? The blow-off was fun, but by Christ did it take several tedious centuries to get there.

"I'm going to avenge this awful transgression, about which I'm furious...in a few months or whatever" is a strange booking device that makes little to no sense from the perspective of character credibility.

FTR Vs. ReDRagon is bound to happen at some point - an angle was shot during the Casino Battle Royale in which Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly f*cked over Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler - but this was before Revolution. They should have been out for blood well before now. This follows a similar pattern to the Serena Deeb Vs. Hikaru Shida blow-off, in which Khan took a while to book the match after Shida returned from (another!) injury angle.

It was cute that the Street Fight was saved for the hardcore wrestling hotbed of Philadelphia, but isn't cute the exact opposite tone to strike?