It's Official: A New Era Has Begun In AEW
CM Punk tried to change WWE in 2011. He has now changed AEW in 2022.
When All Elite Wrestling formed under various, bold promises, nobody was prepared for the sheer, triumphant extent to which this was true.
AEW promised much, as part of its "We're just going to not do everything that WWE does to piss you off" prospectus. Wins and losses mattering. No promos scripted by ex-Hollywood writers. No homogenised ring style with restrictions placed upon it by a single voice who doesn't particularly like pro wrestling, much less its range. The glorious return of tag team wrestling. The glorious return of blood. Long-term storytelling.
That last bit was crucial because WWE had absolutely nuked fan investment with its meaningless 50/50 bullsh*t, relentlessly abandoned pushes and general, dismal failure to position new star acts in interesting, patient, meaningful narratives. Every plan that did actually come to fruition was so boring, more often than not. Contract singings, the first two matches going to a sh*tty, inconclusive finishes...you know the deal. You hated the deal. You hated the deal in great enough numbers to make AEW a viable upstart promotion in the first place.
The wonderful rise of Hangman Page realised AEW's vision. This was all for him, at first. The genius Kenny Omega - who made all of this possible by presenting a new vision of world class wrestling - was in his prime or perhaps just past it. AEW could not build around him long-term. Cody was a major star too, and almost a cult leader with his fervent talk of a revolution - but he wasn't interested in playing the Ace figure. He was all in on reshaping wrestling in an executive role. The Young Bucks proved before either man that there was no limit to "indie wrestling". They transformed and monetised it to an unprecedented, transformative extent, but as a tag team, no matter how much AEW were invested in saving the genre, they weren't the answer.
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