The Secret Ingredient Behind AEW's Booking Success
OR; how to make dinosaurs more believable than humans.
The low-key best-booked match in AEW Dynamite history is one you might not expect.
It's a midcard match that wasn't the best, quality-wise, on the night. It wasn't even the second best - and this is TV we're talking about, not pay-per-view. It's a midcard match promoted by the fresh, revolutionary new wrestling league that featured among others a 51 year-old man, a 63 year-old man, and a man who doesn't do pro wrestling as his primary career. It's a match that very subtly advanced a much more significant wider storyline by putting over its antagonist without pitting him against his rival. It's a match that distills, defines and celebrates AEW's approach to booking and its mastery of episodic television.
It's the match between MJF, the Butcher and the Blade and Dustin Rhodes, QT Marshall and Diamond Dallas Page from the Bash At The Beach-themed January 15 edition.
It was booked primarily to strengthen MJF ahead of Revolution without giving away that first confrontation. It was distinct to his first AEW match with Jungle Boy on February 12. That match served a colder, more pragmatic purpose, in that it aimed to convince the paying public that MJF could flat-out go ahead of an expensive PPV purchase.
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