Why Vince McMahon Doesn't Fear AEW (But SHOULD)
The chairman made quite the statement on the investor call, agreeing to discuss the three letters that half of his lapsed fanbase are obsessed with, and how their very existence has tied into numerous sizeable changes in the wider wrestling landscape over the last few years.
Or, not exactly all of that. He mentioned the initials, but then completely no-sold them. Direct from the Q&A as transcribed for the Wrestling Observer, McMahon offered the following;
"It's certainly not a situation where rising tides because....that was when Ted Turner was coming after us with all of Time Warner's assets. That was a different situation. AEW is where they are. I really don't know what their plans are. All I know is what our plans are. I don't consider them competition in the way that I would consider WCW back in the day -- not anywhere near close to that."
The lines were somehow both that of the sassy McMahon of old and the reserved and disconnected tycoon of today. He later went onto question their investments, joking that they could get some more of his talent, as if the company had managed to build a bona fide ticket-selling wrestler since John Cena f*cked off his full-time schedule for good in 2017.
He's not totally incorrect, but this answer is a comfort zone he's craved from the moment WCW went under in 2001. McMahon blew his monopoly after two decades of cripplingly uncreative negligence, but the goal - and he achieved it - was to make the brand so big that it could generate revenues through hitherto unseen television and streaming agreements instead of from ticket sales and pay-per-views. WWE and WCW were one and the same because they were competing wrestling products. Only AEW can be classified as that now, and whilst McMahon sees enormous rights fee deals as vindication for his pivot to content creation over wrestling booking, lots - lots - of fans are using their remotes to tell him a different story.
CONT'D...