10 Awful Things Wrestling Needs To LEAVE In 2023
9. AEW's Pre-Taped Skits
AEW is meant to act as the alternative to WWE.
As part of this, Tony Khan refused to utilise the impromptu match and invisible camera. He wanted to create the effect that AEW Dynamite was a sporting emulation that happened to be broadcast, and not a clearly written show operating with a flawed internal logic.
This more realistic approach is now under threat as a result of AEW's new obsession with the pre-taped skit.
Some of the Better Than You Bay-Bay "bro sessions" were amusing - the material was significantly better in the live arena, which makes its own point - but why were the cameras there?
Both MJF and Adam Cole acknowledged the existence of the camera crew, but this felt like having cake, eating cake - a thin excuse to "get away with" bending AEW's storytelling rules. Who was editing these vignettes, with their terrible slo-mo effects and music cues, and, more pertinently, why?
By the time Cole suffered an ankle injury and Roderick Strong's passive-aggressive character reached parody levels, fans were left with contrived and utterly charmless NXT-adjacent material.
What is funny about watching peanut butter being spread, slowly, on bread? What is funny about Cole and Strong playing the roles of actual children?
The worry now is that, if a character stumbles upon something funny organically - and this happened with Toni Storm - they will instantly undergo a process of Flanderisation, and AEW will butcher the charm right out of it.