10 Bad Habits AEW Must Kick RIGHT NOW
1. Press Conferences
If there was never much need for any pro wrestling company to conduct a press conference, there is no need now.
Building matches in this context isn't as compelling a vehicle as episodic television, but, conversely, anything uttered that is actually candid or interesting only makes episodic television feel fake in contrast. The press conference is a can't-win situation, as Tony Khan recently discovered.
Ordinarily, no reporter present gets a worthwhile answer to a pressing question, if they even ask. The real mysteries are no-commented. The entire charade existed in the first instance as a babyface PR move - "We'll talk to you, not like that isolationist WWE!" - but nobody actually wants to talk. Unless they're CM Punk, of course.
The whole thing was precision-engineered to encourage the media to ask the question: "Your promotion seems to have the momentum of a run-away freight train. Why are you so popular?"
When they aren't quasi-kayfabe milquetoast, they are more trouble than they are worth, which, to reiterate, is nothing. Tony Khan can obviously afford his own fruit baskets, and he should know what happened to Triple H when his product got cold. He was told it got cold, and could only offer sarcastic, gotten-to answers in response.
Beyond the catastrophe that was the All Out '22 presser - an event designed to put over the show that ultimately achieved the exact opposite - don't forget, either, that a very vague non-answer to Kylie Rae's exit, whether it was the only viable/legal approach or not, invited a tidal wave of very ugly speculation that haunted the company for weeks afterwards.