10 Burning AEW Criticisms Tony Khan MUST Ignore
Featuring the FTR problem that nobody wants to admit...
2022 was the year that AEW was finally criticised in good faith.
It was always the most hyper-scrutinised promotion in the history of the industry; as a brash competitor brand upstart who told the world that wrestling was going to be saved from the stale, antagonistic monopoly, this was always going to happen. People wanted it to mean something, everything, where others were aghast that WWE could ever possibly be bad. Several days were dedicated to writing AEW's obituary after they broadcasted one hour of bad comedy before a show, Fyter Fest 2019, that was actually very good.
The magic however has faded somewhat, and those receptive to what AEW are doing aren't into all of it - and with actual justification. The pacing is too much and too little feels like it truly matters as a result. Rampage is an inessential afterthought. The backstage interview interruptions are laughably, pathetically contrived. Ring Of Honor feels like such a pointless pursuit.
Tony Khan has always made it his business to address and attempt to resolve complaints over his product, but the bad faith actors will never go way, irrespective of what he actually does.
That is the point of acting in bad faith - and Khan must be cognisant of listening to the wrong people...
10. "The Shows Must Flow Better"
The absolute worst accounts on Twitter will say that AEW is doing everything wrong - catastrophising the promotion is good for engagement - and of those accounts is Road Dogg.
Speaking to the Whichever One Will Have Him On podcast - Superstar Crossover, in this specific case - Road Dogg claimed that "[AEW's] television show is not fluid" and that "things don’t connect".
This threading method is the way WWE produces their show under the Triple H regime. As an example: an interruption often leads to an impromptu match, which then leads to a disqualification finish when the heel feuding with the babyface in the wider narrative interferes. The shows are therefore not "disjointed"; merely very convenient and contrived. Things exist only as an origin point for something else; so many matches are just vehicles with which to tell a story and serve no actual purpose in and of themselves.
Others have echoed Road Dogg's criticisms, but they too should be ignored: AEW mustn't borrow from WWE's approach because the matches have to matter.
It is ironic that Road Dogg criticised the way in which the promotion transitions from one segment to the next, of all things, because when he degraded himself and begged for a job on Twitter, he told Tony that he wasn't going to lie - he looked "smooth af".
Along similar lines...