10 Burning AEW Criticisms Tony Khan MUST Ignore
5. "AEW Must Cater More To The Casual Fan"
There isn't a horde of displaced Mideon fans, some six million strong, just waiting for wrestling to be more like it was in the Attitude Era.
There is however such a thing as a casual fan, or at least a viewer receptive to watching AEW - and did between All Out and Grand Slam last year - who isn't sticking around.
Why?
Apparently, AEW is impenetrable
To make this abundantly clear, WWE isn't a promotion that dumb people like and AEW isn't a promotion that clever people like. That is a farcical, insulting, and incorrect take. AEW however is a more sophisticated product that places more trust in its viewers to detect story beats. To use a recent example, a close inspection of the shot composition when Bryan Danielson strapped Daniel Garcia with the ROH Pure title foreshadowed the Wheeler YUTA heel turn teased more heavily on this week's Dynamite. You don't have to be a brain genius to "get it", but a certain level of patience is definitely required. Payoffs sometimes take years.
AEW also does a lot of dumb and frivolous sh*t, just to make that clear also, but it exists as an alternative to the broader monopoly that caters to a larger audience that doesn't want to wait for big matches to happen.
AEW and WWE can co-exist as market competition, and indeed do. There is space for a more patient, less exposition-heavy alternative that peaks higher when they eventually get to the business end of a storyline.
Whenever AEW betrays that, they don't get a WWE-sized audience - so why not serve the viable one they actually have?