10 Burning AEW Criticisms Tony Khan MUST Ignore
2. "AEW Needs To Stop Letting People Say What They Want"
The model for pro wrestling storytelling is clear and has been clear for decades and decades: artists tell their own stories within the booker's framework, they feel like real people within a fake world, and money is made when it feels like the rivalry consumes their very soul.
Before this makes it to TV, each collaborator should clear their material with one another but allow a certain amount of wiggle room so that, if something comes to mind, it can be improvised with a deeply-felt venom.
That last part obviously hasn't happened of late, and to devastating effect. The Hangman Page/CM Punk and Eddie Kingston/Sammy Guevara controversies warrant a refinement of the process, but not an upheaval. If there's no emotion in pro wrestling, there is nothing; just a pair of athletes simulating an exaggerated fighting style that, no matter how well executed, just rings hollow.
This approach yields heat, hatred, greatness - and when it doesn't, it's funny. The infamously bad Marina Shafir promo was classic, and so much better than terrible, imposed copy. A terrible promo is part of the wrestling magic.
In AEW, you get Terry Funk and Sid at the same time.