10 Creeping Problems AEW MUST Fix
8. Attitude Era Tribute Segments
Ahead of AEW's very first show, Cody cut a promo on his brother Dustin Rhodes.
To him, Dustin embodied the Attitude Era he had grown to despise. For well over a decade, the Attitude Era, its format and stars, loomed over everything as the last chapter of the industry almost. Cody resented this, and vowed to write a new chapter of the big time. The emotional crux was that his own flesh and blood stood in the way.
This was cathartic because Cody spoke to his base. They too were exhausted by the retrospectives, the returning part-time stars, the DX beat up the hot midcard act of the day nostalgia show jerk off.
Fast-forward two years later, and the exaggerated stunt theatre of Vince Russo's WWF is now a Dynamite trope. Vehicular destruction is commonplace, bubbly baths nod to 1998, here's Mike Tyson for a ratings grab. It's all so deeply passé and a bit lame because the fun feels forced. None of this is a wild new frontier of pro wrestling narrative. It's a tiresome echo that is, in the case of the Pinnacle, imposed on acts that feel like they belong to a better and more timeless world.
Do it - the forklift stuff wasn't not good last week - just calm the f*ck down and don't forcibly make Excalibur laugh at it.