10 Misconceptions About AEW You Probably Believe

3. It Isn't Growing

Tony Nese AEW
AEW

All of these new signings, and not one of them is moving the needle!

There aren't several million dispossessed wrestling fans just waiting in vain for a wrestling promotion to once more become great. They still feel lost on Monday nights, though they can't quite place what's missing from their adult lives. Was it just better then? Has the hue of nostalgia stained their soul forever? Are they just waiting for Mideon to come back?

The "casual" fans who watched the WWF at the height of the Attitude Era moved on with their lives and no longer hold an interest in wrestling. Many of them didn't even hold an interest in wrestling back then. Many of them held a principle interest in Sable's t*ts.

AEW was probably always destined to reach its biggest audience on its first television show. Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in, were weirded out that a person in a suit didn't tell them why the people were fighting, and promptly turned off.

But, take a cursory glance at these objective things like "data" and "numbers", and you'll learn that AEW as of December 2021 was outdrawing WWE TV tapings on average and TV ratings between 2020 and 2021 have risen steadily where WWE's mostly flattened.

Slow growth is still growth, and in an atomised, oversaturated pop culture landscape, wrestling won't become a phenomenon again.

 
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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!