10 Mistakes WWE Never Recovered From
8. A Marketable Exodus
WWE’s creative malaise has nothing to do with AEW, but the success of the latter has shined a very bright light on the failings of the former. Competition is supposed to push companies to be their very best, but the establishment of a true pro wrestling alternative has only accentuated the flaws of the number one company in the game. If anything, WWE has doubled down on everything that makes it the shambles it currently is.
You only need to look at the success of a new generation of extremely marketable stars in AEW to see this. WWE’s concept of what a pro wrestling star looks like is still mired in the past, a past that goes back way further than most realise. The Attitude Era was built on men like Steve Austin and Mick Foley, neither of whom were hulking good looking bodybuilder types (no offence, chaps). It wasn’t built on Brakus.
Performers like Malakai Black, Miro and Jon Moxley are fantastic representatives of what a modern-day pro wrestling star is. Each has his own eccentricities, their own unique aesthetics. They aren’t trying to look like Hulk Hogan. They are different, strange, unusual. WWE has let an entire world of extremely marketable stars fall through its fingers. The wider pro wrestling world is all the better for it, but WWE is bereft because of it.