10 Moves Tony Khan Must Make To Save AEW
2. Be More Bold
This is where the rules come back into play.
Ultimately, as a result of his indulgent recruitment strategy, Tony Khan has confronted himself with a stacked roster of performers that he doesn't want to beat. This creates a problem from a luxury; what's the use in such a great crop of performers if they barely interact at a significant level?
The combination of volume of talent and unadventurous booking negates the entire point. Interference finishes are up, too few big matches happen, and momentum is too easy to lose.
So start beating people.
Khan really could do with getting the dry erase board out and circling the names of around eight acts in the men's division and four in the women's that will form the PPV-drawing core of the promotion. Anybody else is fair game to do a clean job.
Would you rather
A) Miro doesn't get booked, or
B) Fuego Del Sol et al. eat pins on TV in his absence?
Not everybody can win all the time, but if they aren't booked half the time, you're just faced with a separate issue.
This rule in turn will foster creativity, which is what rules, paradoxically, accomplish. This is a company that once had Jon Moxley and Nick Gage - two of the biggest "aura" guys in the entire business - lose across back-to-back weeks. And, because the finishes were so creative, they lost nothing other than the match.
Kenny Omega lost frequently in the early phase of AEW's history, and went into became a big PPV headliner draw. His Nielsens as the Belt Collector were very strong too. Losing isn't bad.
Bad finishes are bad.