10 Occupational Wrestling Gimmicks You Won't Believe

9. Peter Avalon & Leva Bates - The Librarians

The Fiend
AEW

All Elite Wrestling's 2019 launch was driven by lofty promises and idyllic terms.

This created something of a paradox for the optimistic organisation - it made a wrestling utopia eminently plausible (if not actually possible) thanks to the back catalogue of matches and angles assembled by the men and women before the company was even formed.

Now, they had to deliver it all over again under the AEW brand, and do so immediately in order to justify hubristic claims and the elevation of a browbeaten fanbase's hopes and dreams. The wrestling buffet was open, but they had a few too many dishes on offer.

The Librarians were emblematic of this.

Peter Avalon and Leva Bates as the eventual payoffs to a middling Being The Elite bit wasn't even that entertaining to the BTE hardcores, but looked far too close to the competition AEW was set up to be the alternative to. It mattered not that they'd eventually be little more than rabble rousing heels - the cheap idea was lazy, lame and trapped in wrestling's clichéd past rather than its thrilling and projected future.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett