10 Reasons AEW Is Still The Undisputed Best Wrestling Promotion
8. The Stories
A story making sense is the absolute bare minimum requirement for any traditional fictional work. This is not be praised, not even to be expected, but to be demanded.
Again: WWE benefits enormously in contrast to what it was. Which was dog sh*t.
AEW is flawed in its storytelling approach. Certain developments are badly rushed, where others take literal years under the belief that everything must be a saga. Still, when that perfect middle is met, their standard is unparalleled.
Consider Kenny Omega's return from injury arc and the thoughtful craft that went into it. He sold various body parts against La Faccion Ingobernable, but he went deeper than that. He botched moves deliberately. With his compression shirt, he made it seem like he had something to hide. He also laboured over his movements. He was sharper in his next match, against United Empire, but he didn't tan in a bid to make it seem as if he still wasn't ready. In a genius detail, he also cupped for no reason, beyond the visual effect, which is something he did for real when his body was actually in a state of collapse, to get over that the first match was a setback as opposed to a rep.
It was a heightened story, in that he condensed a long-term recovery across three weeks, but it absolutely worked in its own context: when he appeared fully rehabilitated at All Out, tanned and in phenomenal shape, he elicited the loudest reaction of the night with his blistering work opposite Hangman Page.
Which continued their near three-year long story; it seems now like Page only beat the broken Omega at Full Gear, after all, creating scope for a massive rubber match.
There was levels to this game, and Omega is M. Bison.