10 Reasons It's NEVER BEEN BETTER To Be A WWE Superstar
7. The Opposition
It was initially naïve to assume that the mere existence of competition was going to drive WWE forward in the same way as it had done in the mid-1990s.
When All Elite Wrestling launched in 2019, WWE was already insulated by a billion dollar deal secured for SmackDown and Raw the prior year, and Vince McMahon deemed NXT enough of a sacrifice for trying to hobble the new opposition from the off. This wasn't the try-anything-and-everything vim and vigour of the 1996-1998 period that found the market leader trapped in the shadow of World Championship Wrestling and willing to actually change in order to burst back into the light.
But when AEW crushed the black-and-gold brand in a one-sided war, it established itself as a place where wrestlers of all shapes and sizes could go and make a comparable living doing what they felt they couldn't under the McMahon autocracy.
Numerous little digs and double bookings have since highlighted just how much the challenger brand has gotten under the market leader's skin, and wrestlers themselves have surely benefitted from the strongest negotiations they've had in the fat end of two decades.
And even if Raw or SmackDown don't feel like they fit, leaving WWE outright doesn't have to be the next best thing...