10 Reasons Why AEW Is Still The KING Of Wrestling
9. The Trifecta
A lot of wrestling fans complain about the complaints of AEW PPV builds. The match quality is great, the event will be great, so what's the problem?
The problem is that virtually any wrestling fan could book a PPV card without strong episodic television to elevate the stakes and emotional investment. An algorithm could do it.
Kenny Omega Vs. MJF.
Malakai Black Vs. Darby Allin.
CM Punk Vs. Bryan Danielson.
Athena Vs. Jamie Hayter.
The Young Bucks Vs. FTR Vs. Lucha Bros. in a three-way Escalera de la Muerte match.
That's easy, took less than a minute, and with a tidy undercard would be one of the greatest wrestling events ever held.
The idea is to get people to care about the matches for longer than four hours on a Sunday night, and to this day, AEW is still king, some very iffy recent builds aside.
Jon Moxley's promo game ahead of the Revolution Texas Death match was incredible; with blood pooling by his feet on a stairwell, his hands pressed against the bannister, he looked like a wounded, cornered animal ready to strike. The beat-down of Nick Wayne ahead of All In was horrifying and inspired, and - more on this in-depth later - every angle MJF and Adam Cole have performed in has been a suspenseful masterclass of crowd psychology that has hooked spellbound viewers week to week. They have made the audience care about every second of their story - not merely the 25 minute chapter in the ring.
The trifecta of matches, angles and promos is what separates the best companies from a hundred workrate-happy super indies, and AEW's unscripted creative freedom approach is still the best model.