10 Secrets Behind AEW's Booking Magic
8. Deft Dovetailing
There's a cause and effect to AEW's fictional universe that creates an immersive and episodic quality to it.
Dynamite isn't a collection of matches that happen, distinct from one another, with results designed to push whomever the higher-ups wish to push at any given time. Over time, this approach if done carelessly will create gaps in logic and retroactively undermine itself.
Everything that happens has a bearing on what happens next. Take FTR's debut on May 27.
They assisted the Young Bucks after Nick and Matt were beaten down by the Butcher and the Blade, who got hot when the action in the opening six-man spilled into their section of the crowd. Both FTR and the Bucks wrestled the Butcher and the Blade in the ensuing weeks (in great matches). That opener pit the Bucks and Matt Hardy against Joey Janela and Private Party. The latter team lost when Marq Quen suffered an ankle injury. Quen was assisted to the back by Hardy to both remove the obstruction of the babyface advantage in the post-match brawl and set up the storyline in which he mentors Private Party. Joey Janela meanwhile, after yet another loss, found unexpected solace with Sonny Kiss and formed a tag team with him.
15 minutes of pro wrestling TV yielded: a match, one debut, two future TV matches, an angle, and two new alliances in addition to drafting the first chapter of the greatest tag team dream match of the 21st century. Virtually every other company would have just done that last bit.
Some people don't look it when you lavish AEW with praise, but that booking is so f*cking sumptuously deft.
The Nightmare Family Vs. Dark Order dovetailed into and advanced Colt Cabana's long-term story with the Dark Order. Darby Allin and Team Taz dovetailed into MJF Vs. Jon Moxley a few weeks back. FTR, to unbelievably great dramatic effect, have dovetailed into and appeared to have destroyed the Elite from within.
#deft