10 Secrets Behind AEW's Booking Magic
7. Stylistic Warfare
AEW is a professional wrestling company that EVP Cody has frequently described as a stylistic "buffet".
This approach doesn't just create a range of genres to (in theory) attract different fans and generate a less bland and oppressive vibe: these styles and philosophies are held in such reverence by the characters that they clash, naturally, with those taught under a different method.
AEW isn't some amorphous entertainment presentation with soapy, tacked-on conflicts, not that the pure hatred that has always sold pro wrestling doesn't exist. Very often, the conflict is germane to the "sport" of professional wrestling, which is really what was meant on that controversial and heavily weaponised early press release.
If one benefit has emerged from the cesspool that is Wrestling Twitter, and its excruciating debates of flips and psychology and safety policing, Khan has recognised it.
FTR would loathe the Lucha Bros. for their constant bantering off of U.S. tag rules. They had a match with a convincing source of conflict. FTR would resent Kenny Omega and Hangman Page for becoming a permanent tag team in December, and winning the gold a month later. MJF, defensive technical wrestling prodigy, would think nothing of Jon Moxley's reckless brawling style. Kenny Omega, the wrestling polymath who has done it all - from madcap DDT absurdity to the epic reaches of the New Japan main event, with so many modes of comedy in between - would want to prove himself in Mox's death match domain.
They all had matches with convincing sources of conflict.