10 Storylines AEW Should Abandon RIGHT NOW
1. Chris Jericho Vs Eddie Kingston
It is impossible to connect with the fiction of pro wrestling when you are too concerned with the facts.
It's this mindset that has made connecting with anything WWE produces increasingly difficult for large sections of the audience over the last few years - a company with such a long rap sheet is now judged more by those endless errors and the decision making process behind them than the actual creative output. When a wrestler you like has a good day at work, it's more enjoyable than the phoney-feeling angle they might have been a part of.
AEW's excellent universe-building in its earliest days attempted to establish a cast of characters you cared deeply for either way. A sporting framework disrupted by the drama of pro wrestling crafted for the taste of fans by one himself. When Chris Jericho entered into a programme with Eddie Kingston out of absolutely nowhere in late 2021, not a single person thought about the narrative justification.
Kingston had gotten over huge thanks to a gripping Players Tribune piece on his life coinciding with an incredible feud and match with CM Punk, with conversation about his title aspirations pivoting to winning AEW's top prize. It's this people thought about when a lukewarm Jericho was looking for something to latch on to.
That feeling's never subsided. The match and could and very well may rule, but there's a depressing machiavellian air about the laboured story getting us there.