10 Things AEW MUST Achieve Over The Next Five Years
6. A Drawing Gimmick Match Of Its Own Creation
Stadium Stampede was a one-off: a seminal mood-dependent affair that diffused a mood nobody would ever want to languish in again.
The Casino-prefixed stuff meanwhile isn't working, cute though the marketing is.
The Casino Ladder match was a strange attempt to fold in the countdown drama of WWE's eternal Royal Rumble stip. The drama it attempted to tack on was at once barely there and unfair. The last entrant held no advantage - in theory, were it "real," somebody else might have won before they made their way to the ring - rendering the whole thing illogical and pointlessly drawn-out.
The Casino Battle Royal attempted to tweak the countdown drama by placing various entrants into groups of four, but only succeeded in creating the sup-optimal, perplexing visual of a group of opponents sharing the same spotlight. Convoluted and gimmicky, these stips are more TNA than Elite and should be abandoned immediately.
What's strange about AEW's poor form in creating in-house gimmick attractions is that the promotion excels at the old standards: the glorious modernisation of the Steel Cage no escape/no surrender psychology; the delirious fun of the Bunkhouse Brawl; the totally committed insanity of Lights Out. A great gimmick match is a drawing card unto itself, and establishes an identity around a promotion.
AEW have much to gain from nailing this, not least of which roaring back at the critics for a rare, good-faith burial.