10 Things AEW MUST Do To Compete With WWE
2. Work Well With Others
New Japan Pro Wrestling, at New Year's Dash, flexed and prepared for life without the Elite by booking a main event angle entirely around Jay White's IWGP Heavyweight Title challenge. It wasn't scorched earth stuff, but it was all a very telling glimpse into a defiant future. We don't need the Elite, was the message sent.
On the evidence of the show itself, and the perilous-sounding New Beginning events, NJPW does.
It was not a particularly inspiring glimpse. With the maligned Taichi pushed suddenly to a headlining role, and a gigantic rock placed across the shoulders of top foreign star Jay White, the Elite's departure exposed New Japan's lack of depth - a problem shared by AEW in its infancy, and one compounded by the blurring grind that is episodic long-form television.
A partnership doesn't just parachute new stars into a company - the RevPro/NJPW relationship gave us the technical brilliance of Zack Sabre, Jr., the CMLL partnership Hiromu Takahashi's incredible act - it preserves the vitality of the existing roster, the static cast of which will, at some point, feel over-familiar. NXT TV is the only consistently very good episodic pro wrestling programme, and it is excellent because it is never allowed to grow stale. AEW and NJPW are better together.
Somebody tell that mad f*cker Harold Meij.