10 Things AEW Needs To Stop Doing IMMEDIATELY
2. Running The Gauntlet
Making a heel use his sway to force a babyface to fight an uphill battle and overcome the odds in order to earn a shot at said villain? That can be a great tool when used effectively and sparingly.
In AEW, this is a tactic that already feels overused when it pertains to making somebody run the proverbial gauntlet.
Even as of this writing, AEW has two instances of a gauntlet challenge in place on its weekly television product. There's Bryan Danielson having had to defeat five stars in order to get a crack at MJF and the AEW World Title at the upcoming Revolution PPV, whilst simultaneously Ricky Starks was tasked with running the Garcia-Guevara Gauntlet to land a match with Chris Jericho at the same PPV... despite Starks having already faced and beaten Jericho earlier this year.
Retreading familiar beats with any storyline is always a dangerous move, but to have the same narrative - as in, beat a bunch of other wrestlers to earn a shot at a certain superstar - playing out with two separate sets of talent, on the exact same TV show each week, is absolutely baffling.
It may seem like an extreme example, but imagine that while the storyline of Steve Austin trying to discover who ran him over at Survivor Series '99 was playing out, at that same time we had, say, Mick Foley involved in a similar story where the Hardcore Legend was likewise trying to find out who had run him down at the Survivor Series.
In that situation, the two similar stories dilute each other and make both feel less important - which is exactly what's happened with Danielson and Starks' respective gauntlets.