10 Things We Learned From Attending AEW: Double Or Nothing

9. 4 Hour Shows In 12,000 Seat Arenas Are Perfect

Yeah I don’t want to bring up WWE too often here because, ultimately, AEW needs to live and die on its own terms but… but but but but but… having sat through 8 hours of WrestleMania in a crowd so big that 80% of them couldn’t even really see what was going on, this is better.

Wrestling is a small thing. It can spill out across the venue sure but, by and large, it’s usually just two people in a 20ft ring. It’s not a sprawling field with dozens of different people moving around it, and often the most important work is done subtly in expression and selling and, yeah, you sort of need to be able to see it.

The MGM Garden Arena isn’t exactly small, but even in its upper reaches you still felt close enough to the action to feel like you were a part of it. In the very nice media area we were kindly given seats in, it was brilliant.

As for the timing… we popped for something to eat in the afternoon, enjoyed 4 hours of great wrestling, and then ventured out to enjoy our evening. Nobody missed any trains and got stranded in a different city with a 3 hour wait for a $200 taxi.