10 Times AEW Put Amazing Details Into Storylines

Being The Elite.

FTR Young Bucks
AEW

On this week's Dynamite, Chuck Taylor, in a moment that wasn't intentionally framed by the hard camera, nor dwelled upon in any pronounced way, offered a wink to the cameraman.

This was spotted by eagle-eyed Twitter user Kim (@Kim_Rey), who also spotted that the subsequent camera angle - flashing for just a second - was filmed from Orange Cassidy's POV.

Cassidy had posed as a member of the production crew to exact revenge on Chris Jericho for the bloody beatdown Le Champion had rained on him last week. The creativity in this promotion is so rampant that much of it isn't detected until a wonderfully nerdy postmortem takes place. The stories are inhabited fully and plotted to extract maximum appreciation from and maintain a fiercely loyal audience.

AEW isn't the sports league - it never claimed to be a BattlARTS redux and the first match ever held under its banner was the Casino Battle Royal, for f*ck's sake - AEW is the details promotion. When they marketed themselves as the alternative for the disenchanted, lapsed fan, what they meant is that AEW was the promotion that would reward the loyalty and intelligence punished elsewhere.

When it came to long-term pro wrestling storytelling, they were going to do the work...

10. Dr. Britt Baker, DMD's "Friendship" With Tony Schiavone

FTR Young Bucks
AEW

There isn't a wrestler in the game with a better - and more entertaining - grasp of her character than Dr. Britt Baker, DMD.

She is a Role Model who has mastered two exhausting and very difficult careers - that require so many different skills between them - simultaneously. To incredible comedic effect, she now believes herself to be the best at *every* job.

Including, of course, that of Tony Schiavone, one of the best interviewers to ever do it. In tiny, subtle moments, when she isn't outright blasting him, she corrects his posture with a quiet, hurried motion. He's been doing this for nearly 40 years!

Weeks later, exasperated - he really was heading for a friendship time-out - she almost dropped an F bomb at his incompetence. He was standing just in the way of her "conspirator" presentation, and had to be moved in lowkey fury. How rude: she'd even made him a personal coffee cup. She spelled his name wrong, but she's very busy and important. It's his fault, really.

The most wonderful thing about this storyline is that it's hardly leading to a match that will draw money on a pay-per-view, or a TV rating, or will even ever happen. It exists to fully draw the Baker character in an outstanding, immersive flourish of character development and world-building.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!