10 Times WWE Ripped Off AEW
An Eye For An Eye makes the Fed go blind.
Might as well double down on an inflammatory pitch like this in the intro, but AEW isn't even that special in this regard: the WWE empire was built on the ashes of others with New York money.
The Golden Era of the 1980s was shaped by the stars, voices and soul of the American Wrestling Association. When it rusted, the WWF floundered commercially and, albeit with an electric in-ring, barely proceeded onwards with the passé old glory aesthetic under the New Generation marketing slant. When it failed, the company looked to WCW and ECW, and there they found the antiheroes, onscreen power structures and ultra-violence that converged to form the Attitude Era. Latterly, after no-selling it in disgust for years, WWE embraced, a bit, the personnel and style of the independent circuit to drive its modern output.
You know, WWE is a bit of a scientist itself, and Tony Khan's formula is the latest it has bottled to craft its programming.
Nobody owns a trademark on any of this. AEW is basing a huge upcoming angle on an old RAW Guest Host skit and wouldn't exist as it does without the influence of Mid-South Wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions or New Japan Pro Wrestling.
It's just funny, isn't it, that the pissant company has somehow managed to come up with so many good ideas!
10. Eye For An Eye
An eye for an eye, booking idea for a booking idea.
AEW's Eye For An Eye match was not, in fact, settled when Jon Moxley extracted Santana's eyeball from his socket. AEW ran a match marketed as Eye For An Eye as a continuation of Mox's revenge-themed programme with Chris Jericho. Mox blinded Jericho's Inner Circle underling Santana in retribution for the first blow in a quality Revolution diversion enhanced by the reality and pathos of his father enduring the same fate. It was an incredibly neat story beat.
The worst thing about WWE's Eye For An Eye match is that it's a patently ridiculous thing that you can't enjoy perversely. At the Horror Show at Extreme Rules, one must win the Seth Rollins Vs. Rey Mysterio Eye For An Eye match by extracting the eyeball from the socket of their opponent.
This is amazing dumb fun, or it should be, but it isn't. The storyline has taken itself so seriously and yet will result in everybody injuring themselves on Twitter in a race to bury it with the funniest patter. This is bathos in pro wrestling form.
WWE can't even be terrible correctly.