10 Totally Dumb Booking Tropes Wrestling Is OBSESSED With
9. Contracts
An incredibly tiresome debate has raged across the online space throughout 2023: what is storytelling in pro wrestling?
The answer is literally anything that elicits an emotional response from the crowd and elevates a talent, whether that is a long drawn-out episodic plot, a daft backstage skit, or an actual wrestling match.
Some feel that the last bit, the wrestling part of wrestling, is not a story unto itself but rather the thing that can only happen, and is only worth watching, at the end of a long story.
When were Private Party hotter: immediately following a 14-minute match with the Young Bucks on the second episode of AEW Dynamite, or after three full years of an association with Matt Hardy and his contractual meddling?
The idea that a talent can own another talent's contract is fake and tedious bull. It's a ridiculous premise for a story, and the story itself is never strong enough to justify it. Winning a match to "get out of" a contract has never drawn money, a rating, a loud emotional response, anything.
Was anybody excited, upon AEW's launch, about the administration-oriented presentation? Why does AEW do this? Can you even keep track of the whole saga?
It's not particularly complicated, it's just that nobody cares. Hardy owned Private Party's contracts before merging the HFO with Andrade to create a NewCo named the AHFO. Upon Rush's arrival in AEW, Andrade stopped caring about his business so much, and when he left, Rush didn't give a damn about it at all, leading to the Firm purchasing the old HFO's contracts. What happened with TH2, the Butcher and the Blade and Jora Johl?
You don't give a single damn, which is funny, because "focusing a little more on storytelling" is apparently the answer to AEW's prayers!