10 Totally Dumb Booking Tropes Wrestling Is OBSESSED With
4. Impromptu Matches
A lot of people don't mind the impromptu match. A lot of young people raised exclusively on WWE just think it's the norm, and have never questioned its logic gap.
Some hate the idea that the promoter slash authority figure shambles into an arena, having not booked a main event, but as luck would have it, their talent have argued in the show-opening segment 95% of the time for 25 bloody years.
It is convenient storytelling so laughably stupid, when used to excess, that Kevin Owens has a new bit in which he savagely mocks the stupidity of the trope and is apoplectic, on a weekly basis, that it happens all of the time. The impromptu match, through rampant overuse, has made every WWE show feel fake.
Does AEW have to follow that direction?
The impromptu match has happened more than once in 2023, which is alarming. Nobody needs to watch another promotion patterned after WWE. Of course, AEW is absolutely nowhere near that yet, but the comparison is going to get made.
AEW could make the device less awful by, for example, having the commentators make it clear that Tony Khan expects tensions to boil over - on certain weeks, a handful per year - and has allocated time on the show accordingly, with a standby match in place in case his suspicions are unfounded.
A small concession to reality is a huge reason to invest.