10 Troubling Things AEW Won't Change
7. Redundant Run-Ins And Interruptions
Tony Khan has wandered into a trap set by his own sensible approach to booking.
Virtually every wrestler is associated with at least one act. This device is either loose (CM Punk, Sting and Darby Allin) or a proper stable, of which there are many (Blackpool Combat Club et al).
This works to reduce the amount of major marquee singles matches and allow Khan much to play with in the long-term. Featured Act A will wrestle associate of Featured Act B in order to slowly build Featured Act A Vs. Featured Act B without running Featured Act A Vs. Featured Act B five million f*cking times with the final rubber match taking place after the first four million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine matches end in a carny finish when Featured Act B gets disqualified for kicking too much ass.
But because virtually every wrestler is associated with somebody else, the heels have mates that join in with the beat-down and the faces have friends to save them, leading to wave upon wave of obligatory, kind-of-have-to-do-it brawls.
It all gets a bit much, and after three years, Khan isn't thinking of ways not to do it - like, for example, issuing a rule by which interferences are punishable by a fine and therefore only happen when the emotions become too charged.