10 Ways AEW Has Revolutionised Pro Wrestling
8. The Clean Wins Only Policy
Where, as outlined in the introduction, the revolution narrative is closer to restoration, AEW's enforcement of a clean wins-only policy is genuinely radical for a mainstream North American promotion. It shouldn't be, but it is.
Fans haven't reacted earnestly to babyfaces and heels in decades. Interference no longer feels like a grave transgression; it's a hollow plot device with which to prolong a feud or "protect" a performer, the speech markers of course denoting irony. What once deprived fans of hope now deprives them of meaning. Nothing matters; it's all pretext to the next thing that doesn't matter to enable and sustain the churn.
Chris Jericho will humiliate himself to get a babyface over. He allowed Jake Hager to cradle him in his arms, like a comically deceased leading lady, and he was still a legitimate World Champion because the Inner Circle beatdown inevitably followed the clean win.
These were dual triumphs; Jericho remained a serious proposition, and his stable resonated as nasty for the sake of it d*ckheads. Darby Allin isn't "protected". He isn't a talent that AEW might one day do something with; he's a talent they definitely will do something with, but his story must be paved with the resolve and spirit that got him over, not the contrivance that keeps him ticking along into mundane nothingness. There's a gravity to AEW's overarching narrative policy. It isn't hazy, manipulative, and it doesn't result in a single tier that bleeds into itself.
Wins and losses don't just impact the rankings.