10 Ways WWE Has Warped The Minds Of Fans
8. A Loss Is Not A Burial
A sense of panic shaped by years and years of WWE punishment booking, or Vince simply losing interest in a performer - in league with the methods by which WWE "protects" its talents - has crept into the AEW discussion.
AEW is fighting a two-pronged battle; the promotion needs to both attract and re-train an audience in how to process basic professional wrestling storytelling. What WWE has done, over the past however many years but particularly since the advent of the churn-friendly WWE Network, is erode the concept of meaning and drama.
As has been written on this author page before: the loss matters as much as the win in the context of how promotions should book, and it almost always must be clean to mean anything. A loss should, in cause-and-effect storytelling that isn't just looped into nothingness, inspire some sort of change in demeanour, whether that is a moral transformation, or simply, in the case of Lance Archer who it turns out wasn't buried at all after Double Or Nothing, a renewed sense of aggression informed by how pissed off he was at himself for losing.
WWE has turned its remaining fans into those lads who build miniature ships in bottles. They're always wary of which piece goes where, and if it might break. This is meant to be dramatic.
It's meant to feel seismic.