14 Ups & 5 Downs For AEW In 2021

5. AEW: The Angle Company

There are several profound differences between AEW and WWE television.

WWE TV is an overly scripted two-to-three-hour promo battle in which angles are limited to the odd beat-down and contract signing. Little attempt is made, beyond often excruciating trash talk, to draw from characters and their interior lives and devise set-pieces that hook audiences into a match.

AEW is the angle company.

Ahead of Stadium Stampede II, Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko shared a brief, nostalgic interaction. It seemed to exist as a fun throwback; as was revealed, it was written in the storyline for MJF to recognise it as a means of unsettling Jericho; in a great angle informed by his health history, the Pinnacle lured the Inner Circle to a TIAA Bank Field beatdown by showing Malenko's battered face. When they were together, meanwhile, MJF and Jericho beat up Papa Buck with vile smiles on their jackass faces in a riot of a heat angle.

The level of detail applied was stunning. During the Full Gear main event contract signing, the camera operator almost detracted from its heft because they kept blocking the shot. Because they weren't a camera operator; it was Don Callis, who battered Hangman Page for the big sell.

Whether by smearing face paint or battering a vulnerable associate, AEW locates something from a situation to extract drama without necessarily using insults to drive conflict.