15 Misconceptions About AEW You Probably Believe

9. “There’s No Selling In AEW”

There is.

At Revolution 2025, Kenny Omega entered a babyface masterclass opposite Konosuke Takeshita. Omega, using creativity and genius body language, took a sickening bump on an upturned table to convey the idea that he was in agony and lacked the core strength necessary to topple an explosive super-athlete in his physical prime. Omega’s facials and sense of pacing were immaculate. He mastered the space between moves to such an extent that even executing one - his springboard avalanche powerbomb - was a fist-pumping triumph in the moment.

This is one example, yes, but the odd TV party match aside, you’ll see selling in almost every AEW contest. The approach is different. The psychology of strong style, with its delayed adrenaline dump structure, was imported to the U.S. years ago. People, surely, understand this - they just pretend not to. It’s actually far less silly than WWE’s bump-and-feed approach, especially in this age of the superior athlete, but you suspect half the people who echo this nonsense aren’t watching closely or fairly, if they’re even watching at all.

This is not an AEW thing; it is an industry-wide problem. True emotion, orchestrated by a well-paced struggle, is not something WWE does much, outside of a high end Cody Rhodes main event. Sami Zayn is also capable of casting the old magic. It’s more rare than it should be.

Elsewhere, and this is true across the board in the United States - with the exception of back-to-basics indie outfits like Deadlock Pro - selling is an abandoned art that gets in the way of the back-and-forth banger.