8 Things That Still Make No Sense About AEW
5. The Massive Inconsistency Of The Rules
In certain obvious circumstances, rules are thrown out of the window due to a particular gimmick being in place, or even as part of a dastardly heel taking the low road to get a cheap win or a purposeful DQ. But for the most part, your standard AEW wrestling bout is based around a number of set rules.
The issue here for AEW is the sheer inconsistency with how the most basic of rules are enforced.
Of course, this ties into the aforementioned conundrum with Jim Ross. It's not Ross' fault that the action he's seeing and calling is being allowed to wildly ignore the most fundamental of wrestling rules, which in turn makes the AEW referees look like joke figures.
When competitors in the match are ignoring the ref by brawling for minutes on end outside the ring, that makes a mockery of your officials and of your rules as the ref is has to bumble to the slowest ten count in the history of ten counts.
Sure, as a one-off where a referee is allowing some leeway due to an intensely personal bout, it can be excused. But when stuff like this - or the utter ignorance often shown to tag team rules - is featured on a scarily regular basis, it only undermines the very rules on which AEW has based their in-ring action.
Maybe the refs need to start calling those moments in more of a shoot fashion in order to make talents realise this issue? Maybe Jim Ross needs to be listened to? Or maybe AEW needs to publicly tweak their fundamental rulebook?
Either way, this has been a long-standing issue since AEW first launched.