AEW Is ALREADY Doing This One Thing Better Than WWE
The problem extends well beyond this match. We have seen, on countless occasions, name performers win with a roll-up. This happens so frequently that the commentary team even has a catchphrase for it now:
“He stole one!”
“Stole one” with a legal manoeuvre. This fluke or otherwise inconclusive win is cop-out booking that does nothing for the winner. At Stomping Grounds, Kofi Kingston leapt over Dolph Ziggler to mount a last-gasp win in creative fashion, but again, it was hardly definitive. Even if Andrade and Apollo Crews don’t wrestle a rematch, this was still a 50/50 programme. What was the mentality behind the layout?
Is WWE attempting to get everybody over, all at the same time? Are the majority of heel wins diminished by an over-powered babyface performance in fear of upsetting the children in attendance? Or is filling out TV time with stories of significance that difficult? These questions were left unanswered, as was the only question that matters:
Who was the better man?
It’s a further byproduct of WWE’s main roster complexion issue. Every performer on it arrives as a name of sorts, and that name value can only lessen within the 50/50 logjam.
WWE has upheaved its road agent team in 2019. Arn Anderson and Dean Malenko both left, and several more faces—Abyss and Sonjay Dutt, amongst others—have replaced them. Seemingly nothing has changed; there remains a ‘WWE way’ of crafting in-ring stories irrespective of the personnel tasked with the job. Cynically, this isn’t a good omen for recently-installed Executive Directors Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff.
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