AEW's Secret Weapon (You Won't Want To Watch)

AEW has a winning core philosophy to which Tony Khan has adhered.

Consequently, he has established a rabid base of fans that, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, has grown by 36% in total viewers and 38% in P18-49 from January 2021 to January 2022. No other promotion measured by the Nielsen system has grown the audience to such an extent; NXT 2.0 has declined, RAW is flat, and SmackDown is too, though the average demo number remains seriously impressive.

Every match in AEW counts. That's the overarching principle driving the promotion, and this response to WWE's meaningless slop booking has secured a level of investment so intense that it has become impossible to critique the promotion in good faith without one's throat being on the receiving end of a diving double foot stomp.

MJF defeated Cody at Revolution 2020. AEW didn't run a stipped-up rematch a month later; the victory was decisive, it meant something, and after defeating fellow standout Jungle Boy at Double Or Nothing, he faced - and lost to - Jon Moxley at All Out. He reflected upon the loss and a new storyline was launched as a means of getting him back into the rankings. To use a more recent example, CM Punk and Adam Cole have developed long winning streaks in parallel. As a result, at time of writing, the Revolution card is unclear. It's not unfocused, but it is unclear to the viewing audience. We know that Cole or Punk is Hangman's opponent because AEW has upheld its core premise: wins and losses matter, and every match in the promotion, no matter how functional or relatively uninteresting, is worthy of your time.

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