How AEW Just Taught WWE How To Build A Star

WWE is received very, very subjectively - so subjectively, in fact, that Wrestling Twitter is a nightmarish swamp of vicious back-and-forth - but that WWE cannot create new stars is as objective a take as they get.

Consider the last two crops of WrestleMania title contenders, and how they arrived at the Show of Shows.

Kofi Kingston struggled over an entire decade for recognition of his talents. Becky Lynch had to toil under the shadow of Charlotte Flair - the performer the machine wished to promote - to become The Man. Drew McIntyre had to reinvent himself entirely after the weight of the machine dragged him down. Footage was shown of his humiliating days in risible comedy undercard act 3MB, as if it were something he did because he was unmotivated, and not a scripted choice made by the company not that long ago. That last crop reached the pinnacle of the "grandest stage" after a veritable odyssey through a promotion that had no clue how to promote them. Onscreen, of course, these were inspirational arcs of perseverance and self-belief, but WWE unwittingly told a more accurate story through subtext: we are astonishingly bad at this.

This...isn't how it's supposed to go. When you think about it, it is very, very dumb. There should be no admission, accurate or otherwise, that the wrestling promotion cannot promote a talent. Really think about this through a different lens: we are so entrenched in all of this that these meta narratives feel normal, realistic, even. But consider the bewildered casual audience: if the company can't promote a star, and it takes this long - a decade! - to create or position one effectively...why are you watching? Isn't it strange and damning that this anti-establishment narrative unfolds so frequently?

What does it say about the establishment?

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