How AEW Made Me Love Wrestling Again

7. It Doesn't Feel Worn Out

To put it simply - and it hurts, as he was my favourite wrestler - I don't want to watch The Undertaker do anything other than another documentary series in 2021.

Not to get too harsh on older wrestlers or legacy talent, but I simply have zero interest in a forced rekindling of the past; mining nostalgia - like everything else right now - to get more money out.

The reason people like me "grew out of" or otherwise gave up on wrestling was because the product got stale. It's why I'll listen to someone like Chris Jericho or any former WWE star talk about the backstage realities of writing sessions or character development, rather than watch the matches themselves.

With AEW there's a confident push to balance old legends and bankable talent with upcoming or rising stars. Even CM Punk vs. Darby Allin was nigh impossible to predict, as it made just as much "sense" for AEW and the fans if Punk won, as Allin to go down in history with Punk's blessing backstage.

It's going to be a tough tightrope to walk - especially as wider media headlines are centred on the combination of CM Punk and Bryan Danielson "fronting" the company - but there's a youthful spirit being respected here that I've not seen in WWE since the early 2000s.