How AEW Made Me Love Wrestling Again

3. Tight Show Lengths & Pacing That Respects My Time

Say you wanted to get into WWE right now, fresh.

WWE Raw is a staggering, Lord of the Rings-sized 3 hours, with Smackdown a meaty 120 minutes. There's optional extras like NXT and monthly Pay-Per-Views to factor in, but brass tacks, if you're "watching WWE" at the base level, that's 5 hours of TV you need to free up, each and every week.

By contrast, AEW Dynamite is a solid 2 hours, with Rampage a liquid butter single hour. That latter runtime drops to a lean 45 minutes on catchup without ads, and though you can trim some time back by losing adverts on WWE's programming, the point extends to how AEW is paced as a television show, too.

Put blatantly: Time flies watching AEW. Any backstage microphone spots - your callouts, insults etc. - are kept to an absolute minimum. Yes, there are in-ring interviews that double as dog n' pony shows for the likes of Punk, Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson, but the focus is on wrestling.

No awkward comedic bits, wannabe attention-grabbing gif fodder for social media. Just as much impressive wrestling and athleticism as possible, delivered in a concise runtime that respects the audience.