How THIS Was AEW’s First Major Mistake

Comparisons to WWE were more pointless than in the Rhodes encounter. This wasn't Jack Swagger Vs Dean Ambrose because that wouldn't have been given 30 minutes and thus couldn't have been even half as boring. Jim Ross was good on the call but he always is when required to do some heavy lifting. Tony Schiavone's earnest enthusiasm would have sounded as fake as his worst Nitro calls if he'd have been made to sit through this.

Wrestling matches are subjective of course - some folks enjoyed Edge Vs Randy Orton and Johnny Gargano Vs Tommaso Ciampa, after all - so the big rating this heavily promoted encounter was sure to draw in this time of declining numbers would again prove AEW's shrewd matchmakers and ardent fans right, right?

If only. NXT - the show with nothing on the docket and even less from its own fanbase after WWE's callous bloodletting just hours before it went to air - found 692,000 viewers compared to the 683,000 that gambled on a headliner that proved chronic. There's a bigger picture and article in that combined figure (the second lowest since the "war" commenced) but these stubborn wrestling companies are still asking us to buy into their stubborn shows despite the state of the world outside, so they can endure some stubborn analysis as a result.

The Dark Order and The Nightmare Collective weren't put in positions to carry a quarter hour or promoted to pop a rating. The Women's Division hasn't really even been properly pushed yet due the sense of obligation often overwhelming actual creative interest. Hager, thanks to the Rhodes match, was already a noble failure. This was an ignoble calamity - the major mistake - that the company can't ignore. Nothing about Wednesday's Dynamite was "elite", least of all the reputation that could linger following a the disappointing desperation of that main event.

A ridiculous prevailing narrative around AEW currently is that they are "relying" on ex-WWE talents as if wrestlers haven't moved around territories since the beginning of f*cking time. This is stupid, but the stupid voices suggesting it will be empowered by the stupid booking of a character that should have just remained brilliantly stupid. Jack Swagger wasn't booked as a big daft fool with a sense of danger - he just embodied the first bit because his booking was so haphazard.

All Elite Wrestling found value in Jake Hager's original gimmick but are on the verge of it - and by default, the company's reputation at large - becoming value range.