Inside AEW's Creative Process | How It Works

Chris Jericho
AEW

Khan's attempts to accommodate the changes that have swept through AEW have failed. He has attempted to solve problems with additions, but the additions have become a problem.

How AEW creative works now is, well, it's messy. The general gist is that Tony Khan books every show with an arcane strategy involving flipped rows and columns on a spreadsheet, as he revealed on the Wrestling With Marc podcast (h/t F4WOnline): "I put the columns where the rows were and now I organise everything like this since Full Gear and I feel like I’m more organised, even though it's all the same information."

Tony Khan booking via spreadsheet has become a meme. He is hardly crafting a direct personal issue, quite the opposite and his process might explain the mazy, "Hang on, why are these people fighting again?" quality of, for example, the All In Stadium Stampede build. The results are often fantastic, but on an episodic basis, the storytelling can feel convoluted and unfocused.

Khan maps everything out in a complex way that feels increasingly complicated and alienating. His top stars meanwhile have a great degree of creative freedom. MJF, CM Punk, the Elite and Chris Jericho all have considerable input over their direction. Underneath, other wrestlers are allowed input, though not to the same extent. The results are uneven; while MJF is on fire at the moment, having crafted a sensation of a programme with Adam Cole, the Elite's ambition can become a bit tangled, which has happened more than once this year.

The imminent content farm era will not help, and is already concerning. Consider the role of Konosuke Takeshita this summer; after portraying his turn as the big story emerging from Double Or Nothing, after two weeks of heavy presence on TV, Khan sort of disappeared. Don Callis was torn between two programmes, and Chris Jericho's feud with him took precedence over Kenny Omega's - which was downright bizarre, and deflating, since Callis has been tied to Omega for much longer.

Omega and Callis seemed to stop caring about one another immediately after their split. This was arse-backwards and undid a lot of hard work over the course of 2023. Getting Chris Jericho his big Wembley match a week before All Out came at the expense of a story Omega and Callis have been telling all year. Omega Vs. Takeshita feels nowhere near as big as it did in May.

Then, there's CM Punk.

CONT'D...(3 of 5)

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!