Inside AEW's Creative Process | How It Works

The creative writing team is almost as big as the talent roster in August of 2023.

Konosuke Takeshita was de-emphasised on TV as the summer unfolded. This isn't a problem specific to him. Wardlow is off the radar entirely. Hikaru Shida dipped in and out of the Outcasts storyline so often that it was easy to forget that she existed. Action Andretti is a ghost. The Dark Order have since vanished, and if they return this week or next, few will care, since their programme with Hangman Page - who appears on TV sporadically himself - was binned. Talent inexplicably disappearing along with their momentum was meant to be a problem that had been acknowledged internally. Expanding the creative team was meant to lighten Khan's burden and correct the recurring issues with continuity. Why hasn't this happened?

Nobody knows what it's like to be inside creative other than those in the inner sanctum, but this approach has had a detrimental effect on programming. It's more messy than ever before. It's inscrutable, almost. Adding more competing voices to the room has directly correlated with the decline of the promotion's creative. What's the value in it? Has Khan taken criticisms of his booking to heart? Has he lost interest? Or has he simply, gradually, expanded his operation to such an extent that it has become a dysfunctional and incoherent mess?

In spite of everything, all things considered, artistically, one could argue that AEW is still the premier wrestling organisation on the planet, although "organisation" is heavily ironic. It's just not the same. Khan, more self-aware than most people within the wrestling bubble. appears to have reflected upon certain problems. He has prided himself on listening in the past. The problem with that is, in true Tony Khan style, the man who fits three hours of content into most episodes of Dynamite, and signed every wrestler who has pulled on a pair of kick pads, has done too much in his attempts to correct them.

AEW is experiencing an identity crisis. The range used to be the selling point; now, it feels like several visions exist only to accommodate the egos and demands of a roster that is much too big. Fittingly, for a promotion with a gambling theme and indeed origin story, AEW was better - significantly - when Tony Khan bet on himself.

After this annus horribilis, perhaps it's time he backed himself again.