It's Official: Wrestling Needs An Unthinkable Revolution
Or does AEW need a real revolution?
On almost every single episode of North American pro wrestling television, something happens that the pro wrestling fan has watched happen for their entire lifetime. If that person never went dark on wrestling - how did you endure the Reign of Terror?! - it's likely they've seen this sort of thing every single week. Say you're a 37 year-old pro wrestling fan who grew up on Coliseum video and the twilight of Hulkamania, and have watched for 30 years. You've either stayed with WWE, or arrived at AEW through a flirtation with puro or the indie circuit. You've probably seen some form of carny wrestling booking device 1,565 times. At least; that's a rate of one wrestling cliché a week. If you grew up on the Attitude Era or the Ruthless Aggression "Era", multiply this number by whatever the f*ck you like. It hardly matters; back in that time, chicanery was a constant feature throughout every single show, and by 1999, there were two. The real number might be 10,000. It might be higher.
"Some form of carny booking device" is a musical distraction finish. A ref bump. Interference on the outside that, again, leads to a distraction finish. Grabbing the tights. A weapon shot unsighted by the referee. Basically, some sort of way of protecting the babyface so that you still think they're a winner and that they will be OK, folks. So much of wrestling books for the mentality of a child that it's no wonder that Twitter is in the state it's in. It's no wonder that an almost tangible sense of fatigue has set in amongst the AEW base, since that promotion has started abusing these carny devices.
To be blunt, virtually every wrestling character is stupid, to an extent. The referees are bumbling oafs, and that is generous. When it comes to those on the outside assisting the heels, the refs are as thick as babies. They don't have object permanence. They forget that the heel manager is there when they focus on the action inside of the ring, like an infant who cannot even scream for its mommy yet.
The babyface gets distracted too easily. Everybody else can see what is about to happen, except them, and we're meant to think they are the smart cool wrestler we like. They get distracted, again, so that they lose in a way that doesn't hurt our perception of them. AEW is the blood-soaked TV-14 alternative where you hear the word "sh*t" a lot, that advances its storylines with a relative degree of sophistication, and (this is fine by the way) expects its fanbase to have internet access (this is fine because everybody does). So why, so often across 2022 and 2023 especially, does AEW try to mollycoddle its fans? The fact that the characters inhabit the same world as the audience deepens this nagging feeling. If we can see it coming, so should the wrestler.
CONT'D...(2 of 5)