Predicting What The Entire Wrestling World Will Look Like In Five Years
10. The General State Of AEW
At this rate, there is really only one major concern facing the future success of All Elite Wrestling: burnout.
No wrestling booker is ever great forever. Bill Watts revolutionised an industry that remains in his creative debt, but by the early 1990s, his approach was ancient and prohibitive. Vince Russo created a new model, but he drowned in his own masturbatory impulses. Giant Baba's quest for epic perfection was almost too successful. Vince McMahon's heroic babyface model is an artefact that hasn't produced a new generation of fans since 2008.
Khan's tape-trading e-Fed vision has thus far proven itself a winner; he isn't bound to one stubborn process nor style, he listens to fans because he grew up as a fan, and, if anything, is almost too future-focused. If there's a sense that he spends too long developing new acts without pitting his top stars together in lengthy programmes, it will reveal itself to be an astute long-term plan in the end.
Besides which, he draws outlines and trusts his talent to apply the loving detail. His process isn't an intensive, micro-managed slog. This is a man who booked the inaugural TNT Title tournament in about half an hour under very suboptimal conditions.
His booking isn't basic, either; the Wheeler YUTA push was typically, beautifully intricate. It was worth the journey. He has broken every rule thus far. Wrestling can be wrestling again. Certain markets, like Pittsburgh, aren't inherently "quiet". Pay-per-view isn't a dying relic of a medium.
Is "No booker is great forever" as tired a maxim as "small guys don't draw"?