The Secret Link Between AEW & WWE Nobody Is Talking About

In the present-day era where absolutely nothing stops the show, it’s hard to get into the headspace that Vince McMahon might actually have actually had to, but that’s what it felt like when Hulk Hogan rather half-heartedly called time on his golden era at WrestleMania VIII. In the years that were to come, treacherous and unworkable weather conditions, a pandemic-enforced global shutdown of everything and the death of an active performer in the middle of the show (to name but three) haven’t moved McMahon to stand still for once. But as the court of public opinion turned sharply on Hogan and the WWE brand thanks to sordid sex and steroid scandals in early-1992, the post-‘Hulkster’ era was hard to visualise.

SummerSlam 1992 wasn’t really it. Jam-packed with some of the most devoted and loyal fans in the world that were still relatively starved of regular access to McMahon’s larger-than-life superstars, the show presented the idea that a golden era was instead about to go platinum rather than rust.

All Elite Wrestling are in nowhere near as perilous a position in 2023 as World Wrestling Entertainment were in 1992, but as thousands of pay-per-view and TV-taping seats go begging domestically versus records being smashed for their UK debut, the two shows sit closer to one another that some might wish to admit.

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