THIS Is The Exact Reason Wrestling Will Never Get Big Again
Even if the wrestling itself is great - and we don't see anywhere near enough of that, given the resources at WWE's disposal - the television is rotten. And it's not just the appalling lack of continuity.
An average-to-solid, relatively coherent episode of Monday Night RAW is still, by the wider standards of fiction, absolute dreck. The dialogue is horrendously artificial; the situational, impromptu and convenient approach to matchmaking is impossible take seriously, even in a heightened reality; there is no reliable framework that develops any sort of meaning or traceable investment, and as result, there exists an infinite loop of plot holes.
A good work of fiction encourages its audience to ask questions; every week, as a matter of ritual, WWE asks its audience to question why they are watching.
AEW is different. AEW has embraced a new and far more sophisticated storytelling approach that no longer relies on the old dynamic and emotion. Consider the awesome Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega contract signing from this week's Dynamite. After Omega put down Mox's family, which you do not do, Mox laid him out with the Paradigm Shift right on his crown and on the AEW World Title. There was tremendous symmetry to this angle. Contrast it with the Dynamite premiere: on October 2, 2019, Mox dropped Omega with the same finisher on the glass table. The symbolism here, and what it said of the character development in the interim, was astounding.
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