Triple H's WWE Vs. Tony Khan's AEW: Which Is Better?

Look, Roman Reigns is phenomenal.

A charismatic, menacing, ice-cool megastar, his promos are outstanding. He comes off as nothing less than the biggest star in all of wrestling. The bass in his voice, the sinister threat, the way he can obscure that threat and allow it to lurk with his faux-sincere attempts to play along with those underneath him: he's fantastic. Sami Zayn's most popular sitcom character bit is a total joy too, of course.

Elsewhere, the promos are at best quite good and actively atrocious at worst. Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens and performers of that ilk have excellent delivery, but the material is never all that memorable. Finn Bálor does the bad-on-purpose patter bit to get over as an obnoxious heel well, but WWE are obsessed with that character archetype. Most of the rest of the time, the dialogue remains as dreadful as it ever was under Vince McMahon. Dominik Mysterio literally said "My father, Rey Mysterio" on Raw this week. This level of exposition only exists on other TV shows to mock exposition. It is drastically, almost impossibly bad writing.

There's really no good faith debate here.

MJF is the most caustic, blackly hilarious charismatic promo man in the game, and he is just as brilliant at dropping hooks as making everything he does feel massive. Jon Moxley, when he's dialled in, is such an awesome an honourable babyface - who knows his way around an iconic threat - that he's practically the patron saint of pro wrestling. Chris Jericho is still in phenomenal form as the deluded über-carny, and his protege, Britt Baker, can provoke real belly laughter. Jade Cargill is the best sh*t-talker in the game, and it's not a game to Eddie Kingston. Nobody else is as credible at making it feel real.

Winner: AEW