Why AEW Must Take The Nuclear Option
He wouldn't allow his top stars to miss a single week of television; every act who is remotely over would be sent out there every single week, even if it's sometimes more rewarding to miss them, because they are remotely over. He wouldn't allow online in-jokes to be told on national TV, even if they're fun if you get them or utterly inoffensive if you haven't watched a certain vlog; he'd be wary of alienating people.
He wouldn't attempt to build for the future by pushing so many young acts; he'd take the easy, short-term view and push his established stars. He wouldn't book Konosuke Takeshita to lose and lose again; he would fear that his audience wouldn't get behind a loser, no matter how exceptional Takeshita is at getting over in defeat, because that isn't how things have been done on US TV for years and years. He wouldn't book so many clean and decisive finishes; he'd carny his way around wins and losses to protect a fixed cast of talent.
AEW isn't perfect - the gauntlets are getting old, there are too many titles, Chris Jericho is in dire need of an actual reinvention - but it also is. It's an unapologetic pro wrestling promotion that, at its best, caters to its established base - one that is robust enough to make it viable. That fanbase longed for something like AEW, for decades, as a pipe dream. It's actually here.
AEW has recognised itself what it is, and for all the talk of how it can compete with the Bloodline saga (as if f*cking MJF Vs. CM Punk, Kenny Omega Vs. Hangman Page and a hundred others stories didn't happen), perhaps it is time for the wider wrestling fandom to recognise AEW for what it is, too: a great wrestling promotion that is content to exist as something successful in itself.
Every other industry has something like AEW; a studio or label that doesn't strive for a mass audience.
Why can't wrestling?