Why It’s Time For WWE To Play The Ultimate Trump Card

Bryan Danielson AEW
AEW

At 36 years old at time of writing, your writer is as dyed-in-the-wool WWE as anybody. We're what Vince McMahon made us, us millennials. But he hates us now. He said it in not so many words speaking to Steve Austin in 2014 on his own Network, and at long last there's somewhere else to go where that hatred for the customer doesn't feel quite as apparent.

There are a million reasons for AEW's capturing, keeping and nurturing of the all-important buzz over the past two years, but the stark difference between 2021 and 2019 is in how it's being acknowledged everywhere now.

It's not just Tony Khan playing vain Twitter carnival barker, or Cody Rhodes at ego-driven talk-ins doing ra ra speeches. It's not just a wrestling media that isn't biased towards anything other than the quality of a thing they just want to love again. It's not even just those weird hardcores online that should really relax a little more and put their faces in their avatars instead of the AEW logo. It's everybody.

It's Mick Foley playing the long-suffering supportive spouse that doesn't want to drop hard truths but feels like he should. It's Adam Cole sitting in his girlfriend's dentist chair online because she's the bigger star in the house and those NXT posts just weren't drumming up much chat. It's Liv Morgan and Cedric Alexander and Zelina Vega publicly toasting another company's show because they want to see how happy and fulfilled their friends and loved ones are. It's nobody believing that Max Caster was going anywhere when he liked all those WWE tweets in an opposite-land version of what keeps happening with all the McMahon escapees. Because the airport escalator is blatantly only going one way.

Come on, WWE lifers and/or confused zealots. It's everybody. And on the off chance you consider yourself your last one not on the bandwagon, there's room for everybody. "Wrestling's for everyone" is marketing bullsh*t, but good wrestling shows are for all wrestling fans.

And that's AEW.

And that's why we're inching closer to WWE making their biggest ever offer to The Rock.

CONT'D...

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett