Why WWE Is Hot And AEW Is Cold
Now, Mox cares more about Kingston than the Elite, Kenny Omega cares more about Don Callis than the Blackpool Combat Club, and all of this is happening weeks before the big blow-off at Blood & Guts. AEW's main event programme feels more convoluted and over-thought than layered and fascinating. Urgent, immediate animosity is lacking. It feels too clever and intricate for its own good.
It just isn't direct or urgent enough in 2023, AEW. Collision promises a more direct, simplified vision, but given the promotion's wider issues, was launched at the worst possible time.
This might read as WWE = direct and basic, AEW = too complicated for thickos, but that really isn't the argument being made here. AEW isn't high art; if it were, Matt Hardy wouldn't be messing about with his excruciating contract nonsense. AEW does reward a closer watch, but it's not so hard to follow that it's alienating. It is simply a wrestling-heavy promotion with a huge rotating cast that isn't presenting urgent, unmissable television with any one seminal storyline that is captivating the viewers who were enchanted by the product in the summer of 2021 - and now it is spreading itself thin, furthering deepening its niche. It's good, but it isn't Kenny Omega Vs. Hangman Page or CM Punk Vs. MJF good. When AEW rediscovers that level of brilliance, it might enter a new growth period.
A great product that promises to become better in the minds of the audience is the key. That's why AEW did such great business ahead of and shortly after All Out 2021. That's why WWE are on fire with the slow collapse of Roman Reigns. The fans love what they're watching and expect it to get better, and the better part is in sight. That last part is crucial - the idea that what follows next is as close as it is momentous. AEW fans are into what they're watching but feel like the product, for now at least, has peaked. To use a more historical example, the WWF in late 2000 started to stagnate before WrestleMania X-Seven, the poor build to which has been masked forever by a great sit-down interview and Limp Bizkit song. Steve Austin wasn't going to get any better.
One promotion is hot and the other is cold not because one is doing a better job of reaching the same available audience, but because one promotion is better serving their base than the other.