Wrestling Is About ONE Thing - And Here's Who Rules At It
At times, and this isn't hyperbole, NXT has bordered on the clueless. They have no clue how to actually craft a story. Matches end in disqualification as a matter of course. It's as if the weeks leading to a big match are an inconvenience, and so matches are made to end in an anti-climax. On Dynamite, MJF screwed, antagonised, taunted, humiliated and endangered Cody before Revolution, building the heat over months for the first punch Cody would aim at his face which, of course, he wasn't allowed to do beforehand, per the stipulation. MJF cost Cody the chance to ever compete for the World Title. The gravity of the betrayal was enormous, the stakes gargantuan, the anticipation high.
On NXT, the wrestlers tend most often to hate one another because they interfered in their matches or beat them up for reasons. There's no specifically personal animosity anywhere on that show. They're not building storylines, so they aren't building stars - although Karrion Kross looked like he was 100 stories tall on this week’s NXT, had the camera panned backwards from a promo that barely looked like it was filmed in close-up, such is the commendable job they’ve done of establishing his aura.
AEW has won this battle of progress reports. It just has. Sammy Guevara was the guy who wore a panda hat on that ill-advised Double or Nothing pre-show, and now he’s the king of Twitter. He headlined Double Or Nothing II. No act from NXT unknown in October is remotely close to headlining a TakeOver.
Creative agency, interpersonal connections, long-term booking: basically, to create stars more people need to rip off Mid-South Wrestling.