WWE Just Exposed AEW's Most Embarrassing Flaw
You can't throw the belt in the bin! Or CAN you? AEW could never...
All Elite Wrestling won the Wednesday Night War that kicked off in 2019. They won it quickly, won it convincingly, and won it the right way.
When NXT was permanently shunted to Tuesday nights in 2021 having only taken just a handful of viewership wins and a single key demographic scalp, AEW's victory lap was pretty much made up of them lapping themselves. They'd been running it that long by then that the result wasn't deemed worthy of popping too many champagne corks.
The fact that the former black-and-gold brand was only moved to television in the first place to try and dilute the new company's impact made the triumph sweeter - while this was ultimately still just a battle of billionaires and their brands, the growth of a legitimately great wrestling show was a solid consumer byproduct.
When NXT wasn't eating itself with short-termism, its tropes and tricks were being exposed by newer, better ones. Triple H's golden era as a booker had quietly already passed, but that reality was brought into sharp focus by the existence of more vibrant and credible opposition. 2020 presented unfavourable circumstances for both sides, but Dynamite had so much heart and soul that wrestling sometimes really nearly did feel essential as the Florida governance considered it to be.
AEW marched onward and into what some consider the finest creative period in the company's eventful history. NXT's reimagining as the enormously divisive and cartoonish 2.0 was internally deemed necessary in the wake of the heavy defeat. There are justifiably very few kind words about it even a year later. Especially in contrast to AEW and especially company cornerstone Dynamite.
Until now.
CONT'D...