A new report on the current AEW creative process paints a picture of a situation that mirrors the dysfunction before broadcasts that once badly hindered the WWE product in the final years of Vince McMahon’s tenure leading the company.
After a years-long honeymoon period where it seemed like AEW could do no wrong in front of and behind the camera, the No. 2 wrestling promotion in the world has started to get some consistent blowback from wrestling fans. While they are still the company that puts on the best pure wrestling show in the Western Hemisphere it isn’t connecting with fans like it did in 2022.
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The recent half-full arenas have been the biggest proof as company storylines have not been as intriguing across the board and episodes of AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision have much less storytelling of late. Well, it looks like that is more than an opinion of fans and an actual result of a dysfunctional booking process led by AEW CEO Tony Khan.
In a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Live podcast, Bryan Alvarez spilled the beans on the frustration of wrestlers inside the company and it seems pretty bad.
Current AEW creative process drawing comparisons to WWE at it’s worst
“I don’t want to compare this to like WWE back in the day but it is very, very much like that and a lot of people are very frustrated because they don’t find out the Tuesday before,” Alvarez said. “Some people do. Some people will know what they’re doing because there are a couple of matches usually advertised in advance. But most people are showing up the day of the show and finding out if they are doing anything or not.
“There’s very little communication. I’ve been hearing about this for months, people are very frustrated. They show up, ‘Here’s what you’re gonna do’. Lots of people will complain and it gets changed which is also a big problem I hear about all the time. People don’t want to do something and Tony doesn’t make them do it. There’s a lot of this.’
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“Trying to put together these shows is just a whirlwind of ‘Will this person do this? They don’t want you? What can we do? Will you do it’ … The days of long-term booking, they’re gone. [Tony Khan] has an idea. I’m sure he had a card for [AEW Revolution] but as far as week to week how they get there, every week is like what are we going to do this week?”
While some of the top storylines in the company seem to be getting a lot of effort from the creative team, outside of those two or three narratives, there are very few engaging tales being produced with members of the roster outside the biggest stars.
