>>16384964WWE is full of "and then the bell rings" wrestlers, and AEW is full of "and then the bell rings" wrestlers but from the opposite perspective.
Imagine if MMA was fixed ("imagine" kek) and you were the booker. How many 5 round title fights would you book? How many 1st round KO/Submissions would you book? All other things being equal, even if you had Champion vs Champion matches, even if it pissed people off to pay $70 for a PPV just to watch the main event end in 35 seconds, you'd probably have a good mix of everything, right?
AEW doesn't have a good mix of everything. The only squashes are obvious jobbers. Every time (and i mean every FUCKING time) someone like Kyle Fletcher goes up against Kyle O'Reilly, you already fucking KNOW it's going to go 15-20 minutes for really no good reason. We're supposed to buy Kyle as a killer, someone who has made huge progress, and it's still going to take him 18:45 to put away a guy who loses 90% of his singles matches.
AEW's problem is that it's running the way Tony Khan wants it to run. His vision of wrestling is to subject the audience to back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-FUCKING-back 15 minute matches, one after the other, so they really "get their money's worth". The shit is not a draw, has never been a draw and never will be a draw. It's not entertaining. It's a SLOG and it fucking SUCKS sitting through it.
AEW cannot be fixed until Tony's philosophy transforms, and he learns that it's OK, YOU WILL LIVE, if you have mid-carder lose to other mid-carders in 4 1/2 minutes. In real sports, shit like that HAPPENS. You can tell the story afterwards that the losing party just didn't prepare enough, or they were a bad match-up, or they're still healing from a previous match, there's 1001 different directions you can go in.
But you can't go in 999 of those directions when EVERY FUCKING MATCH IS COMPETITIVE. IT SUCKS ASS AND IT'S NOT CONDUCIVE TO RATINGS OR ATTENDANCE. GOD DAMN IT.
