>>15018808For me, it's as simple as a lack of consistency in the booking. People respond to stories that lead to good matches, it's been the formula that AEW was most successful with and it's the formula that WWE is succeeding with. If you follow the quarters, people tend to stay for the quarters that build stories and leave during the "heatless bangers" nearly every time. The biggest issue I personally have with AEW is there's no point in becoming invested in characters because AEW will cycle people in/out on a week's notice and you're not guaranteed to see them. And most of the time when you DO see them again, they're not even in stories. And even when they DO decide to be mildly consistent, they don't book consistently between Dynamite/Collision/Rampage. They don't have a brand split but still treat the Dynamite canon as different from the Collision canon nearly all the time. With that I tend to just watch YouTube highlights these days because AEW doesn't reward me watching all 3 shows. I know if I watch all 3 I'm going to get a Dynamite that follows on from the previous Dynamite maybe half the time, an inconsequential Rampage, and a Collision which doesn't have any stories most of the time.
Re; people disappearing - case and point - Action Andretti. Young guy with a bit of charisma gets a win over Jericho, has 3 matches on TV, mostly disappears for a year. Shows up to job. Why get invested?
