>>16025080>>16025311Imo the booking philosophy was a good idea. It was WCW-ish where one third of Nitro was cruiserweight/luchador/puroresu/european stuff. The second third was midcard stuff like DDP, Raven's Flock, Benoit, Goldberg streaks etc. The final third was main event NWO/Sting/Wolfpac stuff.
I was excited for AEW because they tried to do this weird ragtag booking with indie stuff, joshi, nwa and so on. They actually never got the chance to develop this booking philosophy.
I think if they'd:
- let things crystallize, like everyone finding their role and a comfy position in their booking team
- weed out some stuff like Brandi, Swole, Marko Stunt etc.
- last but not least get propelled with a very compelling story angle, catch lighting in a bottle
They would have the potential to get really really massive considering they had 1.3m viewers and that was before the bazinga lead in. If we compare it to WCW, it took a few years for them with shitty booking before coming up with the NWO angle. AEW needed a few more years with their initial booking philosophy and with the Elite at the helm (but having Jerry Lynn, Malenko, Arn etc. keeping them at bay).
However, that's not how it went down. Dynamite debuted in october 2019, the plandemic hit on february 2020 and Cody left and TK took over creative. So AEW having massive potential is and understatement. To me, the early era was kino.
