AEW Has Problems: Six fixable issues with AEW that are costing the company viewers

Your column on Collision earlier this week (KELLER’S TAKE: What now for AEW Collision? Suggestions on how to reverse declining viewership) and how to get things going to where it could go is very good, but to me, it misses the overall problem.

AEW is having trouble because the whole company is mired in the controversies surrounding it most of the time.

Tony Khan doesn’t seem to be able to write long-term angles and, when he does manage it – Kenny Omega-Hangman Page – once it’s over, the secondary partner in the story is often forgotten. See the abysmal way TK has completely botched Wardlow.

I’ve been watching and commenting on wrestling for about 30 years now and these are some of the things about the once-promising, now-floundering company that bug me and also my wife, who’s been watching wrestling way longer than I have.

1. It’s time to admit it to the world – C.M. Punk is NOT the savior of AEW.

The numbers don’t lie, and didn’t lie before – Punk sells tickets, and he sells merchandise, but he does NOT draw viewers. Except for his debut appearances and his recent return, his presence has not affected the numbers one bit.

As someone who has always thought Punk was vastly overrated as a wrestler, I was willing to give him a chance when TK managed to snag him for AEW, hoping he had grown and gotten away from his bratty tantrum days. All Out 2022 proved otherwise, to everyone. Being a brat doesn’t make you special, it makes you obnoxious, and turns a LOT of people off. Including both of us.

2. TK needs to stop writing like he’s still a 16 year old fantasy booker

Khan has NO real sense of drama. I agree with some people out there that there’s too much emphasis on spots and not nearly enough on the long-term drama and angles. Whether you like the term or not, there is a reason Vince McMahon started using the term “sports entertainment.” It has to be both. And when your backstage fracas gets more buzz than the storylines, you’re really doing something wrong.

TK needs to build long term storylines on every level of the company and make them work. He can do it – he’s done it with Omega-Page, he has done some of it with Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara over the years, but he doesn’t do enough. More storylines and less action is why WWE is on top right now and growing bigger once again day by day.

TK needs to stop insisting on doing the booking alone and hire some talented creative people to help him get back on track again, like he was doing when the company launched. Because since taking the full reigns, he just hasn’t been and might never be on the level of a Vince McMahon or a Triple H when it comes to telling stories.

3. There are too damn many heels. And too many babyface beatdowns

Average Joes need faces to pop for. Yes, the hardcore heel poppers love MJF and his ilk, and they’re a necessary part of wrestling. But TK doesn’t seem to realize that he doesn’t need to have the faces get a beat down every time they win by some overbearing heel or their faction (and yes, there are way too many of those too).

Sometimes faces deserve the chance to celebrate without interruption, and while there have been the occasions this has happened, more often than not, it doesn’t. It doesn’t serve to deliver intrigue and suspense – we all know it’s coming – it only serves to upset the fans of the faces. That’s not good.

And stop turning fan favorites heel – despite what the sheets and hardcore fans are saying, the general populace and the people I’ve spoken to think it was a huge mistake to turn Jack Perry heel and that he would be better off looking at other options when his contract ends later this year…

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4. AEW has lost its “original vibe”

As a subscriber to all the major wrestling news sites, I often see one person or the other telling TK that he needs to bring his people in line and do the right thing, the way it’s always been done, you know, like McMahon would do. Wrong. AEW isn’t supposed to be “old school.” It’s supposed to be a new way of doing things.

Remember the original press conference announcing the formation? It’s supposed to be the antithesis of what WWE stood for. And in some ways it has been. But with the addition of more and more “classic stars,” it has diluted the charm of that promise, the new and exciting vibe the company had from its TNT debut in October 2019 until the start of the pandemic.

The point of AEW was to make new stars, not to bring in stars for another run, or even bring in stars through that previously “Forbidden Door.” Having a couple of seasoned vets come in for the long haul at the beginning made sense, and Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley have proven to be hugely loyal to their new home. But when bringing in the “hardcore favorites” as Khan has done, and then having taken those people and elevated them above and beyond the original wrestlers involved with AEW, it has completely negated the original feel of the show. The average fans from the beginning feel like they’re being shunted away. Because they are.

5. Don’t ignore the youngest fans – the kids

Wrestling fans come from somewhere. Often they’re small children brought in by a parent or an older sibling, and some of them get quite involved quite young – see interviewer A.J. Awesome, who’s all of 12 now. But these kids usually gravitate towards wrestlers with colorful and creative booking and a flashy style or look. Or they relate to them because they’re younger.

Khan started the company with the most over tag team I’ve seen with kids in decades – Jurassic Express. Kids dug them for three reasons: Jungle Boy was right out of a comic book, Luchasaurus was a friggin’ dinosaur, and Marko Stunt was small and a lot like them, always energetic (some would say “spastic,” heh heh), occasionally wrestling but mostly cheering for his buddies and leading the crowd in those cheers.

By mid-way into the second year for the company, Khan hooked them up with Christian Cage as a mentor and, within months, their pop was gone. By the time they actually gained the tag titles – a year or so late – the kids were barely interested anymore, because they couldn’t stand Christian (still can’t, myself included) and their primary cheerleader Marko Stunt was long gone, apparently being ghosted by Khan and his team (although still under contract at the time). What purpose did that serve? None.  Tony should not have listened to the hardcore haters of Jurassic Express (and of Stunt, in particular) the way he did.

All the past two years have done was destroy the second most-over tag team the company had behind the Bucks (third now, as the Acclaimed has stepped into their shoes, until Tony gets bored with them), turned Luchasaurus into a Christian flunky, and now Perry has turned heel; there’s nothing left of what could have been one of the greatest teams of all time, had it been properly booked.  Granted, the kids still have their favorites – mostly Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy, and to some extent, Danhausen and Hook, but they’re not as rabidly coalesced around any of them the way they were when it came to Jurassic Express.

Khan has a brand new chance to reel in the under 13 set again with the impending debut of rising indie darling Nick Wayne. Wayne has the youth the kids love, he has a personality that knows no end, and if played right, he could be as big as Perry was at the beginning. The question is whether or not TK will pull the trigger on making Wayne the logical favorite he should be with those fans, how he does it (I would suggest his first big feud be with Perry, but since they’re intent on having Perry fight for a title belt that the company doesn’t even acknowledge, I doubt that’s happening), and whether or not Khan can actually write for him.

Too many times, he’s squandered people who could have been huge mid-carders with gigantic kids’ followings – the aforementioned Marko Stunt, Fuego del Sol, Varsity Blondes – and blown them off. Hopefully, Wayne accepting his AEW contract will not be the beginning of the end for this incredible young man, but given past experience, I don’t have a lot of optimism in this area right now.

6. And I have to say this with a distinct catch in my throat: Listen to Eric Bischoff.

I am not a huge fan of Eric Bischoff. Never have been. But, he has reached out to TK several times with valid criticisms and TK has rebuffed him. And it’s easy to see why – TK is making all the same mistakes that Bischoff made two decades before in WCW – bad writing, too much reliance on the same talents, not giving up-and-comers a real place to shine with only a few exceptions, letting politics in the back take over the narrative, etc. –  and it ended up costing him the company.

And TK is too boastful, too proud of AEW to ever consider such a notion. But when someone compares the debut of AEW Collision to the debut of WCW Thunder, as several people did, the writing is on the wall.

Listening to Bischoff, learning from him, discovering what he might have done differently in hindsight, could be very beneficial to TK. Bischoff has been there. He royally screwed up multiple times and it cost both him and the wrestling community dearly. He could impart valuable experience to TK. And TK needs to pull his head out of his ass and listen. If he does, he might just save AEW from the eventual oblivion it seems to be heading towards.

Anyway, I could go on and on, and I’m sure there will be people who absolutely hate me if this ever gets printed. I’ve been a Torch reader and/or subscriber off and on for the last three decades, and still enjoy your coverage; in fact, I find myself agreeing with the Torch assessment more than the other major sites these days, and I think it’s because people here see some of the things I’m seeing and aren’t borderline unhinged in one direction or the other.

This doesn’t come from disliking AEW. Believe me, I don’t watch WWE anymore beyond the PLEs, I’m more of an indies guy these days, but because I want to see them succeed. For the last three years, I think they’re repeating the same mistakes WCW made and, in the long run, that won’t be good for anyone.

If you would like to submit a guest editorial to PWTorch, you can send it to kellerwade@gmail.com for consideration.

CATCH UP… KELLER’S TAKE: What now for AEW Collision? Suggestions on how to reverse declining viewership

FEEDBACK TO THAT EDITORIAL: KELLER’S TAKE REAX: Keller responds to reader ideas on how to differentiate Collision from Dynamite and perhaps increase viewership

OR CHECK OUT PRUETT’S BLOG ABOUT AEW’S VALUE TO THE WRESTLING INDUSTRY ON PROWRESTLING.NET: AEW Fight Forever, Forbidden Door, and WWE WrestleMania in London all prove AEW’s value

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