I thought I would write something differents and just write 5 thing I love about both WWE and aew and 5 thing I hate.
First let's start with AEW
What I love
1. Cm punk vs mjf: this program as been awesome since the beginning and shows that some guys in the company actually want to present serious pro wrestling.
2. Bryan Danielson: I love his run in AEW, he tries to elevate everybody he's working with and he's doing the best work of his career.
3. Britt baker vs Thunder Rosa: Britt as been a star in the women's division but got dealt a bad hand by putting her against crappy competition. Now she in a feud with a star and probably the best wrestler in the division in Thunder Rosa and she can finally show what she capable of doing.
4. The fans: like the product or not, the one thing you know is that you always Gonna have a hot crowd and it makes even the most cringeworthy stuff more enjoyable.
5. Building for the future: it's not always perfect as sometimes they try to rush a push on guys that aren't ready while making other that are ready sit on the bench for months but when they get behind somebody, they go all in and I have to respect that.
What I hate
1. Tony constant over hyping debut and announcement: I feel like Tony constantly saying that he has a huge announcement or a huge debut and then not delivering is hurting the growth of the product. He really need to see the bigger picture and try to get the WWE fans, which is a more casual fanbase, to watch his product and it's not by doing big announcement that only a certain group of fans will thing are big news that it will do that.
2. The booking is all over the place: the big problem is that he's trying to please everybody and it doesn't help. Sometimes you have feud like punk and mjf that is captivating and bring in fans and then you have crap with orange Cassidy that make no sense and is just hurting the program. Also if you have a long-term plan like what he had with Adam page, make sure you build him to look like a main event star before giving him the belt because if not, you're left with a world champion that look like a mid card guy to the average fan and that's not a good look to have with your world champion
3. Jericho: Chris Jericho was on fire when he first started in AEW then he lost the title and suddenly he went back to his old WWE style booking but without somebody to reel him back. Which mean that he just hurt everybody that he feuds with instead of helping them. His backward booking of the MJF feud almost killed MJF as a top heel and now his feud with Kingston isn't any better.
4. The commentary team: nothing again them but J.R. has check out at this point and isn't the same J.R. that we know and loved. Schiavone is going through a mid life crisis and he's just happy to get a paycheck and Excalibur is trying to put himself over instead of selling the product to a wider audience. Against the point of a commentary team is to sell the product. If you have a team that either don't love the product or are just thing that everybody watching knows everything and everybody in wrestling it doesn't help the product.
5. Signing way to many wrestlers: AEW is a young company, they have 3 hours of national TV time, Let forget those 2 youtube show as nobody outside the hardcore aew fans watch those, so you have 3 hours of TV time and a roster that looks like raw's entire roster. Which mean that a lot of wrestlers will fall through the cracks. Just this year alone, they brought in Christian,malakai black, Andrade, Keith Lee, Ruby soho, 2.0 and many others and you look at what happens to most of them, they either seetle in the same spot they had in wwe or got sent to be a mouthpiece for somebody else. In the mean time, you got wrestlers like a Ricky starks or powerhouse Hobbs that could be big stars for AEW and that are just waiting on the sideline. Jay lethal is stuck in YouTube hell, Brian cage is just not being used. I get he wants to keep stuff fresh but at some point he need to focus on certain talent and just let other goes if you're not using them or just paying them to do indy show outside your company.
WWE
What I like
1.NXT 2.0: when they decided to rebrand NXT and change the format, I was really skeptical because they had something different with the nxt brand but the problem was that you weren't building for the future with that brand. So they switch the concept and focus more on the future and while some shows have been clumcky at time, you now see that they are building for the future of the company and they have a lot of great talent that are learning the WWE style and while be stars for them at some point.
2. Roman reigns: he finally found a way to get into that mega star status that WWE always wanted for him. His work as a heels is really compelling and gets people watching whatever show he's one
3. The commentary teams: you can see that they are being produce but it's a good thing, you have people that really look like they like the product and wants to sell you on stories going on and aren't thinking that everybody watching read the wrestling observer newsletter and knows everything about wrestling.
4. The storytelling is very easy to follow: they got the formula of storytelling down, it's the simple point a to point b style of storytelling and it's easy to follow which might be boring to some but that I actually like.
5. Matches have more psychology in wwe: a lot of modern wrestling matches are more about the sizzle then the storytelling and the little things which is something I don't like in modern wrestling because it make wrestling look fake. In WWE, they are trying to make everything look real and while they do train their wrestlers to sell and have more psychology in matches which help them telling stories instead of just doing high spots for high spots sake.
What I hate
1. Too many PPV : I feel like having 12 big event a year is diluting the product and make it hard to keep the product fresh. You could have the big 4 show and the 2 Saudi show and the rest being TV special and you can have a way better product.
2. Vince McMahon: while he's the genius that made everything we have now in wrestling possible, I think that sometimes he's out of his league with the way he booked certains things. Also, at his age, he really shouldn't be a t.v. character as he really look his age and he doesn't look like the intimidating Mr.McMahon we knew in the 90's.
3. Rallying too much on past stars: again their nothing wrong with bringing back Lesnar because he's a star and can still go but bringing back guys like Goldberg who can clearly not do it anymore just to get a big pop in the ratings is hurting their image
4. The peacock deal: I wanted to bring this thing up because since they made that deal, a lot of the PLE have been hard to watch because of all the ads and videos segment they had to included during those show. For a 3 hours show, you have at less half of the show that are either ads or vignette and it takes you out of the show.
5. The war between wwe fans and AEW fans: this is something that included both company but thing need to be address since it happens a lot more. If you don't like a product don't watch instead of bashing people that actually love the product.
First let's start with AEW
What I love
1. Cm punk vs mjf: this program as been awesome since the beginning and shows that some guys in the company actually want to present serious pro wrestling.
2. Bryan Danielson: I love his run in AEW, he tries to elevate everybody he's working with and he's doing the best work of his career.
3. Britt baker vs Thunder Rosa: Britt as been a star in the women's division but got dealt a bad hand by putting her against crappy competition. Now she in a feud with a star and probably the best wrestler in the division in Thunder Rosa and she can finally show what she capable of doing.
4. The fans: like the product or not, the one thing you know is that you always Gonna have a hot crowd and it makes even the most cringeworthy stuff more enjoyable.
5. Building for the future: it's not always perfect as sometimes they try to rush a push on guys that aren't ready while making other that are ready sit on the bench for months but when they get behind somebody, they go all in and I have to respect that.
What I hate
1. Tony constant over hyping debut and announcement: I feel like Tony constantly saying that he has a huge announcement or a huge debut and then not delivering is hurting the growth of the product. He really need to see the bigger picture and try to get the WWE fans, which is a more casual fanbase, to watch his product and it's not by doing big announcement that only a certain group of fans will thing are big news that it will do that.
2. The booking is all over the place: the big problem is that he's trying to please everybody and it doesn't help. Sometimes you have feud like punk and mjf that is captivating and bring in fans and then you have crap with orange Cassidy that make no sense and is just hurting the program. Also if you have a long-term plan like what he had with Adam page, make sure you build him to look like a main event star before giving him the belt because if not, you're left with a world champion that look like a mid card guy to the average fan and that's not a good look to have with your world champion
3. Jericho: Chris Jericho was on fire when he first started in AEW then he lost the title and suddenly he went back to his old WWE style booking but without somebody to reel him back. Which mean that he just hurt everybody that he feuds with instead of helping them. His backward booking of the MJF feud almost killed MJF as a top heel and now his feud with Kingston isn't any better.
4. The commentary team: nothing again them but J.R. has check out at this point and isn't the same J.R. that we know and loved. Schiavone is going through a mid life crisis and he's just happy to get a paycheck and Excalibur is trying to put himself over instead of selling the product to a wider audience. Against the point of a commentary team is to sell the product. If you have a team that either don't love the product or are just thing that everybody watching knows everything and everybody in wrestling it doesn't help the product.
5. Signing way to many wrestlers: AEW is a young company, they have 3 hours of national TV time, Let forget those 2 youtube show as nobody outside the hardcore aew fans watch those, so you have 3 hours of TV time and a roster that looks like raw's entire roster. Which mean that a lot of wrestlers will fall through the cracks. Just this year alone, they brought in Christian,malakai black, Andrade, Keith Lee, Ruby soho, 2.0 and many others and you look at what happens to most of them, they either seetle in the same spot they had in wwe or got sent to be a mouthpiece for somebody else. In the mean time, you got wrestlers like a Ricky starks or powerhouse Hobbs that could be big stars for AEW and that are just waiting on the sideline. Jay lethal is stuck in YouTube hell, Brian cage is just not being used. I get he wants to keep stuff fresh but at some point he need to focus on certain talent and just let other goes if you're not using them or just paying them to do indy show outside your company.
WWE
What I like
1.NXT 2.0: when they decided to rebrand NXT and change the format, I was really skeptical because they had something different with the nxt brand but the problem was that you weren't building for the future with that brand. So they switch the concept and focus more on the future and while some shows have been clumcky at time, you now see that they are building for the future of the company and they have a lot of great talent that are learning the WWE style and while be stars for them at some point.
2. Roman reigns: he finally found a way to get into that mega star status that WWE always wanted for him. His work as a heels is really compelling and gets people watching whatever show he's one
3. The commentary teams: you can see that they are being produce but it's a good thing, you have people that really look like they like the product and wants to sell you on stories going on and aren't thinking that everybody watching read the wrestling observer newsletter and knows everything about wrestling.
4. The storytelling is very easy to follow: they got the formula of storytelling down, it's the simple point a to point b style of storytelling and it's easy to follow which might be boring to some but that I actually like.
5. Matches have more psychology in wwe: a lot of modern wrestling matches are more about the sizzle then the storytelling and the little things which is something I don't like in modern wrestling because it make wrestling look fake. In WWE, they are trying to make everything look real and while they do train their wrestlers to sell and have more psychology in matches which help them telling stories instead of just doing high spots for high spots sake.
What I hate
1. Too many PPV : I feel like having 12 big event a year is diluting the product and make it hard to keep the product fresh. You could have the big 4 show and the 2 Saudi show and the rest being TV special and you can have a way better product.
2. Vince McMahon: while he's the genius that made everything we have now in wrestling possible, I think that sometimes he's out of his league with the way he booked certains things. Also, at his age, he really shouldn't be a t.v. character as he really look his age and he doesn't look like the intimidating Mr.McMahon we knew in the 90's.
3. Rallying too much on past stars: again their nothing wrong with bringing back Lesnar because he's a star and can still go but bringing back guys like Goldberg who can clearly not do it anymore just to get a big pop in the ratings is hurting their image
4. The peacock deal: I wanted to bring this thing up because since they made that deal, a lot of the PLE have been hard to watch because of all the ads and videos segment they had to included during those show. For a 3 hours show, you have at less half of the show that are either ads or vignette and it takes you out of the show.
5. The war between wwe fans and AEW fans: this is something that included both company but thing need to be address since it happens a lot more. If you don't like a product don't watch instead of bashing people that actually love the product.
