Pro Wrestling! (For Everything WWE, Impact, Indies, AEW, & Japan !) 2021

[BeastieRunner]

Right. I'm not against all random matches. I'm not for all non-random matches. I think it's about a good balance. And AEW does have its own balance of both. I don't know, sometimes maybe I just feel like AEW relies on random too much, but I could be wrong or I could be just kneejerking frustration on the booking of certain wrestlers.

As much as I haven't watched WWE regularly in years and don't know much how they book matches now, I just hope AEW doesn't look at 1984-2000s WWF/E booking practices and deliberately ignore all them too much (as a matter of degree) just because they're current rivals to VKM. Same with WCW booking practices. AEW will thrive best if it continues to be itself (whatever that exactly means), but also always consider what worked about WWE and WCW and what didn't. AEW shouldn't settle with its status quo or assume other promotions did in the past can't continue to help or inform AEW now. And AEW to its credit does indeed harken back to certain things WWF and WCW did (that WWE doesn't do anymore), so I'm not saying AEW doesn't hasn't learned from WWF/WCW booking. I don't want to come off as too harsh to how AEW is doing booking-wise, they're doing some great stuff.

I think sometimes I just wonder a little if Khan works too hard to be different from WWE and WCW and risks missing out on taking all that fans like about WWE/WCW and outdoing them even more. AEW is winning big in the in-ring action, not always in the entertainment dept (thankfully WWE isn't really winning there much either).

Something like a series of matches with certain opponents should feel special whereas with current WWE it is the norm.

For example, Benoit and Booker T had a best of seven that culminated in a shot at the WCW TV title. It was not the norm for WCW. AEW has done the Labors of Jericho to get him a rematch with MJF which was a fresh spin on that concept. You also have had people running through Dark Order to get to Page or the Elite to get to Omega.

In the later examples, I think that might help with the randomness because when you feud with the "leader" of a faction, you get the stable hands before the big hoss. Lets everyone have the shine. That's a very WWF/WCW/NWA thing (the Horseman, Freebirds, the Flock, the Nation, DX, Ministry, Heenan Family, Dungeon of Doom, etc.) to feed a faction to a star.

Do you watch Dark or Elevation? They tend to be very random at times. I can get behind that critique. While not perfect, I wish AEW would develop some more under card feuds. Not just Mid and upper, which to be fair, is 100% better than WWE who really only tell Main Event stories anymore.