AEW Has An Identity Crisis

 

When AEW debuted in 2019, one of their biggest selling points was that they would be an alternative to the WWE. Two years in and AEW still hasn't found itself in the world of professional wrestling. When you watch the WWE you know what you're gonna get, an overproduced Hollywood style presentation of professional wrestling. When you watch ROH or MLW you know you'll get more of a focus on the wrestling aspect as opposed to entertainment. Impact Wrestling they do a little of everything throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks.

AEW on the other hand isn't sure what it wants to be. When you watch AEW you see production values on par with WWE. You also can see it's influences in presentation, matches, storylines etc. 

Cody clearly has a soft spot in his heart for the old mid 80's NWA/WCW heyday that his father was a prominent figure of. Kenny Omega is attempting to bring things that worked in Japan over stateside with mixed results. Tony Khan, like most wrestling fans in their thirties is a fan of the attitude era,  and wants to bring some of what made that era successful back. The Young Bucks are trying to bring respectability back to tag team wrestling. The Elite are also trying to bring the humor of their popular YouTube show Being The Elite to their shows. 

All of these influences combined are leading to one problem, there is nothing wrong with taking influences from the different eras and promotions. The problem is AEW doesn't know what it want's to be, so they havent figured out a way to combine all these elements into something unique to them that works.

At times AEW seems to be in danger of becoming WCW or TNA 2.0, bringing back former wrestlers of a bygone era. WWE does the same, however I'd point out that most of the over the hill wrestlers WWE brings back have history with the company, so they always have that to fall back on. AEW's roster is getting quite deep and even with a upcoming second YouTube show and planned second TNT show I wonder if they can utilize their young talent properly. There's so many talented members of their roster not being used properly right now.

I enjoy watching AEW, I watch it every Wednesday over NXT and watch NXT the next day. I like that there is another option for wrestlers to make good money, and for fans to enjoy a product. I don't expect AEW to have their shit together overnight, but I think finding their niche and knowing what they want to be as an organization is the best first step to truly get them over. Hopefully,  even one day as the number one professional wrestling organization in the world. 

Until then AEW needs to take a good look at themselves and figure out who they are.