Age of The Nerd
It’s a great time to be a wrestling fan. Unlike other sports, professional wrestling has no off-season. This means from the perspective of a fan, there is always content to watch. But sometimes, that content can be very hard to watch. Because what I watched on the 10/18th edition of AEW’s Dynamite was very hard to digest. And this is coming from a fan who has watched Disco Inferno wrestle in WCW.
AEW, founded in 2019 by Tony Khan, is the second-biggest wrestling promotion in the world. AEW has done some great things over the years, like getting a great deal from Warner Bros for a second show on TNT called Collision, which airs on Saturday nights. The promotion sold out Wembley Stadium a couple of months back. But with all the highs, there have been some lows.
Tony Khan has been rampaging on social media, making tweets that make zero sense. Neither Dynamite nor Collision ratings have been good. Wrestlers have been getting injured left and right. Sting, who has been with the company since 2021, will retire next year. Sting revealed the retirement news last night on Dynamite. Wardlow returned to the company to a lack of luster response from the crowd.
I don’t know what Dynamite is missing because I’m not a booker, but as a fan, I know one thing they are missing: lighting. If you watched the show last night, the crowd seemed so dark, like there was zero light outside the ring. The view of the crowd reminded me of watching old tapes of ECW from the ECW Arena in Philadelphia.
If Tony Khan wants to go for that look, that’s fine because at the end of the day it is his promotion. But if you want to be the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. You have to show that you actually have an audience.
