Under capitalism, we can’t have nice things.  Wrestling is a case in point.  Back when Tony Khan and the EVPs announced the creation of All Elite Wrestling, people scoffed at first about competing against global giants WWE.  However, Khan said they weren’t positioning the company as a rival, but as a “challenger brand”.  The analogy he used was Pepsi’s relationship to Coca Cola.  Coca Cola is the market leader, and that isn’t going to change.  But there are some out there who just don’t like it, and never will.  These people enjoy Pepsi precisely because it isn’t Coke.  And others enjoy both, their enjoyment of Pepsi not marring their continuing consumption of Coca Cola.  Pepsi has no intention of ever knocking Coke off the top spot.  It is a “challenger brand” there to challenge Coke, and provide a product alternative for those who don’t like the market leader.  Satisfaction with that secondary market spot allows both brands to co-exist peaceably.  Coke doesn’t need to crush the Pepsi market, and Pepsi doesn’t need to try and grab every last Coke customer.  There is a happy and profitable détente.

For a long time, this model worked.  AEW did its thing, picking up viewers tired of the stale and childish WWE product and interested in a more international influence in their wrestling.  But WWE couldn’t help itself, and eventually tried directly running NXT as competition against AEW Dynamite.  Happily, on that occasion, AEW won the brief ratings war and the détente returned.  NXT moved to Tuesdays and AEW continued being happy challenging without seeking to destroy.  Even Pay-Per-Views tended to run on different days.  Not only not against each other, but on a Saturday instead of a Sunday to avoid any possibility of a clash.

Wrestling fans already lived through the carnage of the Monday night wars.  Those of us old enough to remember, and miss, rival promotions like WCW and ECW, saw what happened when WWE put its full attention to winning the audience from another company.  They would eventually put the other company out of business and we, the wrestling fans, were left with an impoverished quality of product and no choice about where we could go for wrestling.  WWE were victims of their own success, eliminating the wrestling boom by devouring the competition, buying it up, and getting lazy when no longer having anything to compete with.  We really hoped AEW could provide a legitimate alternative once again, on a bigger scale than stalwart company TNA, who had been surviving (if not always thriving) since the early 2000s as the one consistent place of alternative employ for wrestlers.  The appearance of co-existence seemed fairly positive.  WWE even allowed Chris Jericho to name check the company when appearing on an interview with Steve Austin on their network when Jericho was already working for AEW.

But like I said: under capitalism, we can’t have nice things.

I think it started with Cody Rhodes returning to WWE.  Instead of seeing it as a legacy performer, returning triumphant to the one company he had always wanted to be a star in and “finishing the story” that was the entire reason he once left and ended up starting AEW, it was seen as the first significant shot by WWE against AEW.  Buying up their key talent and giving them a royal welcome (literally).  Same music, same name, same logo, but all that WWE money and a prime spot at WrestleMania followed by years of headline main events.  The acquisition of Cody Rhodes was an advert to AEW talent that all would be forgiven if they joined WWE, and that being a member of the AEW roster wasn’t a black mark against your name that would ensure burial if you decided to jump promotion.  Likewise, AEW winning the contracts of talent like Will Ospreay, Mercedes Moné, and, originally, CM Punk were clearly also shots fired against the market leader that showed that if they were a challenger brand, the challenge was pretty serious.

Long story short, suddenly WWE started putting PPVs on Saturdays too, forcing AEW to change some dates back to Sundays.  NXT started running big shows of their own directly against AEW events.  AEW smashed box office records with All In London in 2023, so WWE started to discuss bringing WrestleMania here and, in the interim, threw London a Money in the Bank.  AEW Collision carved itself out a nice little viewership on a Saturday night and so all of a sudden Saturday Night’s Main Event returns on NBC in prime time.  Saturday July 12th is AEW’s biggest US show: All In Texas.  All of a sudden WWE is running Golberg vs Gunther for free on SNME the same evening.  AEW return to London at the end of August, this time for Forbidden Door.  WWE suddenly announce a UK tour the same weekend, including a Raw taping the day after Forbidden Door in Birmingham, culminating in their own big European show the following weekend with Clash in Paris, leaving European wrestling fans torn about where to spend their money.  AEW announces a residency at the former ECW arena in Philadelphia and NXT announce their own show at the same venue a few weeks before. 

Instead of being able to pick your brand or enjoy both, as the competition steps up and an active attempt is made by WWE to undermine AEW projects (so far the competition does seem to be running in entirely the one direction, with AEW being the victim of WWE counter-programming and not the other way around) attention and time is being pulled in the direction of one company or the other.  The parent company of WWE is literally called TKO.  It wants to knock out the competition.  Once WWE and UFC were competing for similar audiences.  Now UFC has swallowed WWE and become one entity.  The dream, as WWE already did to ECW and WCW, is clearly to one day do the same to AEW.

Under capitalism, we can’t have nice things.

AEW can be accused these days of losing its way a bit.  Storytelling is becoming less logical and long-term and more and more random clashes are being booked simply because of a business arrangement with a particular promotion, like CMLL or NJPW.  Then there are all the visa and injury issues which seem to plague attempts at keeping a feud building to a satisfying and sustained conclusion.  But none of this has been helped by WWE beginning its low key talent raid either.  Penta, Ray Fenix, Mariah May (Blake Monroe), Ricky Starks (Saints), Malakai/Aleister Black, even the acquisition of AAA lucha libre and all the stars who benefitted from time on AEW TV, such as Vikingo, or wrestlers like Stephanie Vaquer who got a nice showcase match on AEW before making the move to WWE.  AEW is not a perfect place to work and many of these talents (along with most famously CM Punk) clearly did not want to stay working there and jumped ship to WWE for very good reasons.  But there is no doubt AEW have frequently started pushing a star on their TV shows only for them to suddenly not be available anymore because they’re heading to WWE.  And there is no doubt that some of these new WWE superstars are only being given the push they have been because they were previously showcased on AEW television and their continued rise in WWE continues to work as advertising for other talent that the grass might be greener over at TKO.  

I just wish the business of professional wrestling could learn the art of professional wrestling itself.  Simulate competition so that each party gets over.  Work together to share a market and each take home a sizeable chunk.  Pretend there is a rivalry going on while, in reality, the twists and turns have all been written and planned long in advance.  Your guy will show up here and ours will turn up there.  People will be shocked by this and then we’ll make them shocked by that.  Every Pay-Per-View is a must-watch because the Forbidden Door is well and truly open…  But capitalism won’t allow it.  WWE has a duty to its shareholders to maximise profits, even if doing so ruins parts of the business long-term for its fans.  They’ve done it before and bounced back, and I’m sure they believe they can do it again.  The fact that the recent WWE resurgence coincided with the emergence of AEW, and that the diversity of the business helps everyone do better, is of no concern to the accountants who merely demand more and more return on the investments of their investors.  Saudi Arabian blood money, snap into a Slim Jim, Snickers presents, Raw is Netflix…  They want complete control of the market, and any dollar spent with a rival – a “challenger brand” – is a dollar they cannot stand. 

Remember when Jey Uso lost his championship title so unceremoniously to Gunther the other week just so that they can do the Gunther/Goldberg match?  The same way, a few years back, CM Punk lost his world title to the Rock so that they could do Rock/Cena again at WrestleMania, but this time for the title?  

Under capitalism, we can’t have nice things.

Until next time…

DaN McKee

www.everythingdanmckee.com

My book, Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher, is available from Earth Island Books and wherever you get your reading material.

Don’t bother following me on social media – I’m trying to come off it as it’s killing us all.