Wrestlers’ Court: AEW’s foreign objects

Over the past few weeks, I have followed and occasionally joined an online discussion about AEW’s woes. I’m not as down on the company as others seem to be, and I think that AEW has a bright future ahead if it can lock down its place in an American professional wrestling market that has long been dominated by a single player — WWE — which built its brand by raiding talent and putting competition out of business for over 40 years.

My biggest takeaway from these discussions has been AEW’s need to clearly define itself on its own terms. AEW says it wants to be the leading US pro wrestling company but finds itself in a mindset and booking habits that undermine this claim.

So far AEW has mostly defined itself as a ‘fan service’ promotion, presenting long-form matches between international internet-famous wrestlers on free TV. As a ‘serious’ fan, this keeps me coming back. It also bores the heck out of the casual fans in my household who share access to my TV’s remote control. As much as I can enjoy any great match, I am less likely to tune in when the wrestlers involved are liable to be out for the next few months due to injury from unsafe spots, overseas booking commitments or lack of plans going forward. AEW can present great wrestling in the moment, but in most cases it fails to build interest over time. Anticipation is critical to how stories are told in American pro wrestling-and it is largely missing from AEW broadcasts.

I suggest that a significant part of this storytelling failure comes from AEW’s growing reliance on international acts and partnerships with overseas promotions. Don’t get me wrong, I love lucha libre and strong style. I don’t have reliable access to AAA or CMLL except online, but I tune in pretty regularly. The same goes for Japanese promotions like NJPW — but I accept that they are their own forms of art that don’t necessarily mesh well with US talent and have never lent themselves well to the kind of long-term booking that I as a fan want to see.

These issues aren’t unique to AEW. One of my all-time favorite acts is the Great Muta, who I first saw in WCW in the late 1980s. Muta was extraordinary. For someone used to WWE’s formula of giant bad guys working clumsy matches against Hulk Hogan here was an anomaly: a heel who flew around the ring and turned gymnastics moves into credible offence. I still think Muta is unique as an airborne heel whose moves looked like they really hurt. Billed as the son of another Japanese Legend, the Great Kabuki, Muta was paired with one of the best talkers ever as his manager, Playboy Gary Hart. This mitigated the issue of cutting promos in English, which promotions still struggle with (even in WWE, stars like Shinsuke Nakamura or Andrade Almas speak perfect English, but their accents make it difficult for some fans to understand them. WWE has often resorted to subtitles to get their points across, which only inflames a part of the audience that demands people working in America “talk English”).

Muta got over with American audiences via a combination of Hart’s magic mic work, his flashy look and eccentric ring style (and let’s face it, more than a bit of Orientalist exoticism before a down-home crowd) and his fantastic work rate. Muta’s first, most impressive WCW run lasted less than a year. His biggest accomplishment was a TV title victory over Sting. He lost the title less than four months later to Arn Anderson. Muta went on to a legendary career in Japan. He’s one of a few wrestlers to be enshrined in WWE’s Hall of Fame despite never working for them. Later wrestlers who borrowed parts of his act like Hakushi or Yoshiro Tajiri could be seen as WWE’s attempt to create their own version. Depending on how you look at things, Muta’s limited US run is either a missed opportunity or reflects the ceiling that international talent face when working for US promotions.

Right now, AEW is full of international wrestlers of varying talents, but with less direction than Muta. AEW also regularly gives over its TV time to stars from international promotions like CMLL and NJPW.

I believe that if AEW is going to compete more successfully for a core American (and Canadian, and then international) audience AEW must rethink its acquisitions from Japan and Mexico and the energy it expends on international partnerships. While these talents and working relationships may yield some great one-off matches, on balance they take attention away from AEW’s core roster and storylines — the things that draw repeat, habitual viewers. A recent episode of Dynamite featured the Blackpool Combat Club beating several stars from Mexico’s CMLL promotion. The CMLL team was presented without sufficient background and were beaten handily, with Wheeler Yuta scoring the pin for his side. I have no idea why Team CMLL showed up, especially when AEW has several AAA-contracted luchadors who have struggled to get over despite their talent. Whatever arrangement exists between AEW and CMLL is to the detriment of AEW’s own young high flyers and to its established AAA stars like Pentagon Jr, Rey Phoenix and Rush.

AEW’s Forbidden Door initially involved working with other US promotions like Impact Wrestling/TNA. Today it’s mostly about trading talent with NJPW and eventually signing their bigger names. It’s a great idea on paper; Shibata and Okada and Ishii and Takeshita and Riho are fun to watch in-ring but until they can be easily understood by an American audience with little patience for accents, they can’t get over. Takeshita has one of the best managers going in Don Callis. He puts on excellent matches but when he’s not on TV he’s not missed. Takeshita himself has called this out in recent interviews. Even if Takeshita were a generational talent like Muta, and Callis were as smooth a talker as Hart, they still hit the same ceiling.

So far as other international talent goes, smart promoters have long realized the value of including a manager to help communicate a wrestler’s story to the audience. AEW’s misuse of Kazuchika Okada springs to mind. Okada spent the better part of a decade as a main event draw for NJPW, putting on great matches against a variety of opponents. I can’t speak to his promo skills in Japanese, but most of the matches I’ve seen conclude with him addressing an enraptured New Japan audience. Like Nakamura in WWE, so far Okada has been mired in the undercard. He holds a title of little consequence, is shown driving into arenas in a fancy car (when AEW stopped in Toronto it was hilarious seeing him park said car near the Canadian National Exhibition building where horses are stabled — an area that would benefit from frequent clean-ups), and pops the crowd by calling his opponent a bitch in heavily-accented English. It’s 1990s booking at its worst. AEW owner Tony Khan may think in Okada’s case the Young Bucks fill a quasi-managerial role with the Elite faction, but he’s wrong. The Bucks are a talented team and huge fun to watch in-ring. They’ve always relied on their athleticism and a healthy dose of online snark to get over with smart fans. That’s not what Okada needs. Whether he will be positioned as a good guy or a bad guy he requires someone to better explain why he’s in AEW and what he hopes to accomplish in each feud (sticking him with a quinary title belt doesn’t help matters). It’s a simple part of wrestling storytelling, and a major impediment to just about every talent who tries to translate their local popularity to a US audience.

Pentagon el Cero Miedo was one of my favorite parts of the Lucha Underground show. At one point I would have said he was flat out my favorite wrestler, but he’s been wasted in AEW, in no small part to the fact that Alex Abrahantes is a non-entity. The same goes for Rush’s and Andrade’s former manager, Jose the Assistant. He’s gone now. Lucha Underground was one of the few American promotions where promos didn’t matter — but it was built on a Mexican wrestling platform, partnered with AAA. Lucha Underground made use of talkers who could explain the action like Matt Striker, Vampiro and Konnan as well as frequent soap-opera style vingettes that allowed the real actor who played shady boss Dario Cuerto to explicate the action. In any event Lucha Underground sadly folded after four years. AEW needs an established lucha star to help carry the promo load (rehire Chavo or Vicki Guerrero; bring in Vampiro or Konnan or even the guy who played Dario Cuerto in Lucha Underground and is now working for MLW) and just as important, a greater emphasis on English-speaking wrestlers who can work a Lucha Libre style while telling the audience their side of the story. AEW has plenty of Lucha Underground graduates from lower-card fodder like AR Fox to mid-carders like Brian Cage to World Champion Swerve Strickland. Any of them can work with established luchadors and carry the promo load. To be fair, this has been an issue in WWE as well — in WWE the Mexican wrestlers seem to be locked in eternal combat against each other, segregated from ‘mainstream’ title chases and programs. It’s not cool in either promotion.

I think Khan counted on English-speaking NJPW talent like Jay White or Will Ospreay to draw more — but they have the same issue. In Japan they (and most of Bullet Club or United Empire) got over because they could work a compatible style and generated huge heat just because they were gaijin — foreigners in a traditionally insular country. The US demands more of its foreign heels. Many of these acts like the Good Brothers or Matt “Lord Tensai” Bloom lose any cachet when they’re just generic American baddies. These heels need to do more in the US promo-wise or align with people who can. Without a compelling, easily understandable backstory in plain English my attention is more easily split between the “random Mexican or Japanese” wrestlers (to quote MJF, who is working overtime on promos to generate interest in an upcoming match with Rush) and Wordle. I want to know why a match matters to the competitors, in their own words.

Pragmatically, even regular roster members suffer from frustrating start-stop booking because of immigration requirements. AEW has a habit of featuring certain wrestlers then having them go AWOL. PAC has been with AEW almost since its inception, but at this point his presence is yet another distraction. As an intermittent performer I don’t see him as a threat to any major titles, and his partnership with Penta and Rey Phoenix in Death Triangle has always been confusing. The Lucha Brothers get along fine without him. If he and Tony Khan are willing to work a full schedule with AEW so he can be regularly booked into storylines, great! If not, let’s see how more available performers can fill this slot and get themselves over.

If WWE is wrestling as Corporate America, AEW needs to be something else-perhaps the family owned ‘fan friendly’ promotion that WWE claimed to be before it went public. It needs a modern identity built on current, relatable acts pulled from the US independent scene, featuring cohesive storylines and characters who appear on TV regularly enough to sustain a rooting interest. This means a shift in AEW’s focus to talent they already have, but seem to be bumped off of shows for months in favor of acts that can readily be seen in their home promotions, and whose obligations preclude long-term storylines.

I’m sure Tony Khan is reaching for his phone as he reads this.

TOP PHOTO: Konosuke Takeshita with Don Callis at AEW Dynamite on Wednesday, January 3, 2024 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Photo by George Tahinos, https://georgetahinos.smugmug.com

RELATED LINKS

• Previous Wrestlers’ Court columns by Jonathan Schwartz