Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I would say that AEW does a few things that WWE should imitate. Here are three things that AEW does very well that WWE should think about doing also.
Get a Larger Roster
Some fans look at AEW’s ridiculously large roster as a negative about the company. AEW has around 175 active wrestlers on their roster while WWE has around 200 active wrestlers split between Raw, Smackdown, and NXT.
To bring this into perspective, AEW has 175ish wrestlers to use on any of their four shows a week while WWE has 66ish wrestlers per show to use. These numbers include injured wrestlers so take a few of those away.
One of the biggest issues that fans had when Vince was in charge of creative was the repetitive matches that we saw week to week.
There could be a storyline between Randy Orton and AJ Styles and over the span of a month, we would see three matches between them on Raw and one at the PLE.
After all of these matches so close together, the feud would continue after the PLE match. It gets tiresome for fans and could make what an interesting storyline into something that fans cannot wait to end.
The biggest issue that I think fans have with AEW’s roster is that they portray all of their wrestlers like top tier talent and everyone cannot be in that position in a company.
WWE runs into the problem where every wrestler has wrestled every wrestler multiple times over. More wrestlers would benefit the fans and the wrestlers.
Utilize Local Talent
One of the best parts about AEW Dark and Dark Elevation every week is getting to see local talents that may not be signed to the company.
While most of them aren’t as polished as the workers that are signed to the company, they do offer variety and can be used to make heels look great in front of live crowds.
Also, there could be someone that isn’t on your radar that you might be able find a solid place for in your company.
It is a great way to get the lower part of your card over while not sacrificing the heat that your active wrestlers have to do it.
The best way to ensure that a hot act that you have stays fresh for an extended period of time is to not run them into the ground against your top talent and local talent can help with that.
Give Talent More Freedom in Promos
This is a gift and curse for AEW. While it is good let wrestlers cut promos in their natural personality instead of what a writer thinks that the wrestler should say, AEW promos do tend to have a samey feel to them.
You can tell the difference between the consistency of the promos between the two companies. Both companies’ strength is the weakness of the other company and vice versa.
For the most part, WWE’s promos sound more professional and concise but tend to sound robotic from the ones that have no charisma.
AEW on the other hand, tend to have a larger range for promos being good or bad. What I mean by this is that when a promo is good, it is very good but when it is bad, it is absolutely terrible. There is usually not an in between with AEW.
The biggest thing to look at here is that while overall, AEW has the better in ring talent (not in ring product though, in my opinion), their roster is made up of mostly indie talent that hasn’t had to cut great promos in front of a large amount of people.
WWE on the other hand, are trained to be able to talk on the mic clearly and to make the point clear. This leads to almost all of their promos being watchable, but not as many of them standing out as being great.
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