“All is fair in love and war.” – John Lyly
We’ve all heard and/or read that quote before. Many of us have said it at one point or another.
In life, we are all expected to follow a certain set of rules for conduct and behavior. However, in certain situations of intense conflict or deep-rooted emotions, those rules can often be difficult, if not downright impossible, to follow.
Obviously, with everything going on in the “real world” these days, it feels silly to say that WWE and AEW are at “war” in any way, shape, or form. Are they in a competition of some sort? Sure. “All is fair in love and competition” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, though, so WAR IT IS.
Whether you consider yourself a WWE diehard, an AEW fanatic, a mega fan of both, or someone who hates anything considered “mainstream,” it’s fair to say that WWE has subscribed to the “all is fair…” line throughout’s AEW’s relatively brief existence.
If you go all the way back to the birth of AEW Dynamite, you might remember that, weeks after AEW announced the premiere date for their show, it was announced that the weekly NXT program would be moving to the USA Network to air against Dynamite. Whether it was a direct shot or not, it was viewed by many as one of the first declarations of “war,” but also viewed as WWE laughing off the possibility of AEW as any real competition. Oh, they’re putting their “developmental brand” against AEW? LOLZ, look at how far below them they feel AEW is!
Do you remember how the “Wednesday Night War” went?
AEW “won,” and they did so in a very decisive fashion. Over the span of 80 weeks, Dynamite beat NXT in total viewership 63 times. When you throw in five weeks where one of the shows was forced to a different night or time slot, and two weeks that saw a tie, NXT was only able to come out on top of the viewership battle ten times.
The numbers are even more lopsided in the key demographic of 18-49 year olds, which saw Dynamite grab more of those viewers 74 times. Take out the aforementioned five weeks where one of the shows was forced to a different night or time slot, and that means NXT had more viewers in the key demo on one occasion in 80 weeks.
Eventually, it would be reported that NXT would be moving to Tuesday nights, which is where they remain today. This ended the “Wednesday Night War,” although it wasn’t much of one outside of social media posts between fans who have chosen a “side” to get behind.
Recently, WWE has been making the very conscious decision to “interfere” with AEW shows, placing their own programming to go head-to-head with AEW events. Just as a brief example, we’ve seen WWE place NXT Battleground up against AEW Double Or Nothing, and more recently, they had NXT Great American Bash and Saturday Night’s Main Event up against AEW Y’All In. Now, we’ve received word that WWE will be having NXT Heatwave go up against AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door.
I know there are a ton of people who feel WWE isn’t “playing fair” or that they’re trying to throw their weight around and “bully” AEW. It’s not like it would be a new tactic for the company. We’ve all seen or heard the stories of Vince McMahon’s antics. One of the more famous stories is Vince threatening pay-per-view providers in 1987 and saying that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to air WrestleMania 4 the following year if they decided to air the NWA’s Starrcade ’87 event instead of the WWF’s Survivor Series, which was airing at the same time.
By the way, a small handful of pay-per-view providers called him on it and decided to air Starrcade, anyway. Each of them were still able to air WrestleMania the following March.
Back to my original point, this is what WWE, as a company, has been doing for a long time. If you don’t like it, I completely understand that, but it doesn’t bother me.
Why?
“All is fair in love and war.”
I don’t mind WWE trying to use their “stroke” to get things under their control. If AEW had the ability to do the same thing, I wouldn’t them doing it, either. Unfortunately, AEW isn’t quite large enough to do things like that, even if Tony Khan wanted to, and that’s okay, too. I don’t mind the things that they are able to do, like taking shots at WWE and/or its wrestlers. All of it is cool with me, as long as we’re building some competition and having fun with it.
The major issue I have with WWE’s plan, though, is the entire execution of it.
Whether you like them or not, WWE is the biggest wrestling promotion on the planet, and they’re not even remotely close to the rest of the pack. They have the talent, the power, the resources, the reach, and the know-how to really crush AEW’s hopes and dreams, if they so desired. If that’s the case, why are they trying to “bully” AEW by using NXT?
Again, WWE has everything a promotion could ever need to really hurt AEW, or any other wrestling company they wanted, for that matter. If they wanted to do so, they could find an AEW pay-per-view and then place a WrestleMania-like show against it. Hell, they could do it in the same state, and even in the same city, if they wanted to. You know… REALLY try to put their proverbial foot on some proverbial throats.
Let’s just play a game with random examples…
Imagine if WWE decided to counter an AEW pay-per-view with John Cena vs Cody Rhodes, Gunther vs Sami Zayn, Bad Bunny vs Logan Paul, Rhea Ripley vs Bianca Belair, Roman Reigns vs Randy Orton, an advertised appearance by The Rock, an advertised appearance by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and on and on and on. Obviously, something like that would be incredibly unlikely, but they could do it if they wanted to.
Instead of that, what did they just do?
In a venue that was 800 miles away from where AEW was holding their pay-per-view, WWE decided to give us an NXT show that was headlined by Blake Monroe & Jordynne Grace vs Jacy Jayne & Fallon Henley. Oba Femi defended his NXT Championship against Yoshiki Inamura.
Against the biggest North American show in AEW history, and one of their biggest shows, period, THAT is what WWE decided to use to counter?
That doesn’t even begin to make any sense. I enjoy the work of every NXT wrestler I just mentioned, and that still doesn’t even begin to make any sense.
I’m glad to know wrestling fans of every type. Hardcore WWE fans that only support things that WWE does. Diehard AEW fans that welcome the “underdog” role, both for them and for AEW itself. Â Fans that love both promotions damn near equally, and actively look to consume every bit of content that both WWE and AEW put out. Just about everything else in between. Do you know what fans of almost every category were talking about on July 12th?
Y’All In.
More so than Great American Bash, Saturday Night’s Main Event, or anything else going on in the world of wrestling that weekend. I know A LOT of fans on a personal level that would freely admit to liking WWE more than AEW, but that were also quick to mention that they were watching Y’All In live and would be watching Great American Bash at another time. I’ve even seen social media posts from people who live within striking distance of Atlanta, Georgia (where Great American Bash and Saturday Night’s Main Event took place), saying that they decided against buying tickets for the shows because they were going to stay home and watch Y’All In instead.
Think about that for a moment.
Early estimates have the show being the fourth most ordered pay-per-view in AEW history, and had the highest merchandise sales of any non-WWE show to ever take place in North America. It was a major, major success for AEW in every way. Even on social media, AEW saw some incredible numbers on their posts and videos during Y’All In, with many of them breaking records for any AEW event in history.
WWE decided to have a dick swinging contest, for no reason other than they could, and it ended up with them pissing on their own balls.
AEW doesn’t deliver a perfect product, but if there’s one thing I will give them, it’s that they absolutely deliver on pay-per-view. There have been stretches of time where I really dislike AEW television, finding their weekly programming weak and nothing more than a scattershot collection of ideas thrown against a wall. Even during those stretches, the pay-per-view being built to ends up being something that I feel is worth the money I spent to watch it.
If WWE must make attempts to get in AEW’s way, wouldn’t going after Dynamite and/or Collision make more sense? As I said, there are times when AEW’s television isn’t the hottest. Not only from a creative aspect, but they’ll occasionally find trouble selling tickets for small venues.
For example, AEW will be in Cleveland, Ohio for the August 6th episode of Dynamite. The show will be taking place at the Wolstein Center on the campus of Cleveland State University. With the current setup for Dynamite, the setup for that night will see 2,603 tickets available to be purchased. With the last update (thank you, WrestleTix) before I post this column, there are still well over 1,000 tickets available, 19 days away from the event.
That’s not great.
Now imagine if WWE decided to have a show on August 6th, and they decided they wanted to run in Cleveland, too. Less than a mile away from the Wolstein Center sits Rocket Arena (formerly known as Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, and before that, Quicken Loans Arena and Gund Arena). Earlier this year, WWE had an episode of Monday Night Raw there, with an attendance of 12,639. On December 28th, 2022, WWE had a house show at the same building, and they had an attendance of 5,636 that night.
Before I go on, I know some of you are itching to point out that the episode of Friday Night Smackdown that will take place four days after this column goes live to the world will be taking place at the Rocket Arena in Cleveland. I’m aware of that. It was just an example.
You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think WWE’s presence in Cleveland on the same night as Dynamite is in the city would hurt AEW. If they’re essentially struggling to sell tickets without the added distractions, they’d be in real trouble with a bigger show in town at the exact same time.
It’s worth saying again… WWE has everything necessary to do things like that if they really wanted to. They could find AEW’s travel plans and follow them around as much as possible. It doesn’t matter how likely or unlikely it would be. All that matters is that they could do it.
Because of how silly pro wrestling tribalism is, I have to point out, yet again, that I’m not bothered by WWE’s attempts to “bully” AEW, nor am I bothered by AEW’s attempts at taking shots at WWE. If I didn’t say things like this, I know I would make some people upset. “Why are you questioning WWE? How does Tony Khan’s dick taste?!?” That type of nonsense is precisely where we are when it comes to having any sort of discourse online these days.
I won’t pretend to understand a military mindset. I’m not from a military family, nor have I ever been in the military myself. I also can’t say that I have ever been the decision maker for a company that had a $1.4 billion revenue in a single calendar year. With that said, I don’t think it requires real-life experience to understand that these moves by WWE don’t make a ton of sense.
It’s not about money. The company is making money hand over fist, and not only would they have made money, anyway, they probably would’ve made even more money if they decided to hold their own shows on their own days.
It’s not about dominance. The company is going to be the dominant force in professional wrestling, no matter what they do, and there hasn’t been a single shred of evidence that what they’re doing is truly hurting AEW in any way.
If it’s not about those things… what’s the point? Why continue doing this to yourself? Perhaps WWE would be better off just being WWE, making all that money, and focusing on themselves for a bit.
Weekly Power Rankings
Andrade & Rey Fenix vs DIY vs Motor City Machine Guns vs FrAxiom: I don’t know how many times I’ve had to say this in recent months, but the tag team scene on Smackdown is ridiculously loaded. I got to say that for this match that didn’t include the WWE Tag Team Champions, the AAA Tag Team Champions, or even the team (The Street Profits) that many feel are the best of the bunch.
Bayley vs Lyra Valkyria: Way back, I wrote that Lyra was a star in the making, having all that it takes in the ring to be a huge success. I said that she only needed to have her crowd reactions, and the connections with fans that lead to those reactions, match her in-ring skills. It feels like that’s what has been happening recently. She has been getting more and more over, and seems more comfortable on the mic when she is given promo time. I think she’s becoming every bit of the star I said she could be.
Bandido, Brody King, Kevin Knight & “Speedball” Mike Bailey vs The Young Bucks, Josh Alexander & Hechicero: Tony Khan, I am fucking BEGGING you… we don’t need an “all-star” tag match and a match that features the winner(s) getting a randomly agreed upon amount of money as the prize every single week. I don’t care if the matches end up being good or not. Just have the fucking matches, my guy.
CM Punk vs Jey Uso vs LA Knight vs Penta vs Bron Breakker: A very well put together Gauntlet Match, if you ask me. It allowed Bron Breakker to look absolutely dominant, but it also delivered the outcome that makes the most sense. Competing for a World Heavyweight Title shot at SummerSlam meant that everyone involved was working with extra motivation, but having CM Punk as Gunther’s next feud is the logical choice. Oh, and we also got a crowd-pleasing post-match donnybrook that led to the return of…
Roman Reigns: …this guy. Say what you want about him and the crazy schedule that he has worked over the last five years, but live crowds still react to him in a way that is pretty much unrivaled in the entire business. The fans in Birmingham, Alabama… not exactly known as one of pro wrestling’s hot spots for crowd noise… lost their minds for his return and seeking out revenge on the Paul Patrol. Early rumors say that he was scheduled to face Seth Rollins at SummerSlam, but with Seth’s injury that may or may not be an actual injury, that has been switched to either a singles match against Bron Breakker or teaming up with Jey Uso to face Bron and Bronson Reed. Those will be interesting matches, but that singles match really has my attention piqued.
Katsuyori Shibata vs Rush: It wasn’t a super long match, coming in at just under ten minutes in length, but it didn’t need to be. These two beat the hell out of each other from start to finish. Sometimes, I can’t ask for much more than that.
“Hangman” Adam Page, Mark Briscoe & Powerhouse Hobbs vs Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta: I was really hoping that we had seen the end of the Death Riders after Mox dropped the AEW World Title. Not only did they not disappear, they didn’t even miss a show. What are we even doing here?
AR Fox vs Ricochet: These two have faced each other approximately 1,924 times through the years, and every single one of those matches has been a lot of fun to watch. Lots of in-ring chemistry here.
Mascara Dorada vs Kyle Fletcher: It seems like a safe bet to say that Fletcher would be the current AEW TNT Champion if it wasn’t for Adam Cole’s injury. It certainly seemed like AEW went with an audible to give the Y’All In crowd a feel-good moment after the sadness that is Cole having to relinquish the title  and stare early retirement in the face. With that out of the way, let’s go ahead and continue the push for Fletcher, who is a future World Champion for the company.
Tony D’Angelo vs Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo vs Luca Crusifino: Please… please, please, please… let this be the end of the cartoonish “D’Angelo Family” nonsense. Let these guys move away from their over-the-top caricatures of Italian Mafia members. D’Angelo, specifically, could really use something of a reset, as he is fully capable of being a main event player in NXT, and maybe beyond, without the ceiling of his character placed above him.
Damian Priest vs Carmelo Hayes: While Priest isn’t on the same level as he was when he was the World Heavyweight Champion, his name still carries weight in the current WWE product. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised here to see Melo hold his own with Priest. Yes, the match ended with Aleister Black interfering to cause a disqualification, but Melo’s performance was, hopefully, a sign of good things to come. There’s even an easy path to get Melo involved in the feud between Priest and Black, as he can be upset with Aleister for the interference, giving us a Triple Threat.
Asuka & Kairi Sane vs Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez: Raquel and Roxanne continue to make the best of a bad situation and keep impressing me while Liv Morgan is on the shelf with her injury. I really appreciate that.
Jelly Roll: Look… I don’t care if you like Jelly Roll’s music or not. That’s not relevant to this conversation. I’m enjoying his relationship with WWE, because he clearly loves the business and you can see that on his face when he’s around. It’s great to see celebrities that are true fans of wrestling. They can be World Champions in other sports, or award-winning artists in multiple fields, and so on, but they’re clearly living out a lifelong dream by being a wrestling ring, and that’s cool. I enjoyed his segment with Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, and Logan Paul on The Jimmy Kimmel Show. Sue me.
Masha Slamovich, Sol Ruca & Zaria vs Jacy Jayne, Fallon Henley & Jazmyn Nyx: Even though I still don’t think Fatal Influence needs to be involved in the NXT main event scene, they’re still doing really well with their character work to go with Jacy and Fallon’s improvement in the ring. We’ll see if that continues in the future.
This Week’s Playlist: “MIAMI” by Tommy Richman… “Active” by Joyner Lucas & Big Sean… “ICED TEA” by Young Nudy, Project Pat, 21 Savage & Coupe… “Tweaker” by GELO… “Wild Corsicans” by Raekwon, Conway The Machine, Westside Gunn & Benny The Butcher… “Falling” by Yelawolf & J. Michael Phillips… “Russian Grizzly In America” by Slaughter To Prevail… “Conflict” by Slaughter To Prevail… “Rain” by I Prevail… “The Choices We Regret” by As The Structure Fails… “The End Of The Innocence” by Don Henley… “The Last Worthless Evening” by Don Henley… “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey… “Faithfully” by Journey… “Who’s Crying Now” by Journey… “Open Arms” by Journey… “What A Fool Believes” by The Doobie Brothers… “Minute By Minute” by The Doobie Brothers… “You Make My Dreams (Come True)” by Hall & Oates… “Maneater” by Hall & Oates… “Sara Smile” by Hall & Oates… “Kiss On My List” by Hall & Oates… “Out Of Touch” by Hall & Oates… “So Into You” by Tamia… “Finding My Way Back” by Jaheim
