WWE is ready to go to war with the new AEW promotion, and it's becoming increasingly evident that Vince McMahon s superstars are all coming together as they prepare for the battle.
It's been reported that Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns will "lead the charge" against AEW in the WWE locker room. Not only that, but Vince and co. have a plan in place to "counter" every big move AEW makes.
Raw and SmackDown commentator Corey Graves appeared on Two Man Power Trip (h/t Ringside News), and explained that the competition has "reinvigorated" the WWE locker room.
In the interview, Graves wasn't able to mention AEW (it's a big no-no for WWE talents to say "AEW" at all), but it was becoming clear over time which company he was talking about:
"People get mad about storylines sending me mean tweets and I’m like ‘I didn’t write it, man I saw it when you did. There’s obviously a little bit of internal buzz and obviously there are external forces that everybody’s talking about and in a weird way it’s kind of reinvigorated definitely the locker room.
Hopefully, you know that’s the start of something cool that’s going to permeate throughout the entire company...
It’s exciting to see and it’s a small change and it’s gonna take time, and it’s going to take a lot of effort, but yes. Hopefully, yes in a short answer, yes I think it is a change of something."
AEW obviously has a long way to go before they can think about getting on WWE's level. For Vince and WWE officials, the goal is to keep the roster together. As long as they don't self-destruct by creating problems in the locker room, WWE will stay far ahead of AEW.
Related: 5 Disgruntled WWE Wrestlers Who Won’t Get An AEW Contract And 5 Who'll Be In AEW Soon
Knowing he had to change up his product, Vince hired Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff to take over as the new Executive Directors of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live, respectively.
WWE has also done everything in their power to retain as many stars as possible. Despite speculation that Mike and Maria Kanellis were leaving, WWE wound up re-signing the popular power couple to multi-year deals. Jinder Mahal and Mojo Rawley signed new contracts with WWE several weeks ago. Braun Strowman also revealed on Instagram page that he signed a new four-year contract with WWE. Certainly, more superstars will follow and reach new deals.
What This Means
Keeping the locker room close together is the key for WWE here. If superstars grow disgruntled and look to leave for rival promotions like AEW, things will begin to fall apart in short time. But based on what Graves had to say, the locker room isn't a problem in WWE. The superstars are clearly committed to working together in fighting off the new business rival.