Former WWE Superstar, Kevin Nash said in a recent interview, in many respects, AEW is not going to be able to compete with WWE.
During a recent interview with Gamespot, Nash was asked about his thoughts regarding All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and whether or not WWE should have any reason to worry about them as their next big form of competition. Suggesting WWE can no longer be "out-moneyed" or the fact that WWE comes to the table with a far superior level of production than any other wrestling or sports entertainment company in the world, Nash suggested WWE shouldn't be overly concerned.
Nash explained, “I think when we made the run with [Ted] Turner[‘s WCW] against Vince [McMahon], Vince, he was a private company. We just basically out-moneyed him. We kept buying his stars. WCW didn’t make any stars. They just bought Vince’s stars." In this case, Nash has a point. AEW may have some upfront money to get started (rumored to be around $100 million), but they don't have the funds WWE does and WCW used to blow through that kind of money in less than a year. There will be no chance WWE lets AEW outbid them for talent and $100 million won't stretch as far as people think.
So too, Nash explained that there's a huge difference between AEW having done one big pay-per-view and WWE who has spent decades improving their live shows, pay-per-views and production value. Saying Vince is ready to put his show on Fox, his shows look "like the Super Bowl." Nash added, "We used to have two production trucks. There’s like 30 production trucks now. I mean, it is amazing just from a production standpoint." He added that when he was last there, they had seven cameras, now they have 17 or more.
Adding that if AEW's shows look anything like Ring of Honor or the old ECW productions, they don't stand a chance of competing over the long-term and while they may have popular wrestlers, there's more to putting on a good show than that.
What This Means
Nash did admit that what's going on is great for the wrestling business and for the talent that will currently wrestle for one of the two promotions, AEW is fantastic timing. That said, other than a pay increase for stars, there's not a whole lot more to take from the fact that AEW exists now and didn't a few months ago.