All Elite Wrestling is really starting to pick up some steam, and with All Out being right around the corner, it feels like that's only going to continue to snowball as the weeks and months go by. The WWE-alternate has been doing all the right things in their first few shows, but of course, this is only the beginning for them.
There's a long way to go before they can be viewed as one of the biggest wrestling promotions in the world, even though a lot of folks already want to put them on that pedestal.
Today, we're going to look at some mistakes that were made by a promotion that draw a lot of comparisons to AEW: and that's World Championship Wrestling.
10 Inmates Running The Asylum
The history of World Championship Wrestling is littered with reports of superstars doing what they want when they want. They were pretty much given full creative control and while that can be useful in some aspects of the business, it doesn’t help when they’ve got guaranteed contracts and can do whatever they want.
While a handful of the main guys behind the promotion are in-ring competitors, the fact that Tony Khan is at the helm gives us hope that nothing like this is going to happen again.
For now, anyway.
9 Focus On Older Stars
If your older stars are better than the young ones then we can understand showcasing them, but if you aren’t even giving the youngsters an opportunity to shine, what’s the point?
Sure, the cruiserweight division received an awful lot of attention, but not to the point where they were positioned as main event players by the promotion. Instead, the likes of Savage and Hogan were still making appearances in world title matches when they, and many others, had no right being there.
They’re good for nostalgia, but not for building towards the future.
8 Not Hyping The Pay-Per-Views
Many of the original WCW pay per views are great, and give us a lot of nostalgia when we think about them. One of the reasons for that is because they’re unique, and you can pick a WCW pay per view out of a WWE pay per view line up.
As time went on, though, it just seemed as if they weren’t giving them enough hype or attention. Part of that was because they were wasting great moments on episodes on Nitro, such as Goldberg capturing the World Heavyweight Championship from Hulk Hogan.
7 The Dreaded Three Hours
When WCW moved to three hours it immediately felt like a mistake, and no, we aren’t just saying that for the sake of it. As you can probably tell from all of the complaints about Monday Night RAW in the last few years, three hour weekly TV shows aren’t always best for business.
Financially speaking, yes, it leads to a lot of good things, but AEW doesn’t need to rely on that sort of thing. It seems like they’re going to debut with two hours and stick to that for a while, which is wonderful news.
6 Face/Heel Switcharoos
Because of how sporadic and random a lot of the moments on Nitro and Thunder felt, many of the face or heel turns just felt a little bit unnecessary – and sometimes, there was absolutely no warning for them at all.
Some weeks guys would turn, and then they’d turn back seven days later, creating a bit of an odd divide along the way. It’s something we can’t really get our heads around, to be perfectly honest, and it constantly led to a lot of confusion in the eyes of fans (even the most perceptive ones).
5 Competing Directly With WWE
Going after the big dogs in the yard is always tough, but to WCW’s credit, they gave as good as they got. However, as the years went on, it seemed as if they were fighting a losing battle by being broadcast on the exact same night as their rivals.
Without taking a risk or two you’re never going to get anywhere so the praise needs to be there in some form, but they could’ve just gone about their own business and kept moving forward for a few years. Well, if they didn’t have a million other issues, that is.
4 Complicated Storylines
Some of the storylines just didn’t make all too much sense, and a big reason for that was because too many people were involved. Or, you know, they put a grandmother on a pole and expected people to buy into it.
The gimmicks just because too much to handle and the influence of people like Vince Russo seems to point towards the root of the problem.
If you were really attentive then it wouldn’t have mattered all too much for you, but most of the time, wrestling storylines are better when they are simple.
3 Faction Overload
The New World Order started off as one of the hottest things in professional wrestling, but by the end, there were so many members and the precise history of the faction was just impossible to keep track of.
In addition to that, WCW decided to push a series of spin-off factions – as well as some completely unique ones altogether.
When we’re being told that groups and teams are of such vital importance, then it takes away from the specific characters themselves as singles stars. If you want to be diverse, this isn’t the way to do it.
2 Celebrity Involvement
David Arquette won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and in many ways, that’s all we need to say about this entry, really.
A few of the celebrity appearances worked to a certain extent, but more often than not, they were overshadowing 60% of the roster and WCW weren’t even bothering to try and hide that.
AEW has flirted with the idea of throwing a few celebrities into the mix, with a certain NBA star being called out by MJF recently, but hopefully, it doesn’t go too much further than that.
1 Mocking WWE
When you try and spoil the result of your opposition’s show, and then a large chunk of your viewers switch over in order to see the thing that you’ve just described, it should serve as an absolutely massive warning sign that things aren’t trending in the right direction.
This, and many other incidents, kind of showcased how desperate WCW was to flaunt their success in the face of their rivals. It was like they became obsessed with the idea of beating WWE, as opposed to just being an alternative.
Right now, AEW seems to want to be an alternative and nothing more – and that’s a solid place to start.