Scream to AEW that you don’t want live tapings to return

WWE has rightfully received harsh criticism for their actions over the past month, but AEW should not be absolved of criticism either.

Unfortunately in the professional wrestling world, some fans have pledged allegiance to a specific promotion, choosing to buy into the rhetoric that WWE and AEW are “at war” instead of appreciating the increased options for both viewers and performers.

The extension of this desire to choose one or the other leads to rather comical attacks or defenses of a promotion when one of them makes a mistake. Instead of evaluating both companies run by literal billionaires by the same standards, fans are more likely to give one promotion “a pass” depending on what’s convenient.

At this point of time when we have a pandemic threatening the lives of millions worldwide, now is the time to stand together and hold all wrestling promotions accountable for circumventing basic safeguards and putting profits over people.

Not all promotions will be as callous and egregious in their transgressions as WWE, who literally released and furloughed people to preserve their profit margins, but WWE isn’t the only promotion who deserves sharp criticism.

According to a report from the Wrestling Observer News’ Dave Meltzer, via Fightful.com’s Jeremy Lambert, AEW plans on resuming taping shows – which will likely be live – on May 6 in Jacksonville.

And now, Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp has confirmed AEW will be going through with live tapings. It’s unclear when or where they will be taking place, but the timeline reported by Meltzer could happen.

AEW will be taking advantage of WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon’s wife Linda McMahon’s Super PAC, which supports Donald Trump’s reelection in 2020, pledging $18.5 million in spending in the state of Florida on the same day that wrestling was declared an “essential business”. (Vomits.)

While what WWE did is indefensible, wrestling fans should also be quick to voice their displeasure at AEW looking to similarly put its performers at risk. Wrestling promotions will talk at great length about how many precautions they have in place, but it’s hard to believe them when they’ve been caught not following basic social distancing protocols outside the ring. And, of course, how can pro freaking wrestling be socially distanced?

Although AEW isn’t furloughing and releasing people like WWE, they are still putting their performers at risk by running shows, specifically live shows. Whereas at least pre-taped shows allow a bunch of content to be created on one day in one place live shows necessitate travel, keep wrestlers away from families, and increase risk due to there being more contact and movement.

Wrestling should take a backseat at this point. As my colleague Bobby Fisher wrote, we’ll be OK if it takes a break. There are bigger things to worry about. So AEW shouldn’t even be running shows or thinking about Double or Nothing, no matter how “pushed” they feel by WWE. If their whole goal is to be a grassroots promotion that is the antithesis of WWE, why act the same as them? What’s truly different?

The answer is “very little”. AEW is another wrestling company with a major TV deal, run by a billionaire and will thus put money over safety. Unfortunately, that’s how it works. They may not be as morally bankrupt as WWE, but they are nobody’s friends. Hopefully, they find a real value system and decide not to run live shows, but I’m not holding my breath here.

Remember, wrestling fans. Brands are not your friends. You need to show your support to the performers in the ring whose own safety and families’ safeties are being put at risk. Don’t show loyalty for three letters that stand for a machine’s billions and nothing more, especially not now. Not when the stakes are this high.

AEW will tell you all about their safeguards and give you big long speeches about how they will have testing, not risk performers, etc. etc.

But when so many major sports leagues, such as every European soccer league, have stopped running; it’s for a reason. There are no true safeguards. We are in a crisis, and sports and entertainment can wait. Lives come first.

So scream to AEW and tell them you want better.  All we have left are our voices as a collective.