AEW continuing to mention WWE is a bad look for the promotion

It is safe to say that AEW thus far has met and exceeded many initial expectations people had for them. In just over two years, they have grown an average audience of over 1 million people for Dynamite on a weekly basis, landed a second show, AEW Rampage, on Friday nights, and recently held the largest non-WWE event since 1999 with Dynamite Grand Slam.

When AEW began, the narrative they wanted to portray was not to compete with the WWE, but to serve as an alternative to them and to attract the lapsed wrestling fans. Somewhere along the way, the narrative switched amongst journalists, fans, and even their own talent to be seen as legitimately in competition with the WWE. This has been fuelled by regular mentions of WWE in some way on their television shows and I believe this is holding them back from succeeding as the true alternative they once claimed to be.

Whether it’s Cody Rhodes taking a sledgehammer (à la Triple H) to the metaphorical and literal throne at the first Double or Nothing, MJF calling out “VKM” (ie. Vince McMahon) on AEW Dark, or Britt Baker referring to blood money and Saudi Arabia on Dynamite, it seems like nobody in AEW can keep the WWE out of their mouths for a show that is supposed to be an “alternative”. The fact that AEW continues to regularly take shots at the WWE now over two years into their existence comes across as very bush league and looks even worse given that they signed so many ex-WWE talents.

For example, this week, the official AEW Twitter account tweeted out an article written by Variety entitled “Vince McMahon Is Finally Getting What He Hasn’t Seen In 20 Years: Competition“. The article itself was quite good and provided some interesting metrics and analytics in support of AEW, however, it completely pushed forward the narrative that they are in fact competing with WWE given that it was shared on one of their official social media pages.

In addition to this, AEW completely diminishes all of the other pro wrestling companies that have been around for far longer and makes it seem like they were never any threat to the WWE. Let’s not forget that at its peak, Impact Wrestling (f.k.a TNA) was going head to head with Monday Night Raw (albeit not for long) and was drawing strong ratings in its own right. Not a great look for the forbidden door that might get slammed shut after seeing how AEW views their peers.

AEW has incredible momentum right now in the world of pro-wrestling and they need to continue to focus on that. The constant need to take cheap digs or make references to the WWE on television and social media comes across as very petty and does nothing to help them pry some of that lapsed WWE audience towards their own programming. As an alternative, they have done a great job of differentiating themselves from their competition with things like their rankings system and style of matches. However, in order to truly present themselves as the independent alternative they once claimed to be,  they need to stop talking about WWE and focus on growing their own brand.