It’s a 2024 marketing gimmick, an antiquated method lifted from rival companies. In response to a barrage of criticism and collapsing TV viewership, WCW made a similar attempt in April 2000.
Every title was withdrawn, the promotion was “reset,” and everything had to start over. The plan was to use a single, rapid hosepipe blast to remove the stigma and odor of a terrible TV death, but since it was the brainchild of Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff, it failed terribly.
It didn’t work; WCW realized that the audience wanted to see some fresh faces in the main event sequence, but the ensuing young vs. old metaplot was terrible.
The idea was novel, but the storyline remained ridiculous as always. WWE issued an apology in December 2018 for its own terrible creative, but as 2019—the worst year of Vince McMahon’s creative history—came, the company’s pledge to improve was all but forgotten.
AEW is currently doing a comparable endeavor with their “Restore the Feeling” enterprise. The feeling vanished in 2023. Even though the creativity wasn’t really good, four years is a long time to watch something continuously. Deeply uneven was AEW. While there were peaks, the concept of a benchmark was no longer novel, especially after the mid-2010s NXT, peak NJPW, and AEW’s own groundbreaking library had passed. Magnificence has become the standard.
AEW fell prey to its own prosperity. Even before the Devil plot stung like a betrayal, the avarice of signing every big name and the entitlement to promote every facet of “good” wrestling had begun to show signs of weariness. It was a betrayal, too. The so-called alternative, AEW, had dabbled in the worst aspects of cheesy US wrestling television, including mystery unravels, soundtracked skits, poor comedic timing, wide, foolish characters, and the vacuous, sleazy assurance that something would happen the following week.
Though sarcastic and satirical, the notion that WWE might achieve more recognition by simply eliminating Vince McMahon and refining its core values was not entirely implausible. The benefit of being evil is that, by comparison, anything that is superior to evil is also excellent.
In contrast, AEW carried out its own exercise in late 2023. The miserable show-long tale at Full Gear marked the terrible low point of the MJF World title reign, the first half of which was spectacular. Even though Adam Cole was more damaged, it was absurd to think that he could take MJF’s spot in the main event. With its overly ambitious and cynical response to allegations of “not telling stories,” AEW had clearly lost the plot, as this inexplicable plot hole highlighted.
Although the Continental Classic was fantastic, one might also say that the competition was cynical—after all, what better way to play to the crowd than to suggest a G1 Climax?
When Tony Khan announced the tournament during the Full Gear news conference, he said the quiet portion loudly. He advised the dissidents to follow through on their promises with money. The C2 had an almost vindictive motivation, and if that was too much, it was undoubtedly a clear-cut attempt to reclaim the promotion’s identity.
The PR rehabilitation exercise was successful.
