Fix AEW Dark and WWE Main Event

By Ryan Joy
Updated: June 30, 2020
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Fix AEW Dark and WWE Main Event

Fix AEW Dark and WWE Main Event was originally published in the Minutes To Bell Time newsletter: The Body Slam Brigade. If interested, you can read and subscribe here.

WWE Main Event

Main Event is the only WWE show that I don’t watch. So off the radar is Main Event, that the matches don’t get included in my win-loss records. I feel a little guilt about it, but I rationalize the exclusion with the idea that Main Event is an obscure non-cannonical part of the WWE landscape. What happens on that show bears no relationship to what happens on Raw, Smackdown, NXT, or even 205 Live. It only airs on Hulu.

AEW Dark

AEW has a similar program called Dark that runs each week on You Tube (Tonight’s Preview). The difference though is that these matches do figure into each wrestler’s win-loss record, and it could influence what opportunities the wrestlers have on the main show. At least it started that way.

Since the pandemic hit, AEW has mainly used their stars wrestling against unknown and unsigned talent from the independent scene. One week, I saw one of these guys (Mike Reed) on AEW Dark and also on NXT . . . both squash matches.

Here’s the problem. I can write the results without watching the show because AEW Dark is that predictable. When the pandemic first hit us, I thought OK. . .let’s give these guys a pass. There was only so much talent available. Now, AEW largely brings the same crop of unsigned wrestlers back every week to lose to new people. So obvious are the outcomes to these matches that the commentary team jokes about the impossibility that the unsigned talent could ever win a match.

Make Dark Matter

I don’t pretend to be an expert at booking a wrestling show. It’s not my job, but as a professional consumer of the product, I demand more from the wrestling shows I watch. Give me a storyline, pretend these guys have a chance, and put something at stake.

When I began discussing this on social media earlier this week, someone suggested that the independent talent compete against each other in a tournament. The winner gets a shot at Cody’s TNT Championship. They could do some variation of this every week with endless options: Battle Royals, four-ways, etc. AEW could even do a twitter poll or something: which of tonight’s wrestlers should compete next week for a title shot?

At least that would make watching them lose every match bearable because it would feel like a scouting mission. AEW could also announce a stipulation where if any unsigned talent gets a win over a signed talent, they automatically get a TNT title shot. I could then watch every week thinking . . . is this going to be the time where unsigned guy #5 wins a match?

As it stands right now, the show just seems to be a way to pad the win-loss records of the established stars. If you’re listening AEW, we (or at least I) want more. When it comes time to start your second show, please don’t give us Dark in it’s current format.