Ideas to save AEW

[Mr. Nerfect]

I think everyone can admit that AEW sucks now. It took some longer than others to get there, but the main thing is we’re all there now. But it doesn’t need to all be negative. Where there is money, there’s a way. Let’s share some creative ideas to help AEW get back on track/on track for the first time ever. You can’t exactly make MJF more champion or have Bryan Danielson wrestle any harder.

Make MJF more champion
Maybe people just don’t get it or know? He’s gotten a lot of coverage at MLB games and the like. Maybe superimpose his image in the clouds and cut away to him during MLB games? The commentators can comment “Look, is that MJF?” Pay to have his face put on the back of The Mets’ uniforms. Anyone who doesn’t know who MJF is will be bound to look him up.

Whatever happened to CM Punk’s X-Title? Maybe MJF can come out and announce he defeated CM Punk in Rio de Janeiro? Give him more belts and hopefully he gets more over. Samoa Joe can drop the ROH TV Title to him because MJF defeated Joe for the World Title, so he qualifies for that. MJF can also pure wrestle Shibata and get his belt too. Ultimo Dragon is still considered a legend because he had so many belts. This could be a good start to making people care about MJF as champion.

Make Bryan Danielson wrestle harder
I get that Danielson wants to be known for his creativity as well, but Bryan’s strength has always been between the ropes. I can’t believe ratings are so low when Danielson has been having competitive matches and putting over the entire roster. Something must be getting lost here, and it’s possible that Danielson is just too distracted and needs to focus more on his in-ring game. People will complain that he’s too injury prone, but if he’s only got a few years left, it’s time to really give back to wrestling, isn’t it?

Sign CM Punk
Finding top free agents is hard, but luckily there is one floating around that can be brought in to pop a rating — CM Punk! It’s worked for them in the past, so it might work again. Punk can talk, wrestle and probably has lots of good ideas for creative. I know he’s had his problems, but controversy is good for ratings. It’s good that people backstage don’t like each other. The rumblings this would cause would be huge. Imagine the reaction when he walks out on stage.

More controversial storylines
Eric Bischoff once said that “controversy creates cash.” And when has Eric Bischoff ever been wrong? Even if you don’t want to bring in Bischoff himself, you can get him giving you positive reviews on his podcast by doing wacky, unpredictable, controversial things. Who is Tay Mello’s real baby daddy? Is he dead? Will Christian Cage make fun of him? AEW tried something with the antisemitism recently and it got them their best rating since July. Maybe touch on political issues that WWE is too scared to because they are boring and PG? Maybe a story where some men laugh at the women for tanking the ratings, so the women find a man to represent them and avenge them at a PPV? The women will be presented as faces and it could help them be draws.

While trying to get ratings, some women can even appear in skimpier gear and raunchy segments to try and boost them. But it would be good because it would be part of a story. It would be self-aware and get people talking.

A Brodie Lee tournament, a Windham Rotunda Tournament, another Owen Hart tournament and Luke Perry tournament
There should be a Brodie Lee tournament every year. Windham Rotunda also died. Do a tournament for him too. You can do an Owen Hart tournament for tag teams. Jack Perry can announce a tournament to commemorate his father. It can crown an AEW Beverly Hills Champion. MJF can then win that so he has another belt.

More ideas to come soon. Share some of your own!

[xrodmuc316]

Have Shad completely remove Tiny from having anything to do with AEW.

That is it. Fixed

[Mr. Nerfect]

What about bringing in Dr. Shelby as a character? He could give psychological advice to several wrestlers and that could explain monster pushes for them.

[Maluco]

They could literally have had a booking team of William Regal, Arn Anderson, Jake Roberts, Sting, Taz etc…

So many great minds and so much experience that was readily available. Just imagine young guys learning how to work the crowd and structure a match from guys like that? An edict from the top that guys needed to put the hours in and learn and listen to agents about their matches.

As it is, Khan just tries to do it all with no experience and it ends up a massive mess with 90% of the wrestlers forgotten. The “boys” don’t get any better because there is no discipline, so they have the same spotfests every night while the niche that follows the product tell them they are the greatestS

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

once they resign punk, they should make a NEW show for him. Call this one Explosion, and it can be on Sunday afternoons against the NFL.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Maybe they should book Chicago more since it is Punk’s hometown?

[Lock Jaw]

Christian Cage.

[Mr. Nerfect]

They could literally have had a booking team of William Regal, Arn Anderson, Jake Roberts, Sting, Taz etc…

So many great minds and so much experience that was readily available. Just imagine young guys learning how to work the crowd and structure a match from guys like that? An edict from the top that guys needed to put the hours in and learn and listen to agents about their matches.

As it is, Khan just tries to do it all with no experience and it ends up a massive mess with 90% of the wrestlers forgotten. The “boys” don’t get any better because there is no discipline, so they have the same spotfests every night while the niche that follows the product tell them they are the greatestS

That would have been a great booking team in the 90s or 00s or 10s. But we’re in 2023, baby! Would wrestlers today listen to old guys like that?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Christian Cage.

It isn’t working, but maybe he just needs more dads to die?

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Jungle Boy's uncle died. I feel Cage could run with that.

[Sepholio]

Christian as Jungle Jobbers uncle daddy. I can dig it.

[Sepholio]

I can dig it....jesus boys they haven't even finished digging his grave yet and we already have jokes. Absolutely deplorable I tell you what.

[Mr. Nerfect]

We need a death fresh enough that Christian Cage can go to the funeral and hit on the widow for television. So that could work.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Jack Perry should come back with a gimmick that he is trying to unionize wrestling and give everyone Wrestling Superstar Guild membership cards.

[screech]

once they resign punk, they should make a NEW show for him. Call this one Explosion, and it can be on Sunday afternoons against the NFL.

Christian Cage.

This is all they need

[Tom Guycott]

I had a "what if" scenario that popped into my head... but then I recently saw there was some video posted proposing it, and its one of those things that sound dumber when it's actually said aloud.

They posited that CM Punk wasn't really fired; that it was all a work and the dude in the MJF devil mask is him.

As fun as it sounds, it requires one teeny tiny idea to do heavy lifting- that everyone is in on it.

Almost like the "Montreal was a work" point of view, you would need to believe that The Bucks taking a "victory lap", Jungle Boy being a shithead, and TK McTwitterfit losing his mind on social media are all part of some long-term, grandiose plan to build Punk vs MJF III instead of the shit they usually pull. The people they "push" like Wardlow have been stoppy starty, and everyone else is usually just booked in matches with the "wouldn't it be cool if...?" or "hey, you're not doing anything, and he's not doing anything, so why don't you do a bunch of flips?" kind of shows strung together.

People want to suspend disbelief for some semblance of kayfabe, but this ain't it.

[Mr. Nerfect]

People in and around wrestling are so desperate not to be taken in by anything that everything becomes a work. The whole Punk/AEW situation would be a disaster if it were a work. It’s contributed to such a downturn in business and made the promotion look so bad. If Punk were to come back, it would be Boy Who Cried Wolf and erode even more trust between AEW and its audience.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I saw “Tony Khan is pretending to be a drug-addled money mark for publicity” today.

[Tom Guycott]

People in and around wrestling are so desperate not to be taken in by anything that everything becomes a work. The whole Punk/AEW situation would be a disaster if it were a work. It’s contributed to such a downturn in business and made the promotion look so bad. If Punk were to come back, it would be Boy Who Cried Wolf and erode even more trust between AEW and its audience.

Not only this, but people in general like to make shit make sense, even when none of it does.

It's like people who get wrapped up in conspiracy theory. It makes for a better story when [insert disaster here] was the culmination of meticulous, long-term, far-reaching planning from some mastermind figure or organization for some grandiose purpose... instead of several unrelated moving parts of various stumblebums, laziness, finances, ego, and bad math that created such a perfect storm.

Even if what you say about "crying wolf" wasn't true (which it would be), you still have to believe in the fact that "Booker of the Year" would be able to masterfully pull something like THIS off with a ton of folks keeping quiet about it and keeping egos in check... and it somehow be the ONLY angle with a long view he can come up with whilst everyone else is out there injuring folks or hurting feelings on live TV every other week.

[Tom Guycott]

I saw “Tony Khan is pretending to be a drug-addled money mark for publicity” today.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it's a camera drone because birds aren't real!!!

[Mr. Nerfect]

Now that WWE has totally fucked up the LA Knight push, they should have a wrestler come out and pretend to be The Rock. $500 shirts, lots of catchphrases. They can ask people if they’ve had their “shut the hell up shake for breakfast.” Ricky Starks would be an excellent choice.

[Mr. Nerfect]

TPWW is broken.

[Mr. Nerfect]

They need to do my unknown twin angle. If WWE gets to it first, it will put AEW out of business. Find identical twin wrestlers. Tell no one they are twins. Train them from scratch if you have to. They can take it turns wrestling in front of people to get experience. Then, one day, the other twin comes out to confront the “original” wrestler.

[XL]

You must really like that idea.

[Mr. Nerfect]

The person behind the Black Scorpion should be…

Not a person at all. We’re in the age of technology. The Devil is a robot. The first ever robot champion. And because the robot is genderless, it can compete for both World Titles.

You can have people kidnap the robot and reprogram it to suit their purposes. You can even have contracts for who gets the robot for a year. The robot can also take its arms and legs off and use them as weapons when it’s managing.

In an interview with its creator, the creator has a heart attack. Tony Schiavone tries to save his life by the robot wrestler inventor dies. Christian Cage can then feud with the Robot Devil by pointing out his father is dead. Tony Schiavone can get mad at Christian saying things like “You cunt scumbag! I watched a man die in front of my eyes!” Do a memorial tournament for the creator and have the winner get a piece of a new robot character so they can eventually build a rival to the Devil.

[Mr. Nerfect]

And before you say the idea is stupid, if you can’t build a real wrestling robot, just have someone in a robot costume play the robot.

[Mr. Nerfect]

After a vicious and violent match with Jon Moxley, where Mox injures his eye, Orange Cassidy declares the AEW International Championship the AEW International Waters Championship. It becomes their version of the Hardcore Title but it’s got a really funny name because everybody knows international waters means “anything goes.” You can have commentary explain that on commentary every week.

OC’s first challenger is Moxley, who is wearing an eye-patch. It’s a cool throwback to the Moxley/Jericho feud, when AEW was so cool and original. Mox would look like a pirate and because of the International Waters thing, people can chant “Pi-rate!” at him and he can scream “I am not a pirate!” for heat.

This ALSO ties into the current Okada/Danielson program, because it would imply that Okada did not really injure Danielson’s eye — it was “The De-Facer” Orange Cassidy. “De-Facer” becomes his new nickname and it has two meanings. 1) He takes people’s faces and 2) His sheer popularity means that faces turn into heels when they face him.

Okada can then feud with Orange Cassidy over the International Waters Championship because he’s jealous Orange Cassidy is the true culprit behind almost ending Bryan Danielson’s career. OR he’s just mad that Cassidy almost ended his career before Okada could have another match with him.

[Mr. Nerfect]

PAC, Zack Sabre Jr and Will Ospreay form a team called British Empire Gold or the The British Pound Hounds.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Now that he’s a trained wrestler, sign Zac Efron to come in as MJF’s tag team partner at Full Gear. He and MJF become the new ROH World Tag Team Champions. Adam Cole gets jealous and wants MJF’s friendship back. Zac Efron shockingly turns heel and wins the AEW World Championship at Worlds End to promote the film’s release.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Saraya threatens to ruin Toni Storm’s acting career by showing a video she made of her, Toni Storm and Juice Robinson all cumming on the AEW Women’s Title.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Sign the Always Sunny in Philly guys before WWE can work out something with them for Mania. Orange Cassidy & The Trashman vs. Kazuchika Okada & Chuck Taylor for the new International Waters Tag Team Championship.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Werner Hertzog mentioned wrestling on Conan O’Brien’s podcast. Bring him in with Zac Efron and Danny DeVito for some mainstream attention.