It’s AEW Dynamite tonight and I should be talking about something leading to the show but something has been on my mind recently. Regular discussion of AEW content resumes tomorrow.
Jesse Collings for Voices of Wrestling wrote an article about the nine types of people who ruin all AEW discussions. The idea being that these fans will eventually pull down any discussion about the product. It’s an observation focusing on how there’s people who don’t like the company that will bring it down, and people that do like the company that will bring it down.
It’s essentially a deep dive into the way people approach fandoms, and it’s something that has been done to death in other fandoms. I bet anyone who has got into a discussion about Star Wars can break down for you the different types of “fanboys” that the movie franchise has spawned. Anyone who has taken part in sports discussion will tell you about an armchair quarterback, armchair coach, armchair GM, etc.
I’m not really against the observations, and the one I liked the best was about “Fanboys” and making it specific about people whose emotional attachment to the product is entirely dependent on whether or not their favourite person is on top or well booked. This is actually something the podcast Tunnel Talk discussed really well as someone’s “Special Little Guy” and how easy it is to identify when someone talks about All Elite Wrestling on whether or not they are happy based on who you know their favourite wrestler is.
I guess my issue is something I’ve heard come up a lot online and that’s people feeling like discussing AEW is, in Collings words, “often feels like getting a root canal.”
There’s definitely an exhaustion expressed in the AEW scene when discussing the company because people feel like they are always fighting back against narratives and bad faith arguments. Not a day goes by where I don’t see someone annoyed about Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer mentioning the company isn’t as hot as they once were. There’s always a complaint about the popular podcasts on pro wrestling, whether it’s Jim Cornette or Busted Open Radio, not giving AEW a fair discussion. I often hear people complain about “The popular accounts” on Twitter always going after AEW, or how YouTube channels like WrestleTalk always try to slant negative AEW discussion because it gets more hits than positive AEW discussion.
There’s a lot of truth to it, and it’s absolutely an issue. I think Garrett and Liam of You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me did a really great breakdown of TNA in 2006 and how things on the show were pretty good but the discussion of TNA at the time was so negative it eventually led TNA President Dixie Carter to bring in Vince Russo who ruined those good shows and poisoned the well for TNA for years to come.
You might wonder why I had an issue with this is if I am identifying it’s a problem. For me it comes from how much AEW fans have allowed feeling like they have to fight against all of the negativity and discourse to shape how they approach the company they enjoy watching.
To expand on this, I don’t think the people who say wrong things about AEW should just be given a free pass. Disagree with something? Whatever. But false information or lies? Absolutely fight that stuff. But I also think people try to fight so much of it and it becomes all they talk about with All Elite Wrestling.
Negative fans, unhappy fans, people who hate the product, critics, detractors, etc. will always exist. You’re never getting rid of them. Some might change their tone a bit but they are going to be there forever. There’s also a lot that obviously are trying to get a rise and waste your time. They know you’re going to quote retweet them and add a couple pennies to their Twitter Verified Bluecheck status. Your rage essentially pays for their account.
What I think too many AEW fans do is obsess over the way others talk about AEW to the point where they themselves forget to talk about AEW as a pro wrestling company that entertains them. If talking about AEW feels like a root canal it’s probably because you turned talking about AEW into a necessary surgical procedure instead of something you enjoy. Collings might be doing this for work so that’s one thing. If you’re just on Twitter talking graps? You shouldn’t feel that way.
If you want to find something to be annoyed about on the internet it has never been hard. Social media platforms have essentially taken the hundreds of message boards we used to have and combined them all into one big one where you can see everything. We knew this when signing up. You’re going to see everything everywhere.
It’s up to you to curate your own viewing experience.
As someone writing about AEW every single day on GrapPro.com there’s an incentive for me to have people discuss AEW in ways that are more than just complaining about media coverage or whining about the discourse. I want people to engage in the AEW product because doing so means you’re going to read someone discussing AEW every day. That’s GrapPro.
So while it’s an incentive for me to say it? It’s also just something I think is good advice. You should be aware of how much you spend fighting this stuff instead of just enjoying the show. That doesn’t mean you have to live in a little bubble and ignore the bad talk, but it does mean you shouldn’t make it the only thing that fuels your AEW fandom. If most of your time is spent fighting for AEW how are you ever going to be able to enjoy the show you watch? You won’t. That’s what makes you miserable. That’s what makes this feel like a root canal.
Let me be clear: I’ve seen it. The moment Dynamite ends tonight at 10PM EST you’re going to see people hunting down anyone who has a negative or “bad take” about the show and will complain about how this is the discourse, this makes talking AEW suck, this is how they hijack the narrative. That’s the first thing on many people’s minds: How will people find a way to spin this episode of Dynamite I watched into being bad? It’s not how good the show was. It’s how will people react to it that’s going to bring me down. Ever thought of what the wrestlers in AEW think? They don’t see a bunch of people engaging about the show. They just see them complaining about complainers.
All I’m asking for is balance. Recognizing how much of your negative feelings on the discourse of All Elite Wrestling has more to do with you than you might think.
I’ll give a personal anecdote. I met up with some friends a month or two ago and two of my friends started talking about All Elite Wrestling. Most of the opinions were negative. I could have got in an argument with them and just ruined the whole dinner, but instead I just let them talk. Nothing they said was really going to ruin my experience.
Then one of them admitted at some point he hadn’t actually watched an episode of AEW since the Dinner Debonair and everything he knew was basically from what people told him and what he heard on podcasts. This guy actually attended an AEW Collision taping this year, but he admitted he doesn’t watch the show at all. If I had argued, I would have been arguing with someone getting their entire perspective from a podcast they listen to while doing the dishes instead of someone who actually engages on the product.
And you could say, hey, this is the problem! These podcasts, they poison one’s perspective of the show! But the guy literally stopped watching because Chris Jericho and MJF did a dance and song number to entertain themselves during the pandemic in 2020. If that’s all it took? There wasn’t much I was ever going to be able to say to change his mind in 2024. You’re literally a Toronto Blue Jays fan trying to convince a Detroit Tigers fan to cheer for the Blue Jays. What’s the point?
We all left that dinner with the same opinions we came in with, and that’s fine. My other friend and I drove away chuckling about the warped views on the product we watched and that’s all there was to it. Still love all those guys and will hang out with them again. I’m just not gonna get in a dumb argument over what we like.
So that’s all I’m asking from people. Some balance. You don’t have to die on every hill because you love All Elite Wrestling. You don’t have to fight everyone. This is honestly in your control. I’m writing content on AEW every single day. I don’t do it in battle mode. I used to. I don’t now. It’s honestly why I can write about AEW every day. I still enjoy talking about it.
I’m reminded of a quote from Jake Gyllenhaal about why people love the film Zodiac:
You are in control of how much time you spend on this. You can decide your own happiness here. Nobody is resolving this for you except you.
Deal with your own shit.
Photo by me at AEW Collision in London, Ontario, Canada 3/30/24
