Since its inception, AEW has had its core body of devoted fans. They’re the supporters who believed in the company’s vision of posing a meaningful alternative to WWE. They’re fans of the WWE alumni who have been better used under the AEW banner, like Jon Moxley and Christian Cage, as well as fresher talents AEW gave an opportunity to shine like MJF and Hangman Page. They’re fans of faster-paced AEW style embodied in acts like Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks.
However, for all the fans AEW has amassed, the company also has its vocal critics who have only intensified with time, AEW’s higher profile, and particularly a web of controversies that have put the company under siege in recent months. One common talking point from these critics has been that AEW is looking an awful lot like WCW. While there are superficial similarities, these comparisons are mostly wrongheaded.
Why Some Fans Compare AEW With WCW
There are surface level reasons why someone might relate AEW to WCW. Like WCW, AEW is a rival promotion to WWE, and just so happens to air its weekly programming on Turner cable networks. Just as WCW was financially backed by billionaire Ted Turner and his organization, AEW is owned and operated by billionaire Tony Khan. There’s also the narrative line that like WCW relying on WWE-established stars like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Bret Hart, AEW has heavily featured talents like Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and Bryan Danielson.
Additionally, the controversy around CM Punk this summer drew a spotlight to issues with talents having undue influence on the product (as Punk arguably did and may still), besides wrestlers like Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks serving in executive vice president roles. These dynamics harkened back to the narrative of “the inmates running the asylum” in WCW, with figures like Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash wielding different levels of formal or informal stroke during their tenures as on-air talents. WCW was all but synonymous with chaos in its late stages. Between the Punk issues, talents requesting their releases, and the most recent issues pitting Sammy Guevara against Eddie Kingston and Andrade El Idolo, AEW has started to feel the same way to some spectators.
The Management Structure Of WCW Posed Very Different Challenges
One of the fundamental differences between AEW and WCW is the management structure each organization had. Personalities ranging from Bill Watts to Kevin Sullivan to Eric Bischoff to Vince Russo to Kevin Nash dictated the creative direction of WCW at different points. Regardless of each of these men’s talents and limitations, there were always awkward structures around them answering to non-wrestling people within the Turner or Time Warner organizations.
In his first book and his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff discussed his frustrations working with executives who couldn’t even name what night of the week Nitro aired on. Bischoff has gone on to paint a clear picture that, particularly after Time Warner took over, the powers that be were more interested in ridding themselves of the pro wrestling albatross than setting up WCW to thrive.
Like anyone producing a television product, AEW’s Tony Khan has network executives, advertisers, and other business partners to please. The ownership structure and chain of command is much more streamlined, however. It’s possible Khan could run his company into the ground, but if he does, it won’t be because of decisions that were made over his head within the company, which poses a fundamental difference from how WCW was structured.
AEW Had Been Steady In Its Aesthetic
When fans look back on WCW, there are very distinctive different eras they might consider from its twelve-and-a-half year run. In its early days, WCW largely reflected the same talents and style as Jim Crockett Promotions, in particular anchoring itself around Ric Flair and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
From there, Hulk Hogan signed and launched a two year period in which WCW felt like a WWE Golden Era “tribute band”, featuring many of the big names WWE had spotlighted in the 1980s and a cartoonish vibe.
That gave way to WCW’s greatest commercial success when it recentered around a more realistic tone, rooted in the New World Order faction, accented by the Crow version of Sting and the emergence of stars like Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg. The wheels came off in the years to follow as WCW teetered out of control with erratic booking and over-reliance on worked shoot angles.
To be fair, AEW has only existed for a little over three years, so it’s too soon to speak to its long-term style and aesthetic. Just the same, from what we’ve seen so far, the company’s direction has been largely steady with an emphasis on in-ring action, a faster pace, and storytelling that is provocative, while rarely soap opera-esque. This is a style of presentation that bears little resemblance to any stage of WCW, instead feeling a bit more like a hybrid of the original ECW and ROH’s heyday.
In the end, every wrestling promotion has some degree of similarity to others, and over time it’s possible AEW will come to legitimately offer more similarities to WCW. For now, though, there are far more differences than commonalities between the two major promotions, and fans are best served to consider AEW on its own merits.
