Wednesday Night War- How WWE is copying AEW?

Wednesday Night War- How WWE is copying AEW? All you need to know from the beginning of the Ruthless Aggression Era (An Exclusive Documentary)

 


The Ruthless aggression

World Wrestling Federation (WWF), Now called World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), is the biggest wrestling company of those times. The major competitors of WWF are Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and Worldwide Championship Wrestling (WCW). They are the only shows which gave WWF a big competition. Monday night Nitro of WCW gave an extreme competition to WWF leading Monday Night Wars.

Gradually, These shows lost their fans due to multiple reasons. By April 2002, WCW and ECW completely fell under the hands of Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon had no idea on how to focus these large numbers of superstars and needed a way to showcase all of them. McMahon then had an idea of Brand Extension and introduced Monday night Raw and Tuesday Night Smackdown. The entire roster was divided into two by this brand expansion.

In the June 2002 episode of Raw, Vince McMahon called out the roster and spoke about his secret to success which is the Ruthless Aggression. He said that he completely destroyed all wrestling promotions in America with his Ruthless Aggression and purchased those unworthy brands (WCW and ECW). He questioned the superstars standing there by asking whether they have enough ruthless aggression and said that the only superstar to have it is Brock Lesnar.

All pay-per-views became exclusive including the stars. Only dual-branded shows were Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series.

Everyone Feared WWE

There was only brand supremacy by Raw and Smackdown which was owned by McMahon. No other promotions from outside competed with WWE. Some outside brands tried to compete with WWE and everyone had succeeded with their failure. Many brands didn't have enough money to compete with WWE. Many brands had unscheduled programming which lost to Monday Night Raw.

Impact Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling, Ring of Honour fell before WWE. Thanks to the creativity and Ruthless Aggression of Mr. McMahon. New promoters feared to step foot in the Wrestling business because of Mr. McMahon. No show has gained ten thousand audiences except WWE. It became a monopoly of Wrestling.

The beginning of NXT

On February 23, 2010, WWE launched a new brand called NXT. This was a program where there are eight rookies mentored by eight Superstars. Seasons were there and each season had a winner. Later NXT became a TV show like Raw and Smackdown after acquiring Florida Championship Wrestling. There are very low viewers for this show as there are no main event superstars and people didn't get the storylines.

During the reality era, Raw became the A brand and Smackdown was called a B brand and NXT was a C brand. Stars like Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns and many more came from NXT and became main event superstars. Even after this, NXT didn't get the attention of viewers. The fight was real and interesting, but, no one gave a crap about NXT.

From 2017, Many people from NXT started to appear on Raw and SmackDown. People were disappointed by seeing the new faces. But, when they saw their talent, they liked it more than other matches. Viewers of NXT gradually increased to understand the storylines of superstars. NXT was aired on Fridays during these times.

This is the turning point of NXT. People watched NXT regularly and at a point, Smackdown lost the audience to NXT. This is just an internal competition and every brand is in the hands of the McMahon family. After almost ten years of hard work, NXT became a view-show.

Now, Raw retained the spot on Monday, smackdown shifted to Friday and NXT changed to Wednesday.


Debut of AEW

Many people said that no other promotions can get a ten thousand live audience. Cody Rhodes, a former WWE star challenged this. He along with his ring of Honour buddies, Matt and Nick Jackson called for a program called All in. This was scheduled to be conducted in September of 2018 and tickets went on sale on May 13. Every ticket was sold within an hour and there were 11263 people attending. It became the first event in North America to gain such an audience after WCW.

After the success of All In, Cody and the young bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) announced plans for starting a new wrestling promotion. They along with Tony Khan introduced World's Best Wrestling(Later changed to All Elite Wrestling) and started the operations on January 1, 2019. They have announced its first event (pay per view) Double or Nothing.

All Elite Wrestling is the only promotion since WCW and ECW to have financial and marketing means to compete with WWE. Superstars like Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, Jack Hagger announced that they will be part of this new promotion. In the Double or Nothing event, former WWE champion Dean Ambrose made a debut with the ring name Jon Moxley and attacked Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega.

Chris Jericho then interviewed Jon Moxley and many truths were revealed. Moxley said that the creativity of WWE is sucking and he liked to join young Tony Khan, who is a bigger fan of Wrestling than Vince McMahon. Jon even criticized the way WWE treats and he changed the mind of many people.

The War begins, How did WWE start to copy AEW?

1: Broadcasting Network

On May 21, 2019, AEW made a deal with WarnerMedia to broadcast a weekly show on TNT, called AEW Dynamite. AEW announced that Dynamite would premiere from Wednesday, October 2 of the same year. It is the first wrestling promotion to be broadcasted by WarnerMedia since TNT broadcasted it's the final episode of WCW's Monday Nitro.

WWE feared the upcoming threat of AEW and In August 2019, they announced that it was moving NXT to USA Network and increasing the program to a live, two-hour broadcast. This is the first move of copying by WWE. Clearly, people understood that WWE made this move to counter AEW.

2. Female referee

Gender equality is seen throughout America. Both men and women are seen in every industry and given equal opportunity. But, in the case of Wrestling referees, no women are shown on television which questioned the equality rights.

AEW, during their first matches, used a female referee named Aubrey Edwards. This is the first time that a female referee is seen before television. Many people praised AEW for taking this initiative. Critics have questioned WWE on this issue. Many people criticized WWE for not using a female referee even after a lot of experience than AEW.

After falling in trouble, WWE introduced Kennadi Brink, A female referee of WWE. Even after this step, critics followed WWE for not using her before and this a measure to protect themselves from AEW. This is the second attempt that caught WWE copying.

3. Main roster on rookie brand

AEW announced that superstars can appear both on AEW Dynamite and AEW Dark. They made main event superstars like Chris Jericho appear on AEW Dark to gain the audience.

This forced WWE to shift its stars from the main roster to NXT. They made the prince Finn Balor appear on NXT. Now they pulled out Charlotte Flair to NXT.

Not only this, but WWE also made the "We Are NXT" tag trending by making NXT superstars takedown Raw and SmackDown superstars at survivor series. This is the first time NXT entered the Survivor Series and almost every NXT superstar defeated the main event superstars and gained an audience continuously for two weeks. But very few people know that this is copied.

4. Camera Angle

We all know that this ongoing COVID pandemic led to the wrestling industry downfall. But even after this big trouble, everyone bounced back. WWE made their first smackdown without the audience and continued it with Raw. But, WWE used their traditional camera angle and focused on the arena.

On Wednesday, AEW Dynamite began the show without the audience and they used their traditional style and focused the superstars without targeting the arena and viewers' seats. This angle is also used by Ring of Honour.

WWE later copied this camera angle and a fan asked Tony Khan about this. Tony replied that this is the best camera angle and he too watched that WWE copied it.

5.Imitating Matt Hardy in every possible way

Matt Hardy joined AEW and still didn't compete in a single match and is acting as a hype man. Matt became a very popular AEW and attracted the home audience. This led WWE to be cautious. When Matt was shown on AEW, The show gained a large number of viewers in a short span of time.

To counter the Broken Matt Hardy, WWE introduced a long time no see, Jeff Hardy. He didn't appear for a long time and WWE used him when Matt was shown. The unfit Jeff Hardy gained an easy victory over King Corbin and on the following Smackdown, they showed the chronicle of Jeff Hardy.

At Wrestlemania, Undertaker faced the phenomenal AJ Styles and gained an American badass victory. Critics focused that this match was copied from Matt and Wyatt's lake of reincarnation match and there was no difference. Matt Hardy didn't criticize WWE for it and praised the efforts of giving the cinematic effects and said that everyone liked it.

Matt Hardy showed some magic to us by moving fast in the stadium and the same was copied by Bray Wyatt on Smackdown before Wrestlemania.

6: TNT CHAMPIONSHIP VS NXT CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP

We all know that a new championship is going to be released in AEW. It's the inaugural TNT championship. Finals round will be conducted at 2nd AEW Double or Nothing pay per view. If the launch of the TNT championship became a success then no one could stop AEW.

WWE understood the situations and quickly reacted without thinking twice. They've relaunched the NXT cruiserweight championship. Previously it was launched and gained less audience. People didn't like this division.

Even this time, the story is the same. This is an unsuccessful attempt at WWE to counter AEW. The tournament also resembles the format of the TNT championship. Maybe this is the tenth attempt in which WWE tried to copy AEW and why WWE is copying AEW?

Why is WWE copying AEW?

The main reason for this grown-up tension is that AEW is the first company after two decades to compete financially with WWE since the closure of WCW and ECW completely. Now Vince McMahon became too old to look out the management and is fearing of AEW taking down WWE. Vince McMahon lost that Ruthless Aggression and he is unable to see it in current management ( Triple H, Stephanie McMahon and Shane McMahon). The only aim of Vince McMahon is to gain the control of AEW before the things going out of the hands. So, WWE, Who usually be innovative, is imitating AEW.
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