5 Reasons To Be Worried About The Launch of AEW

3. Their lofty ideals are, pun intended, "too sweet"

Give 'em a too sweet

By no means am I condemning a company that is still in its infancy, and it is certainly admirable that this bright new brand in wrestling wants to improve the industry's standards for their respective roster, but some of the rumors about AEW trying to do right by their in-ring workers have gone a bit overboard. The chatter over healthcare being offered to AEW talent has been quickly put to rest as Tony Khan specifically said on the X-Pac podcast that only the wrestlers who doubled as executives would be receiving the benefit. Khan went on to dodge further questions about the issue making it clear that he isn't interested in changing the standard of treating wrestlers as independent contractors who must pay for their own care.

Likewise, the talk of equal pay for men and women also sounded noble on the surface when announced by Brandi Rhodes yet makes zero business sense beyond promising equal base salary. Afterall, most female wrestlers don't draw significant ticket sales so the tone def insinuation that the wrestling business systemically undercuts female performers and therefore equal pay should be instituted makes no sense. Instead of focusing on helping women wrestlers to undergo more intense training and pay more attention to their craft in finer detail so they can execute better matches and character work, AEW would rather virtue signal whilst putting Brandi Rhodes, who has very limited in-ring talent and zero experience writing, booking or training female wrestlers, in charge of the women's division.

Additionally, the company is insisting on the importance of wins and losses which have been said will tie directly into pay, yet this idea seems almost oblivious to the reality that professional wrestling is pre-determined and by tying salary in with wins and losses, wrestler's earnings will be directly linked to politicized booking decisions rather than their ability to put butts in seats. Of course since AEW is brand new they should be given the benefit of the doubt and time to get their policies and plans in order.