What I’m most excited for from All Elite Wrestling

As has been documented numerous times on this site and elsewhere, All Elite Wrestling is at this point just a list of names and promises. We won’t begin to find out what those names can do as a roster, and how those promises will operate in the real world of the wrestling business, until at least May 25 and the Double or Nothing show at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

But there’s one feature Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks are touting for the promotion they’re starting with Tony Khan that I am really excited about. And it’s one I’m confident they can pull off. They’ve been doing it on Being The Elite for a while. Even with influence and input coming from New Japan & Ring of Honor, they succeeded in paying off long-term angles at ALL IN last year.

So I’m giving the vow to tell long-term stories more credence than I am talk of “equal pay”, or a “wins and losses will matter” hype.

Matt & Nick Jackson’s comments on that to CBS’ Chuck Carroll only add to my excitement. In response to a question about how they plan to get people outside their hardcore wrestling fan base to check out the AEW product:

“Nick: I feel like one thing we will focus on more than anyone is not to insult the audience’s intelligence, and we want to do long-term storytelling, which is very rare these days. And Matt likes to say it like this, a lot of people are into binge-watching Netflix series, and they like the storytelling element. So, why can’t we put that into the wrestling world and make it work? So, we’re going to look into things like that.

Matt: ...you’ll hear wrestling fans [complain about storylines]. Sometimes there’s plot holes… I want to do bits on the show that carry over week, to week, to week, and I want to pay off every single thing. I want to tie up every loose end. I want to really pay off the viewer. I want them to watch and then to feel rewarded by the end of the storyline.”

There’s a ton more in Carroll’s interview with the Bucks, including the offers they received from ROH and WWE, where things stand with television & Kenny Omega signing, and more. It’s definitely worth your time - check it out here.

While you do that, I’ll be getting too excited thinking about what a team that logically built Cody as a heel for the feud with Omega in NJPW then logically turned him back within months so he could promote ALL IN (not to mention things like the Flip Gordon saga, Stephen Amell vs. Christopher Daniels, Hangman Page’s murder of Joey Ryan and others) will do with a whole company to play around with.