AEW has 6 months to a year worth of stories they’ve booked via group text

One of the main selling points of All Elite Wrestling has been that they’ll tell long-form stories. Long programs, where things that happen one week don’t contradict stuff that happened a week before.

A big concern about All Elite Wrestling is if conflicts will emerge from having people who are also wrestling on their shows as their booking committee.

I’m not sure if this set of quotes from Executive Vice-Presidents and wrestlers Cody Rhodes and Matt & Nick Jackson of The Young Bucks, and wrestler-only Chris Jericho, confirm the hopes or address the fears. Only the product they put out will do that. But they do give us a picture of how AEW creative might function.

Are they really ready to commit to long-term stories? What about if things like injuries, or the Pac situation come up? Or if something gets over more than they thought it would? As Cody told Chris Van Vliet:

“I’d say we have a pretty good bearing on 6 months to a year. Exactly that. Long form storytelling is great in every medium whether it is film or TV or whatever it may be to know and work backwards. We’ve got a good, what would I call it, like a syllabus? There’s a syllabus to what we’re going to do but one thing that Matt Jackson is really good about pointing out is some things just catch fire and one thing that we want to do differently than any other wrestling that’s out there is you can’t deny something when it catches. So if something catches, we’re going to push that, we’re going to promote that. If an individual catches, we’re going to push that, we’re going to promote that. And that all starts at Double Or Nothing.”

Okay, and how do the bookers come up with those ideas? What’s the process? According to what the Jacksons told Sports Illustrated:

Matt: “The creative team is essentially a group chat that goes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some people in the group think a bit more traditionally, while others think super outside the box. We always come to some sort of agreement, somewhere in the middle. It’s a recipe that works. The process has been both challenging and incredibly rewarding.”

Nick: “So far, it’s been pretty good. We all are fantastic at separate things and, when we come together, it all meshes well.”

Interesting, but sounds messy. What about when the folks in the group texts are married to their own ideas? Back in March, Jericho told Busted Open Radio that President & CEO Tony Kahn will listen to his core group of management/stars, but he’s not afraid to make a call:

“As people, we get along really good. I think once we start weekly television, then you’re going to see the different personalities come out because, the one thing about WWE is the buck stopped with Vince.

With us, we all have opinions and we all have a say. The buck stops with Tony, but I think there’s going to be a lot more debating than there is with Vince. When Vince’s mind is made up, it’s made up. But everyone gets along great because we’re all doing this... we all know what we could’ve had or might’ve had on the other side but to do it together and start something completely brand new is really exciting. There might be certain things you like or don’t like but the overall picture, I think everyone is on the same page.”

As we said above, the proof is in the pudding. We’ve heard a lot from the team behind AEW. Starting tomorrow night (May 25) in Las Vegas, we’ll see how they turn the talk into a wrestling show.