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This article is a follow-up to our article on WWE misbooking their talent. Creative Freedom, Narrative Excess, and the Limits of Decentralized Control If WWE is routinely accused of mis-booking through excessive control, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) faces a different but equally persistent critique: over-booking. Since its launch in 2019, AEW has marketed itself as an alternative to WWE’s centralized creative authority, promising wrestler autonomy, long-term storytelling, and re

Power, Narrative Control, and the Political Economy of Professional Wrestling Before I start, I want to give a shout-out to CovalentTV, which brought this topic up during one of their shows. Give them a listen on YouTube @Covalent_tv. Few debates in contemporary popular culture are as persistent or as emotionally charged as accusations that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is “mis-booking” its wrestlers. Fans invoke the term to explain stalled careers, abrupt character shi

The chant hits before the first lock-up. “Let’s go, Cody. “Cody sucks!” Two sides of the arena fire back and forth, not over who’s the toughest, but over who tells the better story, who sells the emotion, who connects. A decade or two ago, that same crowd might have roared for blood, violence, and “real men” beating each other senseless. Today, the conversation sounds different: more about feelings, identity, and representation; less about who looks like a heavyweight boxer i

"Hidden gem” As an Analytic Category Calling a wrestler a “hidden gem” usually reads like fan shorthand: the performer looks electric, the crowd responds, and yet the company’s larger narrative economy has not fully converted that electricity into sustained centrality. As an analytical category, though, “hidden gem” helps scholars track a recurring tension in contemporary televised wrestling: promotions recruit transnational talent with distinctive styles and branding, but we

Corporate Legitimacy, Discursive Power, and the Normalization of Creative Failure in the Internet Wrestling Community If All Elite Wrestling occupies a no-win position within online wrestling discourse, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) occupies its inverse. Within the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC), WWE frequently benefits from a discursive framework that explains away, rationalizes, or reframes its creative failures as necessary, inevitable, or ultimately strategic. T

Moral Economies, Participatory Fandom, and the Politics of Critique in Contemporary Professional Wrestling Since its founding in 2019, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) has existed in a state of permanent contradiction within online wrestling discourse. Each creative decision, whether conservative or experimental, nostalgic or innovative, successful or flawed, provokes intense criticism from the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC). AEW is accused of being simultaneously too WWE-like  

Professional wrestling occupies a paradoxical cultural position. It presents itself as sport while operating as performance; it claims authenticity while openly staging outcomes; it invites emotional investment while repeatedly reminding audiences of its artificiality. Since at least the early twentieth century, critics, promoters, and fans have debated whether wrestling should be understood as legitimate competition, theatrical spectacle, or something uniquely hybrid. In rec

Professional wrestling has always existed at the intersection of performance, commerce, and audience belief. For much of the twentieth century, the industry depended on kayfabe, the shared understanding that wrestling’s staged outcomes should remain concealed from the audience. Promoters controlled information tightly, performers protected the illusion publicly, and fans accessed the business primarily through mediated channels such as magazines, television broadcasts, and l

For much of the twentieth century, professional wrestling functioned as a uniquely porous form of popular culture. Wrestlers crossed easily into film, television, music, advertising, and political discourse, while non-fans often encountered wrestling characters even if they never watched a weekly broadcast. Figures such as Hulk Hogan , The Rock , and Stone Cold Steve Austin  became cultural shorthand, instantly recognizable personalities whose appeal exceeded the boundaries o

In the wake of pandemic-era contraction and the post-2010s restructuring of the wrestling economy, independent wrestling in the mid-2020s shows clear signs of renewed momentum though that momentum appears unevenly distributed across regions, promotions, and business models. This article argues that the independent scene has  picked up, and it demonstrates the claim through three measurable indicators: (1) live-event performance (venue scale, sellouts, and ticket distribution)

Few individual performers have exerted as profound an influence on a modern professional wrestling institution as Hiroshi Tanahashi  has on New Japan Pro Wrestling  (NJPW). Emerging during a period of organizational crisis in the early 2000s, Tanahashi did not merely ascend to stardom; he actively reshaped the company’s aesthetic, economic stability, and ideological identity. His career coincided with and in many ways enabled NJPW’s recovery from the so-called “dark age” that

Professional wrestling sells more than athletic outcomes. It sells meaning constructed in advance, performed live, and remembered later through recaps, highlight reels, network documentaries, and nostalgic canon-building. Because wrestling depends on memory as much as on spectacle, the companies that control visibility  (who gets named on-air, whose footage can be used, and which moments get framed as “major history”) also control value. In the contemporary industry, WWE’s ma

Professional wrestling has always depended on two fundamental narrative engines: the ability to tell stories through physical movement and the ability to persuade audiences through emotional performance. Selling arguably the most essential element of in-ring storytelling sits at the crossroads of these two traditions. It is more than acting, more than athleticism, and more than spectacle. It is the medium through which pain, struggle, and risk become legible to the audience.

After AEW's last PPV of 2025, "World's End," questions arose about some moves that seemed unnecessary and very dangerous. Podcasters went on rants about AEW needing to be more proactive in stopping these types of moves. So, I thought, why not write about it? Introduction: Risk, Spectacle, and the Boundaries of Safety Since its launch in 2019, All Elite Wrestling  (AEW) has positioned itself as both an alternative and a corrective to mainstream North American professional wres

Professional wrestling is a hybrid performance genre built on the interplay between physical storytelling and verbal persuasion. While the modern product increasingly emphasizes athleticism and match quality, promos remain essential to wrestling's narrative architecture. They provide stakes, emotional clarity, psychological depth, and cultural resonance. Even as wrestling evolves into a more global, athletic, and visually spectacular form, the spoken word continues to anchor

Professional wrestling has always balanced two creative impulses: the bombastic spectacle of promos and backstage skits, and the quieter but no less powerful art of in-ring storytelling. Modern promotions often lean heavily on spoken segments to establish character motives, rivalries, and emotional stakes. Yet wrestling’s deepest, most emotionally resonant moments frequently unfold not in front of a microphone, but between the ropes. The ring itself is a stage. It can carry n

Do WWE Fans Buy Tickets Only to Sing Along with Entrance Themes? Why Music, Spectacle, and Participatory Culture Now Drive the WWE Experience In recent years, a curious claim has circulated among wrestling observers, podcasters, and even some wrestlers themselves: Do WWE fans buy tickets primarily to sing along with entrance themes rather than to watch the in-ring product?  The idea may sound exaggerated, but anyone who has attended a WWE event since 2020, or even watched one

Few figures command the mythology of professional wrestling quite like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin . For many fans, he represents the pinnacle of late-20th-century wrestling greatness: a beer-swilling antihero who battled his boss, flipped off authority, and defined the Attitude Era’s rebellious energy. Yet Austin’s status as one of the greatest of all time comes with persistent debate. Is he appropriately celebrated, or is he overrated? Does nostalgia inflate his legacy beyond

I was listening to a podcast, and someone brought up the question of today's article. So, I want to give a shoutout to the Wrestle Collective for the topic. When Tony Khan and Bryan Danielson walked onto AEW television in November 2023 and announced the Continental Classic, hardcore fans immediately recognized the blueprint. Round-robin blocks. A points system. A grueling schedule spread across multiple shows. A high-stakes final at a year-end event. AEW wasn’t hiding the ins

Understanding the Psychology of Loss, Booking Myths, and the Emotional Politics of Wrestling Fandom. Professional wrestling fans have always invested deeply in wins and losses. Even in a scripted medium where outcomes are predetermined, narratives are carefully shaped, and character arcs matter more than final scores, fans often react as if every three-count carries the weight of a championship fight. The moment a wrestler "eats a pin," the discourse begins. Social media erup