Corey Taylor makes his debut for The Chairshot Ushering in a new era with All Elite Wrestling!

IT BEGINS

Unlike people who know don’t follow pro wrestling or that watch it as a casual fan, I am different. Watching wrestling has been my passion since I was young. Then throw in the fact I’m a writer it gives me a very interesting outlook on the industry. I watch not just because I love it but because I study it on a creative level. I fell in love with WWF right from the start. People ask me ‘how?’ or ‘why?’

It started in 1991. I was just two years old. Young, right? Yeah, I told you. My dad was channel surfing when he flipped to WWF, and that was it. From that night forward I was hooked. At thirty years old, still passionate to the point I study the wrestling industry as much as possible. Do I know everything? No, but I do know a lot and throw in my writing background which makes the passion run deeper. The late 80s early 90s was such a magical time. The era of Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan was lighting up the federation in the early ‘90s. This continued until the WWF ushered in a “NEW GENERATION.” Wrestlers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels who were tag team specialists set off on single careers and became leaders of the new era.

Media mogul Ted Turner, the CEO of World Championship Wrestling, had a chat with Eric Bischoff, one of his B-team announcers. “How do we compete against WWF?”

Eric Bischoff said the first thing he could think of, “Go head to head with the WWF every Monday night.” Turner concurred and gave him the prime time Monday night slot. They shook WWF to its core for 83 weeks.

MONDAY NIGHT WARS

WWF was still going the kid-friendly over the top character’s route, and fans started to flee from the product, and the company was financially struggling. WCW, however, was flouring with its more reality-based storylines and was bringing in bigger numbers. Most of the stars of the 80s and early 90s from WWF jumped to WCW. During this period, WWF wrestler Lex Luger appeared on the first episode of Monday Nitro a day after his contract expired. A year or more earlier Hogan and Savage had left WWF since their presence became irrelevant due to WWF’s youth movement but even the young talent they were making stars started to leave, like Kevin Nash (also known as Diesel in WWF) and Scott Hall (known as Razor Ramon) shocked the wrestling world by jumping to WCW.

WCW competed with WWF/E “head to head” and won every week for 83 solid weeks! Wow, you would agree with me that this was a rating beatdown. This challenge outright brought WWF ratings crashing down but, the WCW’s ego started their downfall. How?
WWF pre-taped their Monday night Raw on various weeks and when they did WCW would give away the results. Then on the 83rd week, they made a mistake that’d cost them. Live on air they announced that there would be a new champion on the other show (WWF Raw.) That night, Mick Foley won the WWF Championship, and WCW knew it was happening because it was pre-taped. Tony Schiavone said with disgust “That’ll put butts in the seats.” However, the fans switched over to Raw and WCW’s ratings never recovered. This development further fueled the WCW’s doom. Based on the responses from various sources, a lot of things led to her downfall in 2001, but on a fateful day in 2001 Vince McMahon “bought

WHY THE HISTORY LESSON?

I know what you are wondering. Why bring you on this trip eighteen years back in time down memory lane? Here we are in 2019. WWF; now known as WWE is still standing though on bent legs. They’re still going strong but are struggling with consistently keeping momentum and ratings are down. Even with its long-lasting virtue, it is struggling to keep the fans entertained.

Don’t get it all wrong WWE is still a juggernaut but for how long? Some people blame it on Monday Night Raw being three hours while others say it is because of Vince inconsistency with his fans and all other sorts of assumptions. There seems to be a new dawn for WWE in 2019. They will either flourish or fail. WWE is about to witness the competition it hasn’t seen in 18 years.

It all started four months ago, on the first of September 2018. After months of intense preparation and planning, Cody Rhodes, the son of a legendary pro wrestler, and a pro wrestling mastermind, the late Dusty Rhodes, along with Nick and Matt Jackson, the Young Bucks put on a well-planned event that sold out the Sears Center and put on a stacked successful show. It was AMAZING! An exciting combination of amazing in-ring competition, blasts from the past and an entertaining yet bizarre moment.

Jay Lethal restored his Black Machismo gimmick with Randy Savage’s brother Lanny Poffo by his side, there was this very emotional NWA championship match between Nick Aldis and Cody Rhodes and to cap it all, everyone also enjoyed the challenge between Kenny Omega and Pentagon Jr, with a shocking appearance by Chris Jericho. It was the wrestling event wrestling fans have been waiting years to see. At one point I had to rub my eyes and wonder if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. With Adam Page in the ring after a match, Joey Ryan’s crotch appeared on the screen and began to…well…stiffen, Followed by inflatable phallic druids heading down to the ring and the world saw the “Res-erection” of Joey Ryan. I was standing there both traumatized and entertained. It was unique, to say the least.

ALL IN was such a success, on January 1st they announced on BEING THE ELITE the YouTube channel they were going DOUBLE OR NOTHING. This was followed by a second announcement, the birth of All Elite Wrestling. The Bucks, Adam Page, and Cody Rhodes were starting their own wrestling promotion. As days went on, they announced that top female independent talent, Brit Baker was joining the company and the official disclosure of the financial backers being the Khan family, owners of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Reports say they are investing about one-hundred million dollars into the startup of the company.

Wow! That’s a massive amount of cash.

Announcements on more names attached to the promotion came on the 8th of January, at a press conference hosted by All Elite Wrestling. The first names were called to the stage to start things off.: (So Cal Uncensored); Frankie Kazarian, Christopher Daniels, and Scorpio Sky and signed by All Elite Wrestling. Then the former WWE Cruiserweight champion PAC and Chris Jericho, one of the biggest free agents in the industry appeared at the rally.

According to The Bucks and Rhodes, they testified that they had a goal of putting ten thousand people in a building a few months ago, and they succeeded. In their words, they revealed that they never let their friendship affect them in their profession, and their comradery will be one of the driving forces of what makes AEW successful. I ran through the lists of announced names, Cody Rhodes, Young Bucks, Adam Page, Brit Baker, So Cal Uncensored, PAC, Chris Jericho and am predicting a ton of success of ALL IN but the similarities and the differences between AEW and WCW were clear.

HISTORY REPEATING CORRECTING ITSELF

An obvious similarity is that billionaires funded both WCW and AEW. WCW, however, focused on already established big names from WWE while AEW is concentrating on guys who have made their names for themselves or have yet to make a name for themselves. Even former WWE wrestlers like Pac and Jericho left WWE and have done a great deal to brand themselves separate from their WWE careers. WCW had pizza guys and network execs running the company before and after Eric Bischoff was in power, but AEW has The Bucks and Cody Rhodes leading the charge and looks to be in control of things on a creative level, and that will be a significant catalyst on why AEW can outrun WCW.

Unlike WCW, in AEW, there are no egos, no politicians, no random individual who does not know the trends in the wrestling industry. AEW, however, is anchored by people who are in the wrestling business and financially backed by someone who loves the wrestling business. The trending news does not stop here. There had been rumors that big networks are looking to have AEW on their network and another aspect reminiscent of WCW is the fact that one of the big networks looking to get AEW is none other than the former home of WCW Nitro the TNT network. Could we see a rebirth of the Monday Night Wars? Dare we dream?

The wrestling business is changing, and this could be a wake-up call to WWE to focus and make an impact and keep the momentum going while also giving fans an alternative in AEW. It will be an exciting few years and will be crucial for WWE, AEW and the pro wrestling industry as a whole. It’s an exciting time to be a fan of the product now even more than ever. However, if WWE or AEW needs a writer on their staff that has been following the industry for 27 years and had ten years of writing experience, I am available, reach me.

To get the latest news on All Elite Wrestling, tune in to your favorite pro wrestling news sites. Tune into Twitter and Being the Elite YouTube channel to get the news.

To contact me: [email protected]