The Busted Pipe Chronicles Day 21: I'm All In On All Elite Wrestling

I, like many Texans, had their pipes burst and home flooded with water. Here is my story.

Up to this point, I never watched AEW. I kept up with what was going on with the show with Jim Cornette's weekly Wednesday Night War reviews and watched clips like Chris Jericho's botched Lionsault. But I never sat down to watch a full show until now. And I must say, I'm getting some real strong TNA vibes from AEW.

• Like TNA, AEW was started by a former WWE mid carder who felt he should be a main eventer.
• Like TNA, AEW bills itself as the alternative and direct competitor to WWE.
• Like TNA, many of AEW's stars are former WWE wrestlers who were underutilized mid carders or older stars.

That's not meant to be a knock on them, just an observation. By my count on their roster, about 28 talents have spent time in the WWE at some point in their careers. This includes their two newest acquisitions Christian (Cage) and Paul "Big Show Is My Slave Name" Wight.

Another observation I made is AEW doesn't drag along like WWE's current programing does. Those two hours of AEW Dynamite just zipped by while it's a absolute chore to watch Raw, Smackdown, NXT and any of their other shows/PPV. I feel Cornette summarized it best when comparing AEW to WWE. WWE is the professional promotion with properly trained wrestlers but the lack of personality and tight control of what they do and say makes the shows boring to watch. While AEW are full of self trained mudshow outlaws who are free to do whatever they want keeping the show interesting throughout the night.

To make another comparison, it's like the late stages of the Ruthless Aggression Era where WWE got a influx of new talent to complement the established Ruthless Aggression Era stars. ECW was brought back as the third brand and WWE is transitioning to HD where all three of their shows have a uniform set. It's not as good as the peak of the Attitude/Ruthless Aggression Eras but it's still watchable and entertaining unlike today's WWE product.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 22: Where Are The Boobs HBO? in The Busted Pipe Chronicles.