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This question brought up a lot of points so I will answer them in order.
I don't quite understand the recent backlash regarding Kenny Omega's comments about WWE/NXT!
Here are the main problems with what he said:
1) He is an officer in the company, one of the many AEW Executive Vice Presidents. While he is a wrestler as well, anything he says outside of the context of TV can be taken to be a company position, not a wrestler position. If Triple H, who is an officer in WWE, would have said that all of AEW’s talent were curtain jerkers, it would have gotten the same reaction. In fact, given the touchy nature of some AEW fans I have encountered, it would have gotten a more hostile reaction that Omega has received.
2) What he said was blatantly untrue. He knows that there are talents in NXT that are AT LEAST as good as he is, so it was a dumb statement and not even true.
3) It brought a lot of negative publicity on AEW from fans that were thinking of giving them a chance and now have reconsidered. AEW is a start up and needs to appeal to new fans, not turn them off. The Jacksons understand that and it comes across in what they say. Omega and Cody? They could learn from The Young Bucks about how to do public relations.
I think his comments place AEW as the opposition to those entities, which I think is a good thing. I find it quite similar to the comments ECW made against "the big 2" in the 90's. ECW was anti-establishment and appealed to fans like myself that bought into the whole idea of being a different type of wrestling company that literally did not like or care about those products.
ECW never said everyone in WCW and the WWF were dark match guys that couldn’t wrestle for us. They weren’t stupid. They took an “Us against them” stance and asked fans to join the Revolution, to see something different. They used confidence. Kenny Omega used arrogance. In essence, ECW said “We’re better”. Kenny said “They suck”. That is the major difference.
ECW mocked WCW and WWE(F), it's "characters," it's wrestling, it's bookers, the "powers that be" and so forth stood for... literally everything about those products! Why all of a sudden is it bad for AEW to do the same? EVERY company should feel they are the best. Shouldn't they?
See above. ECW said they were the best. They didn’t say that all of the wrestlers for the other companies sucked like Omega did. Also, you forget that ECW had YEARS of goodwill behind them. AEW has run four shows and hasn’t even run a TV show yet. Frankly, they haven’t earned the right to even do what ECW did yet in my opinion. ECW didn’t start the Revolution until well after they had a lot of shows under their belt. They didn’t come out attacking when they first started. They built and grew their product first.
As much heat as AEW has been getting from comments made by HHH, Shawn Michaels, etc... including fans of WWE that obviously won't even give AEW a chance.
That is why what Omega has done is so stupid. If you are an NXT fan, like I am, and you hear Omega say what he said, it will rub you the wrong way. That is what Omega and some ECW fans, like you I am guessing, are missing. Clearly you are already an AEW fan, so you don’t mind what they say. To people that are NXT fans and don’t know anything about AEW, Omega sounds like a tool and turns at least some people off.
I liked ECW's whole "little engine that could" approach and I appreciate AEW doing the same. I think the whole "war" was started when DX was inducted into WWE's Hall of Fame. It's all reminiscent to ECW being referred to as a "bingo hall promotion, in my opinion. I think the lines have been drawn and actually look forward to and anticipate them going head to head with "the establishment." Fans like myself self are excited about wrestling in a bigger way for the first time in almost 20 years. Maybe the backlash is a good thing.
You would think that because you are anti-WWE and pro-AEW. A neutral fan may say that it all started when Tony Khan made the statements he made about changing the world and coming after WWE. A neutral fan could also point out that the first real shot was fired by AEW when Khan poached Chris Jericho, someone who had said he would never wrestle for anyone in America other than Vince McMahon, and someone McMahon was really close to.
I ask PWInsider this question, because you were BIG SUPPORTERS of ECW back in those days and seemed to appreciate their approach. Please explain why this is such a bad thing from your perspective.
I did above. To repeat ECW talked about WHY THEY WERE GOOD. AEW should try that.
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