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BEST LOOKING CHAMPIONSHIP BELT, AEW BOOKING, AEW RUNNING MORE STADIUMS? AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2023-05-12 10:00:00

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On a purely aesthetic and design-based level, what are your favorite wrestling championship belts over the years? Conversely, which ones do you think are the worst?

I've always thought the "Big Gold Belt" was the nicest design I've ever seen and having seen it in person, photos don't really do it justice.  I was always partial to the WWF Intercontinental Championship belt from the 1980s as well.  I always think the worst are the ones that are blatantly just revamps of existing title belts.  ECW had Tag Team titles that were obviously just revamps of the IC title in the late 1990s and I was never a fan of those as I felt you don't want to be redundant.

I see AEW's ratings are up a week or so after they hire this Will Washington guy.  Did he really take over creative and is there a cause and effect here?

No cause and effect here, because he's not in charge of creative.  As long as Tony Khan is breathing, AEW Creative will start and end with him.  There will always be others who pitch ideas and bounce off of Khan's ideas with their suggestions but at the end of the day, it's the Tony Khan show.  Washington is working on a lot of things in terms of continuity (i.e. making sure talents are presented consistently week to week, making sure that someone in a pre-tape appears live later in the same outfits, etc.) and we are told was working on updating website roster information this week.  I can assure you, however, he's not in charge of creative and wasn't hired to take over any of Khan's creative duties.  If Khan's not in charge of creative, there probably wouldn't be an AEW in my opinion.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense for TK to just have the usual August PPV be the show at Wembley instead of doing All In one week and then All Out the next?

We don't know whether the August show is a PPV.  It could be a special on TBS/TNT/MAX for all we know at this point.  I haven't heard anything was locked in officially.

Considering how hugely successful the ticket sales have been for All In thus far, do you think this heralds AEW’s introduction to major stadiums for PPVs stateside? Or is it still too soon?

I think far too soon.  AEW sold out Arthur Ashe Stadium the first time out in NYC.  I think if and when they have the right location or timing, perhaps they can do it again but to me, the Wembley Stadium event shows that they should be focusing on major events internationally going forward and giving the U.S. market a bit of a breather.

When independent shows run venues, are they paying to run there or being paid to come to the venues?

I would wager that 99% of the time, they are paying the venues to stage the shows there.  If it's a charity event, that's a different story.

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