AEW is always better live (no. 19)
You got to give the people what they want.
Happy Monday, Folks! Rent’s Due here. Got a short one this week followed by a piece on a weird rabbit hole I fell into recently. Hope your week’s going well. Been driving a lot and man I hate the gas prices at Sunrise. I’d kill for some Wawa coffee, though.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far in my twenties have been to always dress for the job, know how to change your oil, and that pro-wrestling might be the greatest sport to ever experience.
I got into pro-wrestling much later than most people usually fall in love with it: in my junior year of high school. My older cousin was the bigger mark for it, growing up with late-era WCW and Hulk Hogan screaming at dudes with silly ass names that you could only get away with in the business like The Wall, but for some reason I abstained from watching it for a good while. Probably because I didn’t know how cable worked when I was little.
It wasn’t until I was watching Wyatt Family promos and learned about dudes like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk from some dude’s weekly blog on IGN (I used to be on IGN a lot) that I started to finally give it a proper shot. It was a brief affair for the time (pretty much ended after Kofi-Mania died out in a whiff on a Smackdown premiere), but what really hooked me was the larger-than-life characters I would root for week-to-week. I loved the ones who wouldn’t give up and had the power of the people beside them like Bryan, and the wackjobs who were so convinced they had something great to show the world like Cody Rhodes when he was Stardust. They definitely knew how to beat the shit out of themselves and other people in the ring, but as a viewer, it was the energy they brought to their promos that hooked me.
Cut to 2019, some Dark Side of the Ring episodes, and an Eyepatch Wolf video or two about New Japan later, and the growing chatter about a heavily-backed indie company set to make their TNT debut (filled with dudes I enjoyed like Rhodes and Chris Jericho), I decided to give love another chance. What resulted was a wild ride of great television, great friendships with other fans (some who eventually became good wrestlers themselves), and the discovery of some of the best live entertainment money can buy: Some good ol’ wrestling from those crazy folks at AEW.
The pictures that conclude this post are but a sliver of memories I’ve captured from the times I’ve seen the company stop by my neck of the woods over the years. While I may not be as attentive to it as I was during the first couple of years of its existence (preferably when Punk was still there), I always try to go out and see one of their shows when they’re nearby. The stories might be hard to follow, but the passion and charisma that exudes off the performers have never left. When you buy a ticket you know you’re gonna be in for some crazy shit to flip/dive/rana/superkick your way.
You don’t even have to know the names of some of these people to know that, when done right, there’s someone in the ring you absolutely fuck with that you want to beat the shit out of the other someone in the ring you don’t fuck with. That feeling can be felt in a lot of places, especially on your TV, but it’s never the same as when you’re seeing it live and in living colour.
With all that said, I must bid you ADIEU as I leave you with some pics. Catch a wrestling show sometime. Even an AEW or WWE show if you got the time and change. You won’t regret it.
