All Elite Wrestling Needs To Happen To Make WWE Great Again
WWE has not had meaningful competition on US soil since 2001. That’s when the company bought WCW, ended the Monday Night War, and positioned itself as the several times better resourced and better known than any other promotion in the US.
While Impact Wrestling took a stab at competing, it never had the groundswell of support, organization, or resources to really be a threat to WWE. The next closest thing to a competitor WWE has faced has been New Japan and its partnership with Ring of Honor. While NJPW has had hot acts and top stars, they nonetheless haven’t registered in the mainstream US consciousness enough to put WWE into any kind of jeopardy.
Very soon, Cody Rhodes will make an announcement regarding All Elite Wrestling, and most of the speculation points toward the launch of the new wrestling promotion. By no means do The Elite have WWE level resources, but they do have the ethos of Rhodes himself.
He’s one of the few wrestling stars to walk from WWE and legitimately do better professionally for that choice, arising as one of the most celebrated and decorated wrestlers outside of the WWE system, collecting gold wherever he goes.
Moreover, Rhodes teamed up with The Young Bucks to put on All In this past fall, the first non-WWE wrestling show to sell out a major arena since WCW went under.
All Elite Wrestling won’t be in a position to push WWE as WCW did for some time, if ever. However, if they can lure over top talents who feel misused, and build on their momentum among hardcore fans, they can affect WWE’s business by meaningfully driving that hardcore audience toward an alternative, and limiting WWE’s roster.
Some of the best news coming from the Elite isn’t about really threatening WWE so much as potentially giving them a reason to compete. With a monopoly on the mainstream fan base, WWE has little motivation to try new things or experiment with its style. If the Elite can rattle the behemoth, we could conceivably see WWE think outside the box once again in its booking, and realize the potential embedded in its rich talent pool.