When AEW was launched in 2019, a ranking system was implemented to determine top contenders for championships, aligning with a sports-based presentation. However, these rankings became controversial due to unequal win values and storyline deviations from title contention.
In September 2022, AEW phased out the ranking system, disconnecting it from championship considerations.
Bryan Alvarez revealed that CM Punk was reportedly the one who persuaded Tony Khan to eliminate the ranking system.
As of now, the ranking system is set to return to All Elite Wrestling, and their impact on the championship landscape remains uncertain.
Former WCW President Eric Bischoff had the following to say about the return of AEW rankings on his podcast:
“It can be effective. It can also see you painting yourself into a corner that you’ll never get out of. That’s probably why it didn’t work out the first time because you’ve got to really do a great job of merging creative and math because those two things generally don’t go together. Usually good creative is kind of void of good math. Good math isn’t very creative, but it can be done.
It’s a big risk because if it’s not going well, if there’s a flaw in your system, your audience is going to see it and they’re going to let you know and they’re going to lose faith so fast. I liked the idea of doing it.
I think it’s one of the things that I was excited about back in 2019 when I heard that this was going to be one of the things, this was going to be the unique selling proposition for those of you who have spent, I don’t know, 45 minutes in a marketing 101 class in junior college. That was the one thing that to me made AEW potentially feel different than WWE, but they abandoned it pretty quickly.
One of the dots that created the pattern that I began to see early on is you make a promise to your audience when you launch a brand, your branding statement, your mission statement, call whatever the f**k you want. ‘We are going to be different because we’re doing this’ then you get everybody to rally behind you, and then you don’t do this. You do the same thing they’re doing. It’s a big dent. It’s a big dent on the side of that brand new shiny AEW car. Big dent. You kicked the door in yourself. Let’s see. It can be done, but it’s really f**king hard. Really hard.
I’m concerned that since there’s been a severe lack of creative horsepower in AEW, inconsistent all over the map, non-existent more often than not in terms of real story. I should say a compelling story, meaning a story that actually matters. The void comes to creative that I’ve seen out of AEW for the last two years doesn’t suggest to me that there’s a lot of hope that they’re going to figure out that formula.”
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