On a recent episode of his “Hall of Fame” podcast, WWE Hall of Fame inductee, Booker T, shared his thoughts on the current slow progress in AEW, provided recommendations for gaining attention, and criticized the promotional strategy employed by AEW for Darby Allin.
Some key points from the podcast include:
Booker T discussed the common misunderstanding that former WWE stars are now in AEW: “I don’t believe this is the case… When I was in TNA, we would visit cities without any promotion. We would be right around the corner and nobody knew. Now, I see tons of promotions for AEW on various networks. You could go on your smartphone and ads might just pop up in one of the apps. AEW promotions aren’t sparse. Their problem lies elsewhere. It isn’t about lack of advertisement.”
He further added, “AEWs’ team is packed with so much talent that they struggle to create narratives. They have an excess of talent, akin to WCW back in the day. Is Tony Khan recruiting all these young talents just to monopolize the market? If so, it’s the wrong approach. Why would you want to dominate the market with talent that hasn’t even established their stardom yet? It’s illogical. They have an excess of wrestlers to groom. Take Darby Allin for instance. Over the past five years of AEW’s existence, he’s had a successful run with Sting. However, I believe Sting benefitted more from this partnership than Darby did. I could be wrong, but I feel that Darby hasn’t been developed into the star he could have been.”
Speaking on the lack of iconic moments in AEW like Booker’s grocery store fight with Steve Austin, he added, “That fight was funny, absurd and entertaining. We knew our roles and we played them perfectly. I only recently watched that fight for the first time, and it brought me to tears realizing why fans love it so much.”