Dave Meltzer Suggests AEW Features “Too Many Older Guys”
Does AEW feature “too many older guys from another generation” as Dave Meltzer has suggested?
AEW Dynamite and NXT went head-to-head on the 10th of October as the battle for ratings supremacy returned for one night only. WWE stacked NXT with John Cena, Cody Rhodes, LA Knight, and The Undertaker all making appearances on the show while Dynamite featured the first match of Adam Copeland in the company.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed the AEW and NXT head-to-head once again and it was put to him that AEW perhaps focussed too much on older stars on that show with Bryan Danielson, Adam Copeland, and Christian Cage being the focal point of the final segment on Dynamite:
“It’s weird when I watch AEW because when I watch it the thing that hits me always is there’s too many older guys from another generation on television. But they are always good performers. Christian Cage, I actually think Christian Cage is phenomenal.
“The thing with [Adam Copeland] and Christian is they’re really smart at working professional wrestling matches. They know what they can do, they know what they can’t do, they don’t try to do stuff they can’t do and they really understand making a good match, they’re exceptional at that.
“It’s weird, I’m watching it like these guys are really good but it’s still too much for an average person watching, they’re gonna go like every start-up promotion, it’s like oh the guys that aren’t in WWE anymore, that’s their top guys as opposed to making your own guys and having WWE guys be the adjuncts. Kinda like Sting was when he first came in and still is, in the sense that he doesn’t dominate the show but it’s like you get to see Sting but he’s not main eventing your pay-per-views.
“Well in this one they’ve gone really heavily to whoever the new guy is and now it’s so much [older guys]. I don’t know if it’s a good thing but if you’re going on good performances and good performers, I can’t say it’s not. But so much of wrestling is not who has the best matches or who are the best performers but who are the biggest stars.”
AEW features several stars over the age of 40 on Dynamite
AEW Dynamite featured four stars over the age of forty competing on the show in addition to Christian Cage who was heavily featured as well.
The night ended with Christian Cage’s right hand of destruction Luchasaurus losing to Adam Copeland before all hell broke loose in a wild brawl that featured Bryan Danielson, the Blackpool Combat Club, the Mogul Embassy, Swerve Strickland, and Hangman Adam Page.
In contrast, there was only one star over the age of 40 who wrestled on SmackDown and that was LA Knight who defeated Solo Sikoa in the night’s main event.
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