Dave Meltzer believes AEW should be looking to younger, non-WWE stars for its roster.
At WrestleDream, Adam Copeland made his AEW debut after spending the vast majority of his career with WWE. The star joined a stacked roster and one that features a number of former WWE stars.
While many of these stars wrestled elsewhere before having a spell with WWE, the likes of Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson, Miro, Malakai Black, and Christian Cage are known for their time with the sports entertainment giant.
Although many of those names have a number of years ahead of them in the ring, there is an increasing feeling online that AEW is now too reliant on aging stars who enjoyed their main success elsewhere.
Wrestlers such as Copeland, Cage, Danielson, Chris Jericho and Sting are a lot closer to the end of their careers than the start, and will all be remembered for their work in other companies, mainly WWE or in Sting’s case WCW. Some online have even suggested this is the start of AEW going down a similar path to TNA/IMPACT Westling years earlier.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer seemingly agreed with this line of thinking, commenting that there are too many “older guys” from “another generation” in AEW.
“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.”
Dave Meltzer Blasts Tribalism Between Fans Of AEW & WWE
During a different episode of the show, Dave Meltzer also took aim at AEW and WWE “tribal weirdos.” The veteran journalist said that certain elements of both fanbases have caused the ‘war’ between the two companies to be overblown.
H/t to TJR Wrestling