Personally, I absolutely love the product.

AEW's promos are fantastic, it's TV-14, they tell fantastic stories, their long-term booking is slicker than shit, their characters are three-dimensional, they're not afraid to try something new and if something doesn't work, they know when to pull the plug instead of forcing down the fans' throats. (With the exception of Cody, but I'm convinced that is a work, personally.)

Plus, they have a little of everything, from high-flying, high energy matches, to slow and deliberate old school wrasslin', to incredibly violent hardcore matches to flippy shit. It's fucking awesome. I may not always be in the mood for one or the other, but the energy of the crowd and the caliber of the wrestlers make it easy to get in that mood and get invested.

Is AEW perfect? Absolutely not. They're learning and growing though, and what they have lacked in polish they've more than made up for with heart. They're getting better at hiding what needs to stay hidden.

While any company is going to find their own way as things go, the fact that AEW can compete on WWE'S level of production at just 2 years old is insane. People point out WCW was similar, but fail to remember they'd existed as Jim Crockett Promotions for decades before Turner purchased it.

Also, AEW figured out who needs to be on Dynamite/Rampage and who needs to be on Dark relatively quickly, and that's only helping them to continue cranking up the quality each and every week.

The main thing I want folks to understand is I do not hate WWE, not at all. But as a child of the ECW/WWF attitude/ruthless aggression era, the product they're trying to sell me today is not appealing whatsoever. When me and thousands of other fans tried to tell them we did not enjoy the PG product, that we loved what was going on in HHH's NXT, we were ignored, and I don't blame them, really, it wasn't like they had any real competition out there to worry about. Now, we have that alternative and goddamn it, it's awesome.

Godspeed, WWE. I hope ya thrive over there and thanks for the memories, but I'm a fan of professional wrestling, not sports entertainment. I'm tuning in to AEW.