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AEW Double or Nothing was a triumph in every sense of the word. While there were some production issues and the first half of the show felt a bit slow, it all came together to produce what should be one of 2019's best wrestling showcases.
This show had it all - insane athleticism, angles getting established among rising stars and showcase veterans alike, surprise appearances, a shock debut that took the wrestling world by storm, and it all happened in front of an audience that Jim Ross described like so:
The only places I can remember hearing a crowd quite like that are some nights during the ‘Attitude Era’ in Chicago and at the Garden in New York. -
H/T Sports Illustrated
Fresh off his match of a lifetime, Dustin Rhodes aptly described the entirety of the situation:
None of this is to say that Double or Nothing was the best show I ever watched, or even the best show this year. As far as pure wrestling goes, NXT TakeOver: New York surpasses it. Double or Nothing isn't manifestly superior to any of NXT's acclaimed series, for example, but something just felt different.
Perhaps it's the dread foreboding of what will happen to those talents we see at TakeOver when they get "called up" to Vince McMahon's playground, but there was just something different about Double or Nothing. There was indeed, as JR noted, an energy level that can't really be described in words. You feel it and know it.
When I watched Double or Nothing, I felt that energy, and I can't easily go back to viewing WWE in the same way I once did. After Double or Nothing wowed me, everything on WWE's main roster seemed so empty by comparison. This week's abysmal Raw only doubled down on that initial impression.
"By comparison" are the key words here. In his 2016 book Pre-Suasion, the renowned social psychologist Robert Cialdini noted that "the brain's operations arise fundamentally and inescapably from raw associations. Just as amino acids can be called the building blocks of life, associations can be called the building blocks of thought."
Throughout the years, WWE has cleverly linked itself to wrestling (even without using the actual word). When most audiences thought of the concept of wrestling, WWE sprang to mind automatically as the execution of that concept. This is the kind of association that Cialdini is talking about.
However, WWE's audience decline has accelerated in recent years, and noting this, AEW spotted an opportunity to step in with their own wrinkle in the "linking is thinking" phenomenon Cialdini lays out in Pre-Suasion. While the staleness and sterility of the WWE main roster product have been noted by even devoted fans, it stands out in even sharper relief compared to the wild, unsaddled, energy that crackled through Double or Nothing. The gap in quality was impossible to ignore, and once you see it, you can't un-notice just how lacking WWE is in comparison.
There's no reason for Vince McMahon to worry about All Elite Wrestling just yet, but if the upstart promotion continues to produce events on the level of Double or Nothing, he'll have no choice but to respond, especially when AEW's weekly TV deal with TNT starts in the fall.
Despite the two companies airing on different nights, viewers only have so much time in the week for wrestling. If AEW keeps producing on this level, and I have to choose in the fall, I know which one I'm choosing. I suspect that once more individuals know about AEW and watch it, they will make the same comparison I did, and will choose the same.
Double or Nothing wasn't a crippling blow to WWE's power, but it was nevertheless a decisive one. It was a huge psychological victory, one which will give fans and wrestlers more room to doubt WWE's hegemony over the wrestling world. Many an empire throughout history went on to fall some time after such psychological blows were struck. Vince better take notice.
Jon Moxley said it best, voicing what so many have felt for so long, word for word:
This is not empty bluster. There's still a long way to go, and it remains to be seen if AEW is ultimately successful, but Double or Nothing truly felt like the start of a paradigm shift.
