WWE Accused of “Shooting Themselves in the Foot” by Pitting Shows Against AEW

The past few months have seen WWE pitting shows head-to-head against AEW and now WWE has been accused of damaging their product with this move.

While speaking on the Stevie Richards Show, Stevie Richards talked about how WWE keeps trying to go up against AEW on purpose. He pointed out the Women’s Evolution show as the biggest example, saying it feels like an afterthought just thrown together to take fans’ attention away from AEW. He thinks WWE is shooting themselves in the foot by doing this.

Richards said WWE won’t lose any money or care much if a few tickets don’t sell because the company is already so big and successful. That’s why he doesn’t get why WWE even bothers.

“This Women’s Evolution show is the biggest afterthought WWE have put out in a very long time, and all because they want to dilute fan interest in AEW. I’m absolutely certain of that. They’re shooting themselves in the foot doing it.

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I mean, they won’t lose any money or lose any sleep over any tickets they didn’t sell because there’s just too much going for them.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand, because when you’re number one — and clearly they’re number one by profit, by ratings, by merchandise sales, I assume — it’s just a juggernaut with TKO and all the sponsorships. Why would WWE try to hurt AEW’s business? The fact is, they’re both operated by multi-billion dollar conglomerates who can afford to run shows for free for probably the next hundred years.”

Richards said this isn’t like the old days where you could really harm a competing wrestling company. Now it just ends up annoying fans. He described WWE as being petty and questioned why they waste time trying to block AEW instead of focusing on all the talent they already have. He used Karrion Kross as an example of someone they could build up to make even more money.

Instead, WWE keeps putting effort into scheduling shows just to get in AEW’s way. By doing that, they’re also messing up their own pay-per-views and hurting their own product.

Richards compared it to mutual assured destruction. He said that even though both companies could easily afford to keep running forever, they’re stuck paying too much attention to each other instead of growing on their own.

“It’s not like the territory days where you could damage someone. It’s just annoying for the fans more than anything else. Isn’t that the point of wrestling though? The word I always attach to WWE, especially, is pettiness. Being petty.

And also, I don’t understand why, when you have so many people on the roster that you could put your energy and time into to draw even more money, you’d waste it trying to undercut someone else. Karrion Kross comes to mind, and a ton of other people that you could really invest in properly and get a big return.

Instead, they’re spending time figuring out ways to book shows and shoehorn events in AEW’s way. But by doing that, they’re also shoehorning their own shows and pay-per-views and damaging their own product in the process. It’s literally mutual assured destruction in a way. Even though, like I said, they could run it for a hundred years for free, we’re all just stuck on this treadmill of lateral movement by paying attention to each other.”

This comes after WWE scheduled Saturday Night’s Main Event on July 12, which is the same day as AEW’s All In: Texas at the Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. However, Tony Khan has made it clear he’s more focused on putting on great AEW shows instead of what WWE does. Regardless, it’s clear WWE won’t stop pitting shows against AEW anytime soon and fans have just accepted this.

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