AEW
Who Wants to Be Sports Entertained?
It’s not every day you get to chat with the Sports Entertainer of the Week. When Chris Jericho joined SPIN for a video chat (we’re over using the “Z” word) on a Sunday, he spent the previous week appearing on two of All Elite Wrestling’s weekly shows, Dynamite (where he threw a fireball at a guy’s head) and Rampage (where he gave himself the aforementioned award for doing it), as well as playing shows with his band Fozzy in Louisiana and Texas, with a gig in Austin a few hours away. Jericho’s current gimmick in AEW — he and his stable of toadies, the Jericho Appreciation Society, declare themselves “sports entertainers” rather than pro wrestlers — trolls AEW fans by invoking Jericho’s former employer, WWE, which strenuously avoids the term “wrestling.” It’s the kind of self-aware shtick th...
Inside the Psychology of AEW’s Hard-Hitting Music Licensing
What people don’t tell you about pro wrestling is oftentimes, the worst-kept secrets are the most satisfying. On August 20, 2021, after All Elite Wrestling (AEW) spent weeks strongly teasing and coyly shrugging about the impending arrival of a beloved, long-retired pro wrestling icon, a familiar sound rang through Chicago’s United Center. A tangled guitar riff unfurled, provoking an ovation only heard a few times in the century-long history of the sport. By the time Living Colour’s 1988 hit “Cult of Personality” hit full steam, the response from the crowd was already deafening. When Chicago native CM Punk walked from the tunnel to the arena’s main room, the roar escalated several octaves and sustained itself for a number of minutes. People from all over the world jumped up and down in the ...
