Dave Meltzer has expressed concern over an AEW booking trope and how he fears that it could go in the same direction as one of the biggest storylines in WCW history.
Throughout the past few weeks on AEW programming, Jon Moxley and the rest of the Blackpool Combat Club have launched a hostile takeover of the company, which has also included Mox gaining possession of the World Championship after he defeated Bryan Danielson.
Continuing their assaults, The BCC have continued to attack the rest of the roster leaving Orange Cassidy with no choice but to challenge Mox for the World Championship at Full Gear. Despite the fact that The BCC were outnumbered, they still held their own and administered multiple babyface beatdowns, which Meltzer believes could lead to history repeating itself.
“What Happened In WCW Should Be The Warning”: Dave Meltzer
Discussing the opening segment on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer pointed out that The BCC has been at a numbers disadvantage but still dominant, to which Bryan Alvarez likened it to the nWo storyline in WCW. Responding to this, Meltzer pointed out that the nWo was not as successful as people remember considering how long it went on for:
“I hope that they’re very careful, because while the nWo absolutely was a success for a short period of time, relatively short if you look at wrestling history. People kind of romanticize it, but it really was a short period of time, and the long term was an absolute disaster because they didn’t keep the home brand strong, and they didn’t keep babyfaces strong.
That’s the one thing on the show tonight. It was just like Goddamn, every time you turn around, it’s like babyfaces getting their ass kicked. It’s fine at the beginning of every angle, you have to do it at times, but you also have to do it in the other direction.
A top babyface certainly can get an ass beating, especially when it’s at the end of the show when Swerve got beat down by Bobby Lashley and MVP and Shelton Benjamin, exactly what you would do for the first thing. But it’s like at times you’ve got to have these babyfaces doing something because, or else you just have a bunch of babyfaces who are not over.
What happened in WCW should be the warning. Yeah, this did work short term, but make sure we don’t make the mistakes long term. And right now they haven’t done that yet. I’ll just say that.”
First established at Bash at the Beach 1996 with the shock Hulk Hogan heel turn, Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were the original members of the group. The group would remain in various iterations until the year 2000 with more than 70 members being a part of the nWo over the course of its duration in WCW.
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