Kristopowitz’s AEW All Access Series Premiere Review

AEW All Access Review

Image Credit: AEW

AEW: All Access is the latest attempt by Tony Khan’s All Elite Wrestling company to get in on the “reality TV show” game. Khan and company already tried this concept once with the Cody and Brandi Rhodes focused Rhodes to the Top, which was such a goddamn disaster that it was cancelled after one painful season. Clearly learning absolutely jack shit from that debacle, Khan and AEW have decided to try it again, this time spreading the focus around to multiple AEW performers like the Young Bucks, Tay Melo, Britt Baker, and Adam Cole, among many others (that’s basically who we see in the first episode, which aired this past Wednesday night after the latest episode of AEW Dynamite). The change in focus doesn’t make the concept any better. In fact, All Access may actually be worse than Rhodes to the Top. I didn’t think that was possible, but yet here we are.

Who is the audience for this show? Is it the audience that AEW already has? Is it supposed to appeal to people who don’t like AEW or pro wrestling but enjoy the reality TV show genre? I’m not sure why either potential audience set would bother with it. I mean, yes, the show starts off with AEW engaging in the kind of self-important garbage that makes non-brainwashed pro wrestling fans cringe but if you’re not already in the cult there’s nothing of value to see throughout the show’s one hour runtime (the creation of AEW was a revolution of sorts back when it first started because it finally gave the WWE some real competition, but it sure as hell hasn’t put much of a dent in the continued domination of the pro wrestling world by the WWE. And come on, AEW is in its fourth year of existence, isn’t it time to just get on with the show instead of jerking yourself off over how “revolutionary” you think you still are?). The “story of AEW’s creation” also flagrantly ignores the contribution of Cody Rhodes, which is just absurd. Yes, I get why the show isn’t going to mention Cody since he’s in the WWE at the moment and headlining the biggest pro wrestling show of the year, but who are they fooling? As for the non-wrestling fan, they will have absolutely no clue what the hell is going on at any moment as nothing is explained, nor will they understand any of the “inside” talk from the performers. So, again, who is this show for? Who is the audience?

And then there’s the absolutely poor staging of just about everything that we see on screen. It’s no secret that “reality TV” is, by and large, fake and staged and complete bullshit, but All Access is so badly put together it actually makes the horrendous backstage dialogue segments in the WWE look like police body cam footage. There isn’t one genuine moment shown (the closest thing to a “genuine moment” we get is when Britt Baker tells Adam Cole that she wants to go to McDonalds and that happens at the end of the episode). The wrestlers are just talking about whatever bullshit the director wants them to. It’s actually faker than the pro wrestling that they all do. That “Britt Baker talks with her fellow female wrestlers” segment, where they all trash Thunder Rosa, was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen on a reality TV show. Very little is explained and it comes off as some sort of companywide attack against Thunder Rosa.

There’s also that bit where Baker, while talking about her boyfriend Adam Cole, uses his real name on camera and it ends up coming off like “Austin Jenkins” is just some name the show came up with to make the discussion “more real than ever.” It’s absurd and it makes you wonder why any of these performers bother creating a public persona if it can just be poorly jettisoned the second the company decides to expose everything for no real reason. And if we’re going to do all of this “real” shit, why have Luchasaurus walk around with his mask on or Danhausen walk around and act like Danhausen? It’s just all so stupid.

And what’s the deal with Tony Khan, lurking around in the background, listening in on the stuff everyone is talking about? Why is that happening? Is it supposed to make me like Tony Khan more? Khan is already a bad and awkward television presence whenever he shows up to make a special announcement on Dynamite, watching him move around in the shadows here makes me never want to see him in any context ever again.

And why have the Young Bucks on the show and refuse to explain why they were suspended? I know that it’s been reported that there were topics that they didn’t want to discuss and, presumably, because they’re Executive Vice-Presidents they don’t have to talk about stuff they don’t want to talk about, but, really, if that’s how they want to play things all of that should preclude them from being a focal point of the show. There’s no point in talking about something potentially interesting and then not talking about it. It’s just mind-bogglingly dumb.

And oh my God why are they showing MJF at all during this? Why are they trying to demystify one of the few performers the company has that the audience can believe in and despise?

The only “good” part of the episode was the bit where Tay Melo explained how she got into pro wrestling. Why didn’t the show do more of this kind of thing? The show tries to make a big deal out of Britt Baker being a real life dentist. Well, why not show Baker in action as a dentist for like ten minutes? That is infinitely more interesting than the obviously contrived “conversations” she’s having backstage with her fellow wrestlers.

Remember when Jim Ross, currently an announcer for AEW, during the “Brawl for All” episode of Dark Side of the Ring asked “Who was Brawl for All supposed to get over?” The same question needs to be asked for All Access. It isn’t clear who this show is supposed to benefit. I doubt AEW the company will in any way. The show is a complete disaster on practically every level. Do we really need any more “backstage revealed” TV shows or movies about pro wrestling? We already have Beyond the Mat, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows, and Dark Side of the Ring. AEW isn’t going to do anything as good or as compelling as any of those things so it should just stop before it gets in too deep. The wrestlers certainly don’t benefit from appearing on the show. The show doesn’t make them more relatable or interesting in any way. The show makes them act on TV just in a different context. It’s all fake garbage.

AEW: All Access is terrible and should be avoided at all costs. Tony Khan and company should stick to producing a pro wrestling show and figure out how to do that consistently well (or at least well enough) before trying to do anything else.

How many episodes are left of this trash? Five? Six? More than that? Jesus Christ, why do Tony Khan and TBS want to inflict more of this on the world? Please stop. Please.

2.0

The final score: review Very Bad

The 411

AEW: All Access is the latest attempt by Tony Khan and his All Elite Wrestling outfit to get into the reality TV show game and it’s a complete disaster from start to finish. It’s poorly staged and never once feels genuine for one second. Who is this show for? Who is it meant to appeal to? And who the hell is it supposed to get over? All Access should be cancelled and forgotten and AEW, as well as all other pro wrestling groups, big and small, should focus on producing compelling actual pro wrestling programming. The backstage “real world” of pro wrestling has already been documented by better content creators both in movies and television. AEW should give this backstage garbage a rest and figure out how to make a consistently good (or, hell, half-good most of the time) pro wrestling show.