Shane Helms Hopes AEW Can Lead Wrestling To Have The Same Excitement As The Monday Night Wars Era
One of WWE's newest producers, Gregory Shane Helms, also known for his "The Hurricane" persona in WWE, was a recent guest on WWE Hall of Famer, Booker T's Heated Conversations podcast. Helms took a moment to focus on the newly formed All Elite Wrestling, explaining that he thinks AEW will bring some positive competition to the field. He hopes that the pro wrestling business begins to garner the same excitement and popularity it did during the Monday Night Wars era.
"[AEW] is gonna be good for the business," Helms said. "Competition is good, there's an excitement in the air, those guys are some of my good friends, with Chris Jericho being a very close friend of mine. I'm excited to see what they do. We need that again, when the business was on fire with that Monday Night Wars. There's a lot of people that thought that would never be duplicated, and it still might not this time, it's still too early to say. But, if we can generate that excitement again – there's a lot of crazy vibes in the air right now it seems to me. "
Helms believes that the only current negative about AEW is that their roster all wrestles a similar style, but he was quick to add that he thinks this will be shortly resolved within the company. Helms noted that the talent will be expected to carry heavy responsibility and won't be able to rely on some sort of buddy system to be successful.
"A lot of the talent that they have right now, they kinda wrestle a similar style," Helms stated. "That's the only negative I see and that's not even really a negative if that style's working for them. For me, the best wrestling companies have always presented a variety of things, a variety of styles. But that's gonna be small, they'll figure that out. They've got the guys there that will figure that out. It's too early to say what any negatives might be, but it's not gonna come from a talent standpoint for sure, because those are guys – they all respect the game and it's not gonna be a buddy system. You're gonna have to be able to carry your load with those guys."
Helms explained that the only thing to compare AEW to right now is WCW, because he believes WCW was the last legitimate company to challenge Vince McMahon. Helms says that better selection of talent, Jericho's experience in WCW and AEW's better financial planning will hopefully grant them a better result than WCW had.
"The only thing to compare them right now to is WCW, because they were the last people to challenge Vince, so that's gonna be a natural comparison," Helms said. "But with WCW, they would just hire anybody back in the day, it didn't matter if your a– was good or not. They were just giving money handouts as a fist, this company right here, they're gonna be a little bit more smarter with their money and I think they'll keep an eye on that. And those young guys, they know that, and two, that's where Chris is gonna come in to play a little bit more than people realize, too. Because he was in WCW, he saw some of those mistakes so he's gonna bring not just name value, and not just what he brings in the ring, but he's gonna bring some business experience that they definitely need."
You can listen to the full interview below. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Heated Conversations with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.