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Opinion

Pro-Wres Lab: The Agency System, Part 1 (feat. AEW)

Cody Rhodes after winning the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship at the original All In
Cody Rhodes as NWA World Heavyweight Champion

Let’s try and rethink wrestling. It’s an ambitious proposition, I get it, but I’ll have fun with it and maybe you will, too. What I’m going to do is propose a new style of wrestling booking: the Agency System. If I had to boil down the goal of the Agency System to one word, it would be realism. If I had a few more, I’d say this: we’re going to rely on naturalistic stories for wrestling rather than on artificial stories.

American pro wrestling is for children. When I say this, I don’t say it disparagingly as-such. That is, I’m not saying “American pro wrestling is for children and therefore bad, because children only like bad things”. What I’m saying is compare the beats of The Sopranos to the beats of Power Rangers (look, I’m not watching TV these days, work with me) and see what pro wrestling hews closer to1. Not just WWE. All of American TV pro wrestling is like this. It is loud, it is in your face, it is frantic. It’s almost desperate not to lose your attention.

We can examine the reasons for this, and I think there are pretty clear ones, but that’s for a different article. I bring it up – again, not to disparage things being for children – but to say that this isn’t the only way to get interest. Stories can be told in a way that is not for children and still be compelling, engaging, and draw a high level of interest. We don’t have to assume that the only way to do wrestling is to provide only for the lowest common denominator.

On the flipside, this is also not to say that wrestling needs to be made more highbrow. I think there’s a different axis we should be thinking along here. In my estimation, for at least the past forty years, American pro wrestling has taken most of its cues from cinema and television; to a lesser extent from other avenues which are pretty much in the same realm as movies, such as radio entertainment, comic books, pulp novels, etc. I think it’s time for wrestling to take its cues from sports.

I’m not a sports man, let me make that clear. I am an unsuccessful science fiction novelist. I have an interest in martial arts but I’ve never followed any closely, and I have very little interest in organized team sports. I went to school for creative writing. I didn’t play sports in any level of school. I am a white belt in kids’ karate (from when I was a kid, obviously), a white belt in BJJ (near blue, but I stopped), and I trained for nine months in pro wrestling. I do not fit the profile of a jock, much less a “dumb jock wrestler”.

I say all of that to say that I believe that American pro wrestling has made a mistake. Wrestling is best when it works on the basis of sports, not on theater. Even though you might think I would be drawn to wrestling for its capital-S Storytelling given my background, I think this type of Storytelling actually detracts from what pro wrestling is best at.

Having said that, I’m not actually going to do a deep analysis of why I think that right now. I think it’s important that you know this about me to get at why I’m going through the effort of writing all this out, and why I’m going about things in this way, but this article isn’t about analyzing the failures of American pro wrestling. This is essentially a pitch about how a different type of booking might work.

Here’s an ambitious notion, but: for anyone looking at this article for ideas, what I’m going to sketch out is specifically for a big budget company. I’m going to be using All Elite Wrestling as my basis for this (with some tweaks, as we’ll get to). If you go through this and think “I’ll just do something exactly like this for my local indy”, I don’t think you’ll succeed. There’s ways that this can be adapted but that’s not what this article is about. This is a concept proposal, nothing more.

The booking system (for lack of a better word) that I’m going to introduce here is called the “Agency System”. This is contrasted with the “Feud-Roster System” which is what I call the current trend of American booking. Basically, the Feud-Roster System means that the driving interest of matches is expected to be interpersonal feuds (which are more heated than just being rivalries). This naturally creates an incentive to make feuds hotter and hotter, which means more and more outlandish means have to be used; again, we’re not going to get into how to get heat here, but if you’re into wrestling you know what I mean. The other part of this system is the Roster, which basically means that wrestling is organized so that it’s expected that wrestlers will only be competing against others on the same roster. Effectively, each fed is supposed to be its own universe. That means that not only are feuds naturally incentivized to get hotter and hotter, everyone is always competing with everyone else’s feuds for attention. Obviously, systems like this don’t drive themselves, but this should help at least draw the line from the way feuds are prioritized to the kind of chaos (constant backstage attacks, blatant cheating, ever more creative “scandals”) that makes American wrestling (and wrestlers) seem so childish.

The Agency System is based in large part on the American stereotype of Japanese wrestling from the 1970s to the 1990s: straight-laced and sports-focused. It is based much more, however, on the world of boxing. Now again: I am not a sports man. I’m not close to the turmoil of promotions and sanctioning bodies etc. etc. etc. that appear to give boxing fans so many headaches. However, the world of boxing did give me a starting place, and the influence should be pretty apparent. It is also based to a large extent on stories of early wrestling booking which was heavily based on a champion placing obstacles in front of determined would-be challengers.

Before I fully dive into the pitch, I have to talk about The Gamble. There is one leap of faith that you have to make in order for this to work: you have to believe that there is a sizeable audience out there for exciting pro wrestling matches. To put it another way: you have to believe that WWE isn’t right, that you don’t need to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to drum up interest for wrestling.

Why is this “The Gamble”? On one hand, fight sports have always been built on the back of exciting fights. That’s what got UFC going, that’s what got ROH and the American indy scene going (and regardless of what you may think of it, that scene did enable people to make a living wrestling when they would not have been able to before). It does draw. On the other hand, it seems like every year, more “American-style booking” gets into Japanese promotions. Some are starting to see success with it. For all of its talk of being about in-ring and being “for the sickos”, AEW has never gotten too far away from the Feud-Roster System of booking.

We have to consider that maybe they are right, and maybe you do need to bring in all the bells and whistles for this to even work. We have to think about it. But for the purposes of this proposal, we’re going to assume that they’re wrong, and that if we build a compelling showcase for exciting pro wrestling matches we will be able to draw crowds.

So I’m going to jump off by asking you to agree to an assumption with me. We’re already taking The Gamble. Now, for the sake of the proposal, let’s assume that we are providing exciting pro wrestling. I don’t mean to say “assume that we have some of the best wrestling in the world”, this isn’t about quality. What I mean is, let’s assume that at the very least we are providing the product that we promote: we say that we have exciting wrestling, we’re giving exciting wrestling. This article isn’t about how to make an in-ring product exciting. It’s about how to present (book) the matches so that they are the focus and they have the most shine possible.

The Set-Up: All Elite Wrestling

For this proposal, I am going to use All Elite Wrestling as my basis. This will include a draft of top wrestlers, so as to better illustrate the idea; this isn’t necessarily what I would do if I had the chance (especially as several people have been left out), it’s just an example of what this might look like.

Now, let me explain a bit about the Agency System, and then I’ll move to laying out details. In the Agency System, the major source of drama is the competition between different stables or agencies (i.e. fight camps, talent agencies, etc.). Unlike in the Feud-Roster System where stables are more like friend groups, the agencies of this system are meant to be business groupings. In kayfabe, these agencies actually negotiate on behalf of the wrestlers they represent, rather than each wrestler being contracted with the company. The big money moves in the promotion will involve the major agencies.

Does that sound boring? I’m sure to most it is. But think about this: do most boxing fans pay attention to these parts of fight promotion? People don’t talk about that, not that I’ve seen. How many fight promotions does anybody know? Mayweather, Golden Boy, Top Rank, after that? The movement of the agencies may be boring to most people but it’s not the important part, it’s the background. While the agencies in this system will have more in common with the Four Horsemen than with Top Rank, the point is that for the “stories” of this system, the important thing is this: not every wrestler is directly contracted with the main promotion AEW (in kayfabe).

What does this mean? Well, if you think about the Feud-Roster System, wrestlers in that type of system don’t really have a say in the matches they take. Look at modern UFC, for a legit-sports perspective: when you’re under contract, you pretty much fight who they tell you to fight or you get benched. That means that in the Feud-Roster System for wrestling, it’s pretty natural that issues would quickly run towards violence because there’s no other outlet. I mean, in a real office you would probably just swallow whatever anger you have, but let’s assume that this is a situation where there has to be an outlet. For places like WWE, the only way to deal with this is to attack.

In the Agency System, it’s possible for many to simply reject the terms that they’re given by the promotion. They can freely negotiate. So if Anthony Bowens hates Max Caster (just an example), Bowens can decide he never wants to face Max Caster. You might say “well, that just stops stories”, but it doesn’t: it pushes them in new directions. Now Caster might be trying any number of means to get Bowens to face him. It doesn’t make Bowens look bad necessarily because maybe he’s beaten Caster already, or maybe Caster did something where Caster was obviously wrong, yet it still provides a way for Caster to pursue the match. Rather than Caster having to curry favor with “someone in the back” to get the match, he has to push Bowens enough to want to accept it.

The basic difference between the two systems, to me, is that the Feud-Roster System heats personal issues up so much that they spill over into the professional realm, whereas the Agency System is meant to heat professional issues so much that they spill over into the personal realm. It seems almost that the title is an afterthought by default in American pro wrestling. In the Agency System, that’s intended to be a rare (though celebrated) occurrence.

So how do we set up All Elite Wrestling to book through the Agency System? The first thing is to do a business reorganization. The contract aspect is an essential part of the fiction and drama behind the Agency System; not only talent contracts but match contracts etc. To push this notion, there needs to be a separation between the promotion All Elite Wrestling and the sanctioning body that authorizes its matches and sanctions its champions. The idea should be that anyone can hold a title which is promoted by AEW, not just someone directly signed to it.

This opens the doors for wrestlers to be treated as true freelancers (or members of an agency which is not a subsidiary of AEW). At the same time, you don’t actually want to open up your contracts like that if you don’t have to (and, assuming we’re AEW here, we don’t). This reorganization will help to reinforce the fiction without necessarily putting contracts (and talent) into play.

Two organizations are needed to make this work. The first is a holding company, which we’ll just call Khan Sports Company. The second is the sanctioning body. If you want a wrestling example of a sanctioning body, look at New Japan: obviously, New Japan is New Japan Pro Wrestling, but most of its titles have the initials IWGP: this is the kayfabe sanctioning organization called the International Wrestling Grand Prix. While the separation isn’t extremely obvious in New Japan (especially nowadays), it is still there.

Of course, for AEW’s sanctioning body, they could just invent one. They could. But because I have wrestling nostalgia, because I love the belt, and because this is fake, what I’m going to say here is that AEW buys the National Wrestling Alliance off of Billy Corgan and turns that into its sanctioning body. Several AEW titles would then become NWA titles (though we’ll talk about titles in a bit). Regardless of what you do, however, AEW itself cannot be the sanctioning body of the top title. One of the major elements of this fiction is that AEW doesn’t have direct control over the titles, as that puts the titles in play for negotiation.

Ring of Honor will also be a key player here. Now, the ROH presence isn’t strictly necessary for me to properly lay out this proposal, but Tony Khan does already own it and it’ll be fun to keep in. The role of ROH is to be the primary non-AEW promotion which is aligned with the NWA. Essentially, it’s going to promote the idea that it’s not just AEW wrestlers that can hold the big titles.

Wrestler contracts would also be divided. I’m not a corporate law expert, but I would draw something up which made a kind of contract equivalency between AEW, ROH, and Khan Sports so that being signed to one is effectively being signed to them all. There should be care taken as far as who is contracted where, however. Wrestlers who are in kayfabe contracted to AEW should be actually contracted to AEW and same for ROH, but wrestlers who are part of agencies or are supposed to be freelance should have their contracts with Khan Sports. Further, while AEW and ROH contracts should be reported on, Khan Sports contracts should not; the info shouldn’t be illegally hidden, obviously, it just shouldn’t be broadcast in the same way.

Now clearly people are going to find this out. The point isn’t that no one will ever know that Adam Page is actually not totally freelance. It’s just to further enhance the show. People want to be fooled. They want to play along. When you do things like this, you reward their interest and that intensifies their interest.

With this basic set-up described, let’s now move onto the wrestler draft. This is going to be a draft of top male AEW workers only; I’ve chosen 62 workers (by my initial count), both wrestlers and managers. I haven’t included women primarily because the AEW women’s roster currently isn’t nearly as deep as the men’s (62 is less than half the male workers listed but 20 more than all the women on the page) and because I think that the integration of men’s and women’s wrestling is a topic that deserves its own article. I think women should be booked similarly but I think including them here raises questions that I’m not yet prepared to answer.

Tying the typical card ranking system (main eventer, upper midcard, midcard, lower midcard, opener, jobber) to the Feud-Roster System is a bit of a stretch since I’m pretty sure that it came out of wrestling simulators and not out of the mouth of any real booker, but its a useful starting point. You can always get more granular, of course, but for our purposes, we can shrink this down to three groups: the top card, the midcard, and the lower level.

If we’re using the wrestling sim system, the top card is pretty much the same as the main event, although the top card is slightly expanded. This is basically everyone who is expected to fight for the top title(s). In the sim system, this definition would include the upper midcard, but that really envisions levels on a card as being a kind of scale that’s relatively easy to climb. In the Agency System, a spot in the top card is seen as specifically earned. You are one of the star wrestlers of the circuit, which means opportunities. It means that you are likely in demand enough to go freelance or start your own camp. It’s not just a matter of popularity, it’s an earned (and maintained) status.

Whereas joining the top rank is an achievement (however abstract, i.e. it doesn’t have to and probably shouldn’t be connected to anything specific outside of maybe winning the top title), moving up through the midcard is in fact based entirely on popularity. Whereas the top card is defined as being the best of the crop, the midcard is defined by who will draw people in. Sometimes this means exciting wrestlers who are rising up the ranks. Sometimes this means loudmouths or jokesters. The main aspect of the midcard is that they fill up the card.

Lower level talent is like the midcard but moreso. Midcarders are put in positions where they can stand out; lower level talent is not. The primary role of a lower level wrestler is to make a midcarder look good. For fans, getting picked out of this level will probably look like chance, as they probably won’t recognize who’s getting better until they start winning (a function of booking rather than talent, obviously).

With that said, the draft proceeds somewhat like a legit sports draft. I picked out 11 wrestlers for the top card – Jon Moxley, Adam Page, Swerve Strickland, Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, Samoa Joe, Jay White, MJF, Cope, and Chris Jericho – and these each are to lead agencies (except for Page and Cope, who are both solo); most agencies have the service of a manager/agent, but not all. These are joined by three other groups of lower priority: Christian Cage’s agency, an agency led by Mark Sterling, and an AEW home team. The difference between camps and stables is fuzzy: camps are organized around a top wrestler, while stables are (supposed to be) more about being equal partners. Each agency has its leader/top wrestler and its manager, then drafts in order; those who draft a tag team got both members but forfeited the next round’s pick.

AEW Agency Draft

Death Riders (stable)
  • Jon Moxley (top card)
  • Don Callis (manager)
  • Cash Wheeler (1st, FTR)
  • Dax Harwood (2nd, FTR)
  • PAC (20th)
  • Brody King (29th)
  • Lance Archer (36th)
Adam Page (solo)
  • Adam Page (top card)
House of Swerve (camp)
  • Swerve Strickland (top card)
  • Prince Nana (manager)
  • Powerhouse Hobbs (3rd)
  • AR Fox (11th)
Birds of Prey (stable)
  • Will Ospreay (top card)
  • Kevin Knight (4th)
  • Dante Martin (12th, Top Flight)
  • Darius Martin (13th, Top Flight)
  • Kyle O’Reilly (30th)
The Elite (camp)
  • Kazuchika Okada (top card)
  • Matthew Jackson (player-manager, Young Bucks)
  • Nicholas Jackson (player-manager, Young Bucks)
  • Trent Beretta (5th)
  • Claudio Castagnoli (14th)
  • Jack Perry (21st)
Golden Team (camp)
  • Kenny Omega (top card)
  • Alex Abrahantes (manager)
  • Mike Bailey (6th)
  • Anthony Bowens (15th)
The Group (camp)
  • Samoa Joe (top card)
  • MVP (manager)
  • Daniel Garcia (7th)
  • Josh Alexander (16th)
  • Bryan Keith (22nd)
Bang Bang Gang (stable)
  • Jay White (top card)
  • Rush (8th)
  • Kyle Fletcher (17th)
  • Konosuke Takeshita (23rd)
  • Hook (31st)
  • Beast Mortos (37th)
The Pinnacle (camp)
  • MJF (top card)
  • Stokely Hathaway (manager)
  • Bobby Lashley (9th)
  • Roderick Strong (18th)
  • Big Bill (24th)
Cope (solo)
  • Cope (top card)
  • Sonjay Dutt (manager)
Inner Circle (stable)
  • Chris Jericho (top card, player-manager)
  • Nick Wayne (10th)
  • Adam Cole (19th)
  • Ricochet (25th)
  • Brian Cage (32nd)
The Patriarchy (stable)
  • Christian Cage (player-manager)
  • Buddy Matthews (26th)
  • Action Andretti (33rd, CRU)
  • Lio Rush (38th, CRU)
  • Wardlow (41st)
Smart Mark’s Agency (stable)
  • Mark Sterling (manager)
  • Jay Lethal (27th)
  • Shelton Benjanin (34th)
  • Katsuyori Shibata (39th)
AEW Direct Contracts
  • Mark Briscoe (28th)
  • Orange Cassidy (35th)
  • Darby Allin (40th)
  • Komander (42nd)

While I did choose the draft results according to specific ideas about possible gimmicks and roles, I’m not going to present them here because it’d be a distraction. What’s important is that you can probably make your own decisions about what each of these groups might look like, where each person might fit. Agencies are defined mainly by their top card wrestler (or, if they don’t have one, their manager/agent); the idea is that the top card wrestler is what gives the agency their freedom. The lesser wrestlers might not be permitted to negotiate the way they do, but the top card can, so the top card kind of shields their lower-level associates. In other words, Anthony Bowens on his own probably doesn’t have a lot of bargaining power, but that bargaining power increases if Kenny Omega refuses to take bookings unless the promotion makes Bowens happy.

The Use of Titles

The Agency System is going to use titles in a somewhat different way than may be usual. In the Feud-Roster System, wrestling titles primarily serve as macguffins: devices which are needed to get the plot in motion but which ultimately aren’t that important. Even in storylines where both wrestlers specifically want the title, we generally rate the story better if things progress past just wanting the title and onto a personal issue. This isn’t to suggest that this is wrong or even something that we’ll avoid, but it’s worth pointing out so that it’s clear how the Agency System is going to be different.

In the Agency System, titles are primarily going to be about wrestler reputation. This doesn’t really change how titles are treated on a detail level – it doesn’t change how a wrestler is supposed to feel about a title, for instance – but it will alter the booking rhythms. Rather than having titles be explicitly held off in service of stories, the progress of a title schedule will be treated more like an aspect of the scenery.

To try and illustrate this, imagine an American pro wrestling storyline where Anthony Bowens and Max Caster are in a feud over Max Caster’s title. In this American promotion, we know (or can be reasonably certain) that the title will not change hands until the match between Bowens and Caster happens. The match probably won’t be scheduled until the story between Bowens and Caster progresses to a certain point. If there are supposed to be mandatory defenses between now and then, these will either be ignored completely or wasted on clearly unfit opponents until the Bowens-Caster match is ready to go.

In the Agency System, the title match schedule would be the major determiner of when matches happen, not the story. In this situation, Caster would have a title match scheduled and the opponent would have to be negotiated. The story of Bowens and Caster could involve Bowens pushing hard to get the match while Caster tries to find a different opponent. Whether or not Bowens gets the match, though, Caster will have to have an opponent who he can justify; since the promotion isn’t necessarily concerned about waiting around for this Bowens-Caster match, they’re not going to be on board with him beating a tin can to satisfy his engagements. Unless they will, which implies there’s other intrigue going on. If Caster ends up not facing Bowens, that doesn’t cancel out the Bowens-Caster grudge. This is because the way that “stories” or “issues” progress in the Agency System isn’t by having wrestlers locked together into stories until they finish. These issues progress at their own pace when they have opportunities to progress.

That said, titles will still be a major source of drama. They’re symbols of achievement, stepping stones to more achievement. They’re still the focus of competition. More than that, higher stakes are supposed to translate to greater effort and therefore better matches. Curating these titles well will be a huge help in this regard. What’s most important, however, are the star wrestlers. This is another key aspect of this approach. Often, when talking about the value of titles, it’s stated like this: “this title is well-regarded enough to draw (money, a house) with”. This is the antithesis of how titles will be regarded in the Agency System. What draws for us are the stars themselves, always. Titles are sauce for starpower, they’re not drawing by themselves. This should become clearer as I describe the titles and how they’re going to be used.

Titles in the Agency System will fall under four categories: drawing (or main event) titles, television (or secondary, midcard) titles, incidental titles, and awards. This shouldn’t be confused with how “secondary title” etc. are used in more common wrestling discourse. There will be an obvious “two-tier” system to the titles, similar to the NWA Mid-Atlantic World & US belt levels, or AJPW’s World and All-Asia levels.

  • Drawing titles aren’t called that because they are meant to draw; rather, these are the titles which are pretty much only meant to be held by drawing acts. In the Feud-Roster System, only “the world title” is typically expected to be associated with a drawing act. In the Agency System, the drawing titles will be shared among the top card (with some exceptions, especially as tag partners).
  • Television titles are those which are expected to be fought over by the midcard, aka the television talent. Winning these belts is meant as a way to increase one’s stock and get noticed. Despite the name, their role is not necessarily to draw big television ratings, but rather to be fought for on television or smaller shows (whereas the drawing titles would generally be saved for bigger shows). They’re also fought for on the undercard of bigger shows, of course.
  • Awards are like titles which aren’t defended. These are usually given out for accomplishments rather than for victory in a match. Awards are useful for boosting someone’s reputation, but they’re less valuable than other titles because awards aren’t maintained. That is, if a title is meant to show the best of the best, those who manage the title will constantly be trying to make sure that their title currently reflects who is the best of the best. If an award is given for the best of the best in 2025, that’s good for 2025 but what about 2026? Or what if someone makes an argument that wasn’t considered at the time? In general, an award is less impressive than a competition title.
  • Incidental titles are like a mix between an award and a “real” title. Usually, they are granted by a specific event victory, like winning a tournament; sometimes they’re simply claimed or awarded, like the Million Dollar Belt or Larry Sweeney’s Texarkana title. The point is that such a title is not maintained by a sanctioning body, promotion, or any other group. While theoretically anything can put up for grabs as the winnings of a match, what separates an award from a title (in wrestling context) is that a title is expected to be defended while an award is not. The difference between an incidental title and a “real” title is that an incidental title isn’t really supposed to be defended and its defense is often unsanctioned. A good rule of thumb is that if it is awarded in the form of a belt, it’s better to think of it as an incidental title rather than an award. Another key thing is that the value of an incidental title is always connected directly to the starpower of its primary holder, since defenses and position is not maintained by anyone. In other words: because an incidental champion doesn’t have to face top-rated competition, the title is about the champ’s popularity and not their level of competition.

It’s important that each title has its own unique role as well, and each title’s role will be described. Despite the fact that this proposal for AEW will have 11 titles (plus awards) for its men’s division, the purpose and position of each should be clear (even the obvious conflicts are purposeful). Plus, it will be not be uncommon for wrestlers to hold multiple belts, so this shouldn’t be seen as 11 different “spots on the card” which have to be found. Instead, these are 11+ different potential ways to boost one’s reputation.

Each title will have its name, type, primary sanctioning body, and role description. The primary sanctioning body is the group that directly controls a title; in kayfabe, everything will fall under the NWA, but they allow groups to have their own titles as long as it is understood (and duly promoted) that no title supersedes the NWA World titles.

Drawing Titles

NWA World Heavyweight Championship

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: NWA

This is the big one. The holder of this title is meant to be the best wrestler in the world. It should almost never be defended on TV or outside the top card group, with the major exception of top stars from other promotions. The NWA World Heavyweight Champion should be recognized as “the ultimate champion” by all affiliated promotions/groups, above their own promotional/company champion. Each year, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship should be defended against at least one major star who is not a regular on AEW/ROH; this can be on an AEW/ROH show or another promotion’s show, but it should be promoted as a major match. Continuity will be of major importance here, and as such there will be a bit of leniency when matters are difficult; vacating the NWA World Heavyweight Championship should be avoided if there is any reasonable way to do so. This will replace the AEW World Championship.

NWA World Tag Team Championship

Type: Tag Team
Sanctioning Body: NWA

Despite being tag team titles, these are not primarily meant as the top titles of the tag division. Instead, the overwhelming majority of World Tag Team champions will be teams involving at least one top card wrestler. Usually, it won’t be long-established teams (of wrestlers who would be lower-level as singles) who hold this, except for transitional periods or if they get really hot (enough to be a drawing act). This title replaces the AEW World Tag Team Championship. This title will also be the only team title in AEW where Freebird Rules are explicitly disallowed: if the two people that won the belts can’t defend them, they have to give the belts up as no substitutes can be named.

NWA World Trios Championship

Type: Trios
Sanctioning Body: NWA

These will be booked fairly similarly to the tag titles, but these will be in trios matches. Trios will naturally be more fluid than tag teams, especially at the top level. These can be treated as faction/agency titles to some extent, given the Freebird Rules being in effect; for NWA-AEW, Freebird Rules will explicitly mean that a member of the team can agree to a substitution for themselves in a match that they can’t participate in as long as at least one member of the listed team is actually present. This title replaces the AEW World Trios Championship.

ROH International Championship

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: ROH

This title, which will replace/continue the ROH World Championship, is meant to be the template for how AEW will treat outsider champions. About 3/5 of the time, the title should be held by an AEW top card wrestler. At minimum, however, the ROH International champion cannot be someone who is getting beaten on AEW or ROH; that is, it can’t be on someone who could be considered a midcarder. It could be used to elevate people but, if so, the holder shouldn’t be losing often at all, even to people higher on the card than them. They should be presented as on the level of the current top card. The ROH belt will be a prize in itself because holding both the NWA title and the ROH title will make one the undisputed champion. On the other hand, the ROH title is also decidedly not in AEW’s control, and this will be shown by the ROH title adhering fairly strictly to a 45 day (or perhaps 60 day) defense timetable; if the title hasn’t defended in that period since the last defense, it will be vacated. In most cases, ROH would insist that its title be defended on an ROH show in a timely manner. Unlike the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the ROH title will be vacated pretty readily; they won’t let it get held hostage by someone in AEW. And this should actually play out. Perhaps once every two years the ROH title should be vacated because it’s held by a top card in AEW who “doesn’t want to go to ROH”. Everyone who wins the title (and holds it for at least one defense period) should appear for ROH at least once, though this doesn’t have to be a match.

Television Titles

NWA United States Heavyweight Championship

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: NWA

Though there is obviously a lineage of the NWA United States Championship, this is effectively a new title for the AEW-verse; it doesn’t pick up any existing belt’s place. Its role is to serve as the NWA-sanctioned stepping stone to the drawing titles. Someone who has held this title and performed well will be considered a main prospect to be a potential world title challenger. Of all the titles below drawing level, this belt is most likely to be held by someone as they move into the top card, so it may be featured in main event matches from time to time.

AEW International Television Openweight Championship

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This will be the top title promoted by AEW the promotion in this new system. It has a pretty cumbersome name, but this is meant to be an attempt at keeping your cake and eating it too. Obviously, since the NWA World titles are meant to be the only world ones (some exceptions for outside affiliates), the move is to use the name “international” instead for the top belt. So as not to compete with the ROH title, though, AEW will add “Television” to essentially imply that it’s a half-step or so down (see “ROH World” vs. “ROH World TV”). “Openweight” here will be AEW’s tag to denote that this is a singles belt. This belt replaces the AEW International Championship.

That’s a lot of ramble to begin with before I even talk about why this belt exists. Well, it exists basically to be the main belt of the new AEW. The holder of this title is “AEW’s champion” as opposed to “the champion of wrestling” (the claim of the NWA World champion). In the pecking order, it will essentially compete with the NWA United States title as the main stepping-stone, with a few differences. The major one is that AEW will always prefer to have an AEW-contracted wrestler hold the title. Where ROH will force wrestlers to come to ROH within the time limit, the tactic with the AEW International TV title is to use it as a traditional TV title: run the champ ragged by making them defend it frequently. It stays clearly above the North American title (below) but is usually meant to be just a bit behind the US title, like 2A and 2B.

AEW International Television Tag Team Championship

Type: Tag Team
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This is the top title for the “tag division” presented by AEW; dedicated teams will primarily fight over this belt, not the world tag titles. If there are a good number of dedicated teams, they should dominate these belts over teams which have less experience, with the major exception of combinations formed by up-and-comers moving to the main event. This is basically a new title.

AEW International Television Trios Championship

Type: Trios
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This is another effectively new title but for trios competition. The major difference between the tag belts and the trios belts is that there will be no attempt to foster any kind of “trios division”. There should almost never be “dominant drios champions”. The role this title plays is primarily to give rising wrestlers an early taste at championship glory, a mark on the resume that will make them look better to those making matches for higher stakes.

AEW North American Television Openweight Championship

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This title replaces the AEW TNT (Television) Championship and is firmly the lowest singles title in the pecking order. It is meant as a stepping stone to the US/International ranks. Long reigns for this title should be almost unheard of; the typical reign would last 4 weeks and have 1 successful defense. After a wrestler wins this five or so times, they shouldn’t be strongly considered for this title again; there’s an exception for people sliding down the card who may settle at this level.

Incidental Titles

AEW Memorial Tournament Championship

Type: Singles (Tournament)
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This title is awarded to the winner of the Owen Hart Foundation Memorial Tournament, a knockout tournament. It’s the lesser of the two main tournaments in AEW (though we won’t get into that here) and up until now these titles haven’t been defended, but they certainly could be put up in service of a grudge match or something like that.

AEW Continental Championship

Type: Singles (Tournament)
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This is the only major current AEW title which I propose should still exist in the new system. On the face of it, it seems like I’ve massively downgraded the title, but I don’t think so. Obviously, winning the Continental Classic (hate this name) should still be a big deal. After that, though, what is it? To me, the Continental Championship is a symbol that one is good enough to win the Continental Classic but nothing else. It’s not maintained in the same way that other titles are, where we expect that a certain level of competition is associated with the title. Instead, the title is pretty clearly about whoever is holding it. If you’re facing the guy who has it, the belt will probably be up for grabs, and that’s about it. That’s why I put the belt here. If the title is considered a drawing title, that’s most likely because it’s on a drawing star (which it should be, given the concept of the C2. I would use this as another accolade to float around the top card, though it should pretty quickly get subsumed into another title (for instance, the NWA World Champion beats the AEW Continental Champion, or vice versa, so both are held jointly) until the C2 rolls around again. This one would be fully controlled by its current holder, too, so there could be heat in establishing that the Continental Champion does defend their belt and then having someone who simply refuses to do so: the champ could be forced into a match but could not be forced to actually wager the belt.

Awards

Season Ring (top season competitor)

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: AEW

As I’ll talk about in the next section, one important change with the Agency System is to have distinct seasons which are no longer than 1 year. Win-loss records should be kept, then the #1 performer at the end of the season will be given an award. The role of the season ring is primarily to keep the booking honest: people who are in contention for the ring should have clearly been on the upswing through the season. Most likely, the winner is going to be someone who appears in a lot of TV main events, but won’t necessarily be a member of the top card (who might be off TV more often than on).

Season Medal (crowd favorite)

Type: Singles
Sanctioning Body: AEW

This is a secondary season award, given out to the biggest crowd favorite. The idea is that this will be voted on by the fans, but this doesn’t have to be literally true. If you do decide this by fan vote, it can give you some concrete idea on who people like. If you don’t, you can use this as another way to burnish someone’s reputation. You don’t really need to be as strict with making sure the medal winner’s win-loss record is incredible but they should still be someone who’s on a prominent position.

Achievements

Now this section is really just for me; this isn’t about making a booking point, I just get a kick out of these. With all the belts, there’s lots of combinations to be had as far as “grand slams” etc. Treat these as awards that wouldn’t necessarily come with a specific prize.

  • NWA Grand Slam: winning all main NWA titles (World Heavy, World Tag, World Trios, and US Heavy) over the course of one’s career
  • Triple Crown: holding the singles, tag, and trios title for a level at the same time
    • NWA Triple Crown: holding the NWA World Heavyweight, NWA World Tag Team, and NWA World Trios titles at the same time
    • AEW Triple Crown: holding the AEW Int’l TV, AEW Int’l TV Tag, and AEW Int’l TV Trios titles at the same time
  • Undisputed Championship: holding all titles in a category on a level; there isn’t an “undisputed” label for holding NWA World Tag and AEW Int’l TV Tag titles at the same time (for instance) because the World Tag title always supersedes the TV Tag title, so there was no “dispute”
    • Undisputed World Championship: NWA World Heavyweight & ROH International (formal definition, though the Continental Classic winner is also considered to have a “world title-level accomplishment” and could dispute this, esp. if they still have the belt)
    • Undisputed International Championship: ROH International & AEW International TV
    • Undisputed Television Championship: NWA United States & AEW International TV
    • Undisputed Season Leader: winning the season ring & season medal for the same season

Example Champions

Using the draft that I laid out above and based on the current (as of 5/13/2025) AEW list of champions, here is a potential list of titleholders in NWA-AEW. This is just to help illustrate how titles might be spread out. AEW’s men’s roster should be assumed to include about 60 wrestlers who are below the level of the draft; some of these could hold titles, but I’m only going to include wrestlers from the draft just to avoid confusion.

AEW (current)NWA-AEW
Drawing Titles
AEW World ChampionshipNWA World Heavyweight Championship
Jon MoxleyJon Moxley (Death Riders)
AEW World Tag Team ChampionshipNWA World Tag Team Championship
The Hurt Syndicate: Bobby Lashley & Shelton BenjaminJay White & Kyle Fletcher (Bang Bang Gang)
AEW World Trios ChampionshipNWA World Trios Championship
The Opps: Samoa Joe, Powerhouse Hobbs, & Katsuyori ShibataSamoa Joe, Daniel Garcia, & Josh Alexander (The Group)
ROH World ChampionshipROH International Championship
BandidoKenny Omega (Golden Team)
Television Titles
NWA United States Heavyweight Championship
Kyle Fletcher (Bang Bang Gang)
AEW International ChampionshipAEW International Television Openweight Championship
Kenny OmegaAdam Cole (Inner Circle)
AEW International Television Tag Team Championship
FTR: Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler (Death Riders)
AEW International Television Trios Championship
Kevin Knight & Top Flight: Dante Martin & Darius Martin (Birds of Prey)
TNT ChampionshipAEW North American Television Openweight Championship
Adam ColeNick Wayne (Inner Circle)
Incidental Titles
AEW Continental ChampionshipAEW Continental Championship
Kazuchika OkadaKazuchika Okada (The Elite)
Owen Hart Cup WinnerAEW Memorial Tournament Championship
Bryan DanielsonAdam Page (solo)

Philosophy

The next part of this article will discuss how the Agency System would be booked. As I’ve said before, a major influence on the Agency System is organized sports, and the way fandom works in sports is that it is tied to teams. There might be some idea of “good guys” and “bad guys” but this is on a personal level, not (usually) a team level, and it’s not expected to be part of “the story”. Before I can delve into that description, though, there’s a question I feel I need to respond to: why am I rejecting the face-heel dynamic?

Against Barthes

If you call yourself a serious thinker about pro wrestling, you have read Roland Barthes’s “The World of Wrestling”, published in the collection Mythologies. If you haven’t read it, go and track down a copy. You should be able to find the essay itself somewhere for free and it’s pretty short. It’s a useful look from a scholarly outsider about what makes wrestling tick. It has rung true for many people who also try to investigate the appeal of pro wrestling. I think that it will especially ring true for anyone who can appreciate modern WWE.

Do you know who Barthes’s description wouldn’t ring true for? Fans of the in ring action. In fact, Barthes says specifically this at one point: “Of course, there exists a false wrestling, in which the participants unnecessarily go to great lengths to make a show of a fair fight; this is of no interest.” It seems to be a pretty cutting remark. It’s similar to things I’ve heard WWE defenders say, claiming that the only thing that matters is the story. That is, in fact, what Barthes argues wrestling is. At the same time, Barthes also says this: “This public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is … based on a demonstration of excellence. … A boxing-match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator.”

One thing that has to be understood about Barthes is that he was a philosopher and a semiotician. I doubt he was a dedicated wrestling fan; his essay suggests that he’s familiar with wrestling without going further than that. Perhaps he’d have the same reaction Werner Herzog has when he watches “WrestleMania.” More than that, though, Barthes was writing this specifically to make a point about semiotics: the construction and understanding of signs.

Therefore, when Barthes says that wrestling focused on the combat is “of no interest”, it’s true he might be saying that he thinks it is uninteresting, but even so, he is more clearly saying that it is of no interest to his point. As shown with boxing, he does recognize not only that boxing has interest (and, therefore, that action itself in an entertainment context is compelling) but also that it does have a kind of story, which means it creates signs. He is saying here that he is primarily interested in talking about the wrestling which is clearly staged in order to titillate its audience in the most obvious way.

I’m going to use “Barthes” as a shorthand for the Feud-Roster/face-heel type of storytelling, but that’s because he’s given a good description of it, not because he was very influential. He’s not. Well, that’s not true. Barthes is very influential, just not in pro wrestling. Like one of my bugbears (I won’t go into it), the reason I use Barthes to talk about this dynamic is not because people learned from him but because he describes the phenomenon that’s going on. So when I say that WWE is the epitome of Barthesian wrestling, I don’t mean that Vince McMahon or Paul Levesque have spent any time reading French philosophy, I’m saying that when you read “The World of Wrestling” you can see that it maps onto WWE almost one-to-one.

So why is it that Barthesian wrestling is the dominant mode, at least of American wrestling? This is something that Barthes doesn’t really address. His focus is on the signs themselves – the taunting motion, the signature move, the comeback – and not necessarily on their effects. But pro wrestling is a business alongside being a performance art, so we have to assume that part of the reason this style is so widespread is that it is seen as good business. Given that, we should try to understand what about Barthesian wrestling is so compelling from the perspective of “the office”.

In my view, the reason Barthesian storytelling is popular is that it maximizes the appearance of excitement in the crowd. I chose my words specifically there, but we’ll come back to them. Obviously, the business aspect of wrestling would not be chiefly interested in the appearance. They want to know about real excitement and real interest. That’s what they believe Barthes gives them. I disagree with that, but before I can disagree, I need to lay out how this dynamic works.

Interest drives interest. If someone else is very interested in something, it’s likely to make other people interested in it as well. The idea is basically that if one person finds something interesting, then that means it must have some value, and people are often interested in getting some of that value for themselves. So when you put on a show that makes someone else visibly interested, that visible interest is likely to drive interest from others, and so on. I’m talking in circles now, as interest to interest is a circle, but I hope this basic point is clear enough: interest drives interest.

Naturally, then, more interest drives more interest. One person being interested results in one interest point, let’s say. If that’s true, then 100 people being interested leads to 100 interest points. If each interest point draws one new person, then the worth of having more people interested to begin with is obvious. This is a crude sketch, of course, and marketers would be horny forever if they could get returns that were this reliable, but it should get the point across. Whenever possible, you want to get a large number of people interested in your production because that will ensure the largest number of new people being drawn in.

These points feel very obvious to lay out, so I apologize for being a bit dull, but I’ve got to put them down clearly before I can build off of them. What I’ve tried to establish here is that there is a potential business benefit to presenting a show that makes more people visibly interested and excited than otherwise.

Now, Barthes (the actual writer) is aloof in his typically European way when he says that American wrestling is based primarily on politics (anti-communist = good, communist = bad) while French wrestling is based on ethics (fair wrestling vs. the bastard), but I think most Americans will tell you that while there has always been a lot of politics in wrestling, it does still come down to who is a bastard and who is not. It may have been different in Barthes’ time, but certainly in the 80s it was difficult to become a true top card in the US as a gimmick wrestler (such as an ardent communist), and most of the well-remembered wrestlers were not explicitly political.

That was a digression and I’m sorry for it. But it does dance around an important point (which I could have hit straight-away): Barthesian wrestling is based on the morals and expectations of the society it works in. We often think about faces and heels being kind of static, such that people are sometimes confused when a wrestler doing the same gimmick is cheered in one place and booed in another. When the cultures are different enough, the basics of what constitutes a heel and a face can change. Sometimes this is politics, sometimes it’s something different altogether. There are places where “Nature Boy” Ric Flair’s suave self-confidence was seen as reprehensible and places where it was seen as aspirational. It’s all about playing to the crowd you’re in front of.

That gets to another part of this, though: crowds are not homogenous. When you put an act on in front of a crowd, you aren’t getting one response, you are getting as many responses as there are people in the building. If we think back to how we started to lay out these points, we can see that there’s a bit of a conflict. What we want to do if we’re putting on wrestling (as a traditional or standard promoter) is to get as many people to react with excitement as possible. What we’re confronted with is a multitude of different opinions and different value-systems. The question for a promoter then becomes how to make it so the exciting moments are seen as exciting for all or most of the crowd at once?

The heel is how.

The heel is someone who breaks the rules of society enough that they deserve to be punished for it. The existence and employment of the heel gives the crowd a focus. This isn’t to say that the heels are popular, or even that people would think of themselves as wanting to see the heels get beaten. In terms of the show, however, the heel changes the dynamic from a contest of skill to a kind of court of justice. The purpose of the match is no longer multi-sided, it’s specifically to see if the heel will be brought to justice and how that will come about. We don’t even have the presumption of innocence: the heel is someone who has displayed their crimes and who, usually, doesn’t even run from accusations. They deserve what’s coming to them and everyone knows it. That’s the point.

When the heel puts one over on the other guy, everyone is expected to feel affronted. When the heel gets beaten, everyone is supposed to be happy. By paring everything down to heel and face, Barthes ensures that the whole crowd will react “appropriately” in every situation. Therefore, when something exciting happens, everyone is excited, and that excitement will carry over so that it can be used as a way to determine how business is doing.

This is the error which I think has led to Barthesian wrestling being so popular: the belief that a hot crowd means good business. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t think of a situation where it is bad to have a loud and engaged audience. Where I think this is an error is that it leads people to believe that the hotness of a crowd is the primary goal and/or the only way to know if the product is interesting. This leads people to go straight for Barthes when things are down because they think that if they can get the crowd hot, that will immediately translate into better business. I’m not going to elaborate further on this hypothesis but I think we can see this shift happening in real-time as the Japanese wrestling scene shifts year-by-year from a sport-based presentation into pure Barthes.

I have two observations which I will use to explore this error, on legit sports and on WWE, and I am going to do them in the wrong order. The reason is that the stronger observation has points I want to build on further, so I am going to put it last. The observation about WWE is pretty much hot air but, y’know, sometimes the air is hot because it’s hot outside.

WWE (previously WWF) has been fooled by its “boom periods” and crowd reactions into thinking it is bigger than it really is. It has fooled a lot of the media. But throughout WWE’s lifetime, there have been little hints that the product is not as hot as it pretends to be. Its recent TV contract with Fox was an abject failure, and it has already proven to be something of a dud on Netflix. While WWE has been able to buoy USA Network for decades and it certainly does deliver some ratings, it cannot compete in any way with the big three (NFL, NBA, and MLB) and will often get whipped by college ball or major events from lower level sports. People say that wrestling (by which they mean WWE) is more popular than it’s been in years. I’m not sure if that’s a bald-faced lie or just cope but I have never once gotten that sense.

In the Attitude Era, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and The Rock were household names. Hulk Hogan is a cultural icon so massive that it took literal decades of scumming around for him to tarnish his image and he only truly lost his draw when he signed on with rising fascism in this country (which honestly shouldn’t have been that surprising, though I’m glad it hasn’t benefitted his wallet). The post-Attitude Era was at least able to produce John Cena, who may not be a star on the level of the first three but who is a global superstar. The current WWE stars are not on that level at all. Yet in the buildings, you’ll often hear massive pops for favorite wrestlers, and stories like the Bloodline have been called the greatest of all time.

There’s a huge disconnect in how engaged WWE crowds are on screen (sometimes, anyway) and how much that excitement translates outside of the arenas. And the reason is, in my opinion, that the WWE does not offer anything to someone who would want to tune in or buy a ticket. While I do still find a lot of value in “The World of Wrestling”, one thing that Barthes is straightforwardly wrong about is that people are not really interested in the wrestling. I think that WWE proves this is wrong in many ways, none of them positive for WWE. They prove it because their crowds often do react when given very good matches, even if the most vocal defenders claim that good matches don’t matter. They prove it because despite their acts being hot in the building, they don’t change the minds of non-wrestling fans. They don’t make outsiders think wrestling is cool. They have no draw.

Remember, the original reason for going to Barthes in the first place is that creating unified group excitement will make other people more interested in the show, thus leading to more customers and better business. WWE is all Barthes all the time, Barthes 24/7, and it has not translated into world-beating business. It could be argued that they are doing Barthes badly, and I would buy that argument, but I think that there is also a limit to what Barthes can do. There is no one who doesn’t know what WWE is at this point. The issue cannot be that people aren’t being exposed or that people don’t know that they’re supposed to play along. It has to be that what WWE presents simply isn’t interesting to many people.

I consider the observation about legitimate sports to be stronger than the one about WWE because this isn’t a matter of opinion. Legitimate sports, as a category, may be the most well-attended events put on in the world. That is to say, they may have the biggest draw. And legit sports are decidedly non-Barthes. There is no good guy and no bad guy in sports, not one defined in the same way as in wrestling. That is, even if lots of people hate the Yankees, MLB hasn’t created the Yankees as a team to be hated. The reasons people hate the Yankees might be widely-believed but they aren’t constructed that way; on the other hand, a Barthesian heel might be a very nice person outside the ring, but they will cheat and act vicious inside because that’s their constructed role. The notion that one would need Barthes to draw, or that one has rely on Barthesian feedback, is clearly not strictly true or it would be employed everywhere.

Barthes doesn’t even hold in combat sports. A lot is made of MMA fighters and boxers “playing pro wrestler” when they start to dress flashy and insult their opponents. It’s even true that a lot of fighters will specifically crib from wrestlers’ styles in order to enhance their own promo performances. The difference is in the aim. When a Barthesian wrestler acts as a heel, it’s to set themselves up to be taken down. They are playing their role in the drama. When a legit fighter, an MMA combatant or a boxer for instance, acts “as a heel”, they are doing so purely to drive excitement. Conor McGregor was probably aware that his antics would make him hated by many but his goal was not to become hated, it was to make it seem as though something interesting would happen in the fight. A great way to tell this is that when people cheer for Conor McGregor, he never tells them to “shut up”. A wrestling heel does that because their role is to make everyone in the audience hate them. That isn’t what heel-types in legit sports want.

So how do legit sports draw? Stars and action. Action is the baseline. That’s the interest in the sport itself. If the action doesn’t appeal, you probably won’t become a fan. If you find baseball boring, it probably doesn’t matter what stars are around or how good they are. But when you are interested in the action, what draws over and above anything else are stars. Think about how stars like Michael Jordan and LeBron James drove business for the NBA, or how Caitlin Clark is doing it for the WNBA. Obviously, everyone has their teams, and the rise of star players doesn’t even necessarily make that fandom dominant. It does create interest, though. If you have a choice of going to one WNBA game a season, you will probably try to make it the one that Caitlin Clark is at, even if you will root against her and be disappointed if she wins.

You don’t need Barthes to draw money. Of course, legit sports and pro wrestling have a multitude of differences, so we have to be careful about this conclusion. At the same time, I think this at least justifies not limiting our approach to Barthes and perhaps exploring other avenues. I think Barthes also obscures, to some extent, a wrestler’s real star power. If we always make sure that a popular face wrestler is beating heels and getting those pops of catharsis, how sure are we that the reactions are more due to the wrestler’s popularity than to the catharsis? Because if it is all in the catharsis – the releasing of tensions that accompanies a story’s climax – then the value of these reactions is even more limited: almost by definition, such reactions are much more meaningful for those already engaged than for outsiders. It’s the reward for being involved, it’s not the lure. Honestly, I believe that the catharsis that comes from stories is mostly not sought for at the outset but encountered and enjoyed. That is to say: we get invested in stories because they are interesting, not because we are sure that they will pay off.

The Theory of Tension

In Barthes, the way that one creates interest in a match is by creating a story. The story structure itself will build to certain peaks, and the effort here is in making sure to build the biggest peak possible and to hit the beats just right so that they occur at moments for the best reaction. The focus is on creating the greatest culminating moment for the storyline. To achieve this, the narrative arc must be obvious enough to be anticipated, drawing everyone’s excitement along at the same time. There is one reason to be interested in the match, the story, and everyone is expected to be on board.

Obviously, this is not how the Agency System will work; I’ve spent so long criticizing Barthes that I can’t just go ahead and use Barthes now. That said, there does need to be some way that we can engineer a match with greater-than-usual excitement. That is the role of the booker, after all: not only to put on exciting matches but to enhance the excitement of those matches as much as possible. Instead of constructing stories as the main device for achieving that, the Agency System will use the theory of tension: a match will become more exciting with the more tension that is introduced, so big matches should introduce as much tension as they can bear.

There are two main types of tension to introduce: stakes and heat. Stakes refer to the more-or-less tangible things which are up for grabs as a result of the match. Titles are the consummate form of stakes, but stakes are also things like rankings, the money of the winners’ purse, or even just pride. Another important form of stakes are rivalries, which I am again separating from feuds. A rivalry is any situation where two wrestlers would gain pride significantly by beating the other or lose it significantly by taking a loss. This doesn’t mean that the wrestlers hate one another. The rivalry could be because they’re both seen as the best from a region and want to prove it; the loser might not hold a grudge but they’ll still be disappointed at not securing that claim and want to win a rematch.

Heat refers to emotional animosity between two wrestlers. Stakes will (or can) definitely be settled by a match; heat won’t necessarily be. If that rivalry over regional best turns into bad blood, the stakes can breed heat. A match between two people who have heat might not settle anything. It might just make the heat intensify. There is no clear way to get rid of heat in the ring; turning that temperature down almost always occurs out of the ring. Even when a feud is “won”, that usually doesn’t end the heat on its own. For that heat to be ended, what usually happens is that the two wrestlers bury the hatchet outside the ring; it may be after a match but usually not directly afterwards.

To clarify with a definition: a feud is not simply a violent rivalry. Especially in the US, the terms “feud” and “rivalry” are often conflated, but I don’t believe they should be the same. I’ve already described what a rivalry is. A feud is a continuing conflict between wrestlers that primarily involves violent attacks and reprisals. If you changed wrestlers for “people”, this would be a definition of a feud in general, not just in wrestling. This is exactly the point. The reason that we conflate feuds with rivalries is that we very rarely have non-feud rivalries in American wrestling; even relations that start as pure rivalries will often escalate into feuds when it’s time to make “real money”. What makes the two different more than anything else, though, is that feuds primarily involve attacks outside of wrestling matches; that’s the level of violent attack and reprisal we’re talking about. Feuds aren’t just about who wins the most wrestling matches. In fact, they are barely about that. The reason wrestling feuds involve matches is because they happen in wrestling promotions; in kayfabe, the promotion sees an issue and figures they can make money by sanctioning a match. Ideally, though, the anger involved in a true feud should not be easily contained to a series of matches.

The problem with feuds is that they very often cross the bounds of what an issue can bear. While I am not talking in detail about all the presentation aspects of wrestling here, I think that I should spend some words on the concept of wrestling realism. The best way to think of this is “kayfabe”, but I’ll be using “wrestling realism” because kayfabe as a term has had a new life and it might be confusing. I bring that up, though, because I have to separate “wrestling realism” from the kind of realism which separates the Agency System from the Feud-Roster System. When I say “wrestling realism”, I don’t mean “how realistic can wrestling be”, I mean “what are the real-world limitations that wrestling accepts”? This is all convoluted. I know that. So what do I mean by all this?

YOU CAN’T HIT PEOPLE WITH CARS IN WRESTLING. There is a limit on what you can do in wrestling. People often don’t want to hear this but wrestling is presented as a sport, as a real thing. It’s not a joke. And I’m not just making a puerile defense of pro wrestling here. What I mean is that pro wrestling is presented as a real sport done by real people. It exists (generally) in societies with laws and customs that have consequences. It exists in a world with physics. And there is an extent to which you have to abide by that. That’s why you can’t have people who are powered by magic or super science: those aren’t real things, at the very least not in a way that would be taken seriously for a wrestling character. If you have a character who is a dinosaur man, it has to be understood that we are specifically looking at a man playing a dinosaur: we’re not supposed to suspend our disbelief so far that we believe this is actually a different species. And you can’t hit people with cars because you would get arrested and your life would be fucked up.

Obviously, you can go some way to explaining these events, but that doesn’t really erase or get around the limit. Once you lose people by going too far over, you’re not going to reel them back in with a perfect explanation; they’re out. Maybe your explanation will save things for some, but there will be others that you’ve just lost. This is the problem that so many feuds run into. Because people are constantly looking to top themselves and others, they get more extreme until wrestling audiences are expected to shrug their shoulders at attempted murder. And I don’t think it works. I think that going so far with feuds is a mistake but I think it’s a natural consequence for those who are booking entirely for Barthes.

Different relationships (whether that’s feuds, rivalries, etc.) can bear different things. Every situation is different. But just as feuds can go overboard, so can other situations. Having a match for a major title is a great set of stakes. Putting every title on the line in that one match is probably more than the match can bear. What I mean by this is that up to a certain point, increasing tension will increase the anticipation and excitement of the match. Beyond that point, the extra tension makes the match seem overwrought and artificial. This isn’t something which happens only in a sport like wrestling; boxing fans are notoriously unhappy about proliferations of belts, even when held by the same person. Likewise, trying to heap on the pride of one’s family, training camp, alma mater, favorite burger joint, etc. etc. is going to make a conflict seem sillier with every added “I’m fighting for”.

When putting together a big match, then, there will be two major changes that the Agency System brings. Firstly, in the planning, things change from plotting out stories to making sure enough points of tension are being brought into play. The goal is to figure out what set of circumstances would lead to a match being the hottest. Maybe a specific storyline would be the best for a situation, but that would no longer be the default. Other paths would be winning titles, beating specific people (which could intensify the issue, s/a by knocking out another potential rival), joining/leaving an agency, and so on. Perhaps a potential prize should be added, another stake. Maybe they have a cutting interview session but don’t enter into a feud beyond that. There are plenty of specific things which could be done to enhance the tension of a match which aren’t creating a narrative solely for it.

The second point is closer to the scheduling aspect. The Feud-Roster System prefers to leave the actual scheduling of the match up in the air, often not making it official until very close to the match date. Also, if the match has been announced a few weeks out, they will often use that certainty as its own kind of hook: a champion will put their title on the line, wrestlers will try to injure one another, the drama being in whether the announced match will actually happen. The Agency System will assume that people want to watch the match, not just be taken along for the ride. Major matches should always be scheduled several weeks out from the match actually happen, and there should almost never be any real obstacles putting the match in jeopardy once it’s made. After all, in kayfabe, the reason that the match is made is that it will draw money; the promotion wouldn’t try to sabotage itself by putting an advertised title up for grabs early, would they?

This relies heavily on the ability to announce matches that will be hot enough for anticipation to carry the last few weeks. There would still be promotion of announced matches, like interviews and such, but it would not involve anything that would jeopardize the match coming up. Further, it would almost never be the case that a wrestler would try to duck a match once it’s been announced. Let’s say we’re dealing with a chickenshit heel: the typical move would be to try to duck the match before it’s announced, then put up a tough front up until match date; in the match, the heel might still be cowering, but only a real chump would snivel in the run-up.

The Agency System will work best if the general stakes of the promotion are kept to such a level that they can provide a suitable level of tension. Now, it should be noted that stakes will not be the real basis of the drawing potential of this system. The real drawing potential will be the wrestlers themselves, especially the big stars. The goal of the Agency System is to give wrestlers a platform to enhance their own star power, rather than attempting to manufacture this star power through the use of controlled narratives. After all, one of the best sources of tension is “what will happen in a match between these two star wrestlers?”

Putting on the Show

Originally, I planned to wrap this article up with a section laying out some ideas about how I might actually produce an Agency System promotion: what sorts of segments I would favor, what sorts of characters, how agencies and negotiations would be worked in, etc. As I got into it, though, I realized that there was more I wanted to say about the underlying mechanics of booking (as I see them). I wanted to talk about what stakes really are, what “raising stakes” means, how heat is different than stakes, and more. I figure this may take perhaps 5,000 more words and at least a few more days of thinking before I even start writing.

Since I’ve been talking up this article a bit to the few people who follow me, I decided not to let it hang out unseen any longer. Treat this as a part one, the more theoretical side. The (relatively) more practical side will be part two, coming soon.

I apologize for the ugly dismount here but we’ll all get through it. With the power of friendship.

  1. For the sake of the rest of the piece: I’m saying that wrestling is closer to Power Rangers. ↩︎