Edited by Laura
- Made for Fun, not Profit
**Program Used: Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019
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A tribute to All Elite Wrestling's "Absolute" Ricky Starks.

For the last 10 years, WWE has been my "ride or die" wrestling promotion. I watched every PPV, RAW, Smackdown and NXT. I even flew from Australia to Los Angeles for Survivor Series weekend in 2018. However, since the pandemic hit (and maybe even a little bit before that), being a WWE fan stopped being fun. It felt like a chore to keep up with the weekly programming and I started to wonder if I had outgrown my childhood love for wrestling.

Enter AEW. Afterall, it seemed silly to declare that I've "outgrown wrestling" without giving the alternative a try. I tuned into the April 21st episode of AEW Dynamite and the first match on the card was Hangman Adam Page vs Ricky Starks. Ricky was instantly my favourite AEW wrestler. I've watched wrestling since I was 7 years old and I've seen a lot of wrestlers come and go - but I don't know that I've ever seen a wrestler quite like Ricky Starks. He's so damn charismatic. It really does feel like the sky's the limit on his potential.

A few days later, news came out that Ricky Starks had broken his neck in the Hangman Page match and would be out for three months. While I hadn't intended to give up on the product when Starks got injured, life got in the way and I only ended up watching the one episode of AEW Dynamite - that is until July 18th. I heard AEW was back on the road (as well as rumblings that Punk and Danielson were due to join the company soon) and decided to give it another try. Afterall, a few weeks removed from The Miz being eaten by zombies live on PPV, my enjoyment of the WWE product was at an all-time low. By complete coincidence, this ended up being the episode where Ricky Starks returned from his neck injury and won the FTW title against Brian Cage. I haven't missed an episode of AEW since.

AEW saved my love of wrestling. If you're a WWE fan, I urge you to give AEW a try. Just once. Even if this video and Ricky Starks aren't your thing, there's something in AEW for every type of fan. I still watch WWE, but I watch begrudgingly and for one wrestler - Seth Rollins. In AEW, my list of favourite wrestlers is at least 20 people long (which is lucky because Team Taz sadly didn't have the best 2021).

In conclusion, all I want from 2022 in wrestling is for Ricky Starks to finally be pushed like the god damn star he is. He deserves it.

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