Alright, this will be long and these are things that have been said before but I'm off tomorrow so I've got a little time. It's mainly lackluster and confusing booking, a lack of interesting stories, and the belief that bangerz = success. MJF was involved in Santino-like vignettes with Cole, was an ROH tag champion as the AEW world champion, and had the awful Devil storyline surrounding him, so just having MJF back for an occasional segment or match isn't a magic answer.
1) Split the roster. Make ROH or Rampage your Sunday Night Heat/OVW and promote those like WWE promotes NXT. Tomorrow's stars and such. Have set rosters for Dynamite and Collision so we don't have Star A on Dynamite for four straight weeks, then Collision for two, then Rampage, then back on Dynamite after a three week absence. WWE is uniform. No reason AEW needs to be the opposite.
2) Find and hire wrestling minds. They should be former, respected wrestlers and give them the book. Tony can have final say like Vince did, but it should've never been a mark and current talent making booking decisions.
3) Do personal interviews. Think Jim Ross/Mick Foley or what WWE did with Sami recently. Why should I care about some of these top talents? You're a great wrestler, so what? Lance Storm was a great wrestler too and in WWE no one cared.
4) Never mention WWE again. They've brought up Joe in rain gear as a commentator twice in recent months. We get it - he was injury prone in WWE and deserved more. That was years ago. Stop using WWE as a crutch.
5) Improve elements outside the ring like merch and tix sales. AEW, a newer, smaller promotion should never be more expensive than a ticket to Raw or SD.
6) Drop the constant gimmick matches, all the tournaments, the rankings system, the records, etc. You're not the NFL and this isn't the Playoffs.
7) Don't start and stop. Vince did that for years. As long as Wardlow is in AEW, I'm never going to give a shit about him. Why should I? He's been a lacky and chump for years. Now look at what WWE has done with Bron Breakker in NXT. He's a future world champion.
I could go on for an hour, seriously.