10 AEW Wrestlers WWE Should Fear The Most

Vince McMahon is fearless.

He mortgaged the entire future of his company on the inaugural WrestleMania event, he has taken gruesome bumps and bled fountains in his capacity as a non-wrestler to get sh*t over, and he once directly commanded Carlito to "spic it up some" when brainstorming his WWE character. McMahon spits in the face of competition, embarrassment, and any and all social filters. He fears nothing.

And with good reason: WWE is vast and untouchable, financed by revenue streams as lucrative as they are problematic. Even if he repels the audience he wishes to "put smiles on"...by relentlessly pushing Baron Corbin...Vince's empire is secured now by corporate money, which will account in a few short years for over 50% of the company's entire base of funds. Vince can do no wrong, ironically, since *gestures at everything*

But pro wrestling is a talent-driven business, much as the industry treats that talent purely as meat - and it is the talent to whom the audience are drawn. WWE's brand-first approach is working as much as EC3 is on RAW.

Riott Squad spray paint at the ready: maybe Vince should be fearful of the upstart league's key players...

One could argue that fear should be written here in the past tense.

Cody has shifted the paradigm by creating not merely a life after WWE, but one exponentially better than it. He can barely be referred to as an aspirational figure now, following today's dynamite TNT announcement. He has come too far.

And yet he remains hungry. Cody has created a monster, the biggest threat to WWE's fanbase in two decades - but he has also recently cut one of the most unique, eye-opening, high-quality promos in years, all with a winning understatement not found on WWE's rampantly over-produced TV. Striking just the right chord of classic wrestling cheese, Cody delivered something quite incredible here. He also revealed his principal motivation: the belated deathblow of the Attitude Era. This isn't a vanity project or a star vehicle. Wrestling is in the man's blood, and the motivation he bears to compete with sports entertainment is searing.

It's fitting that his brother, framed diametrically to him ahead of Double Or Nothing, called himself the Natural - because Cody never was. Cody had to work stupidly hard to get this good, and the evidence is all in that promo. He was once melodramatic, and now he's chillingly authentic. He was once the rank-and-file, and now he is a superstar.

He was once broken by WWE's system.

And now...