10 AEW Disappointments We Really Didn't See Coming

3. AEW Women's World Championship Eliminator Tournament

Buried deep in the thrust of more good debate about the care and attention needing to be paid to AEW’s Women’s Division, the American/Japanese 16-woman tournament graphic released in early 2021 looked one almighty slap in the face of the bad faith critics.

It was an overreach, which is probably why the slap missed and hit AEW in its own face.

Restricted as they were by the pandemic North American wrestling had attempted to no-sell, the actually-half-decent Japanese bracket was hampered by the ludicrously low-rent nature of the production.

Small-time would be overstating it. The sh*t was miniscule-looking, with some good matches featuring a heady mix of familiar faces and dynamic new ones lost to visuals that were anything but championship material.

The failure would have been noble if the scope wasn't over-promoted in the first instance. The work was solid, a couple of figures got over in the aftermath, and Excalibur's commentary filled in a lot of blanks, but the ambition was far too great for what the company could have ever realistically achieved.