10 AEW Stars Who Desperately Need New Gimmicks
Penta Oscuro, Kris Statlander, and other AEW wrestlers in need of a character tweak...
That the average AEW wrestler isn't as heavily-gimmicked as they might be in WWE is to the company's benefit.
In unshackling his wrestlers creatively, not hiring writers, shunning heavy scripting, and largely letting the workers dictate what comes out of their mouths, Tony Khan has cultivated a roster comprised largely of three-dimensional personalities, not caricatures. AEW's greatest characters feel real and authentic because they aren't being shoved into ill-fitting boxes or reading lines they wouldn't believably say. Eddie Kingston, Jon Moxley, Jade Cargill, Bryan Danielson are performers, though their character work rarely registers as a performance.
Even AEW's more outlandish gimmicks show restraint. Kris Statlander is the 'Galaxy's Greatest Alien' but doesn't pilot a flying saucer. The "zombie", Abadon, once bit Hikaru Shida, but you aren't being asked to invest in her literally eating people. Orange Cassidy's laconic hands-in-pockets shtick exists within the confines of accepted pro wrestling psychology.
None of this is to say that every AEW character works, though. Like any other promotion, the company houses a pool of wrestlers hamstrung by their current personas and crying out for something new.
Let's run through them...