10 Storylines AEW Dropped COLD
Long term story killing in AEW, starring Jon Moxley, Miro and a shot or two of Brandi.
All Elite Wrestling is mostly excellent.
Is this what some WWE hardcores find so jarring? No AEW Dynamite is perfect, some are often not great and Rampage fell into almost every B-show trap and never escaped within weeks of an exhilarating launch. And yet All Elite Wrestling is mostly excellent. It's a pro wrestling show in a way WWE doesn't even want to be, making Nick Khan and Vince McMahon's "they're not competition" mindset true for reasons they'd not otherwise comprehend.
Match quality opens up wildly subjective debates, but in the three years and change since launch, AEW's storylines have almost always had a beginning, middle and end. Sometimes the beginning is weird, sometimes the middle goes on way, way too long and sometimes the ending is dissatisfying. Sometimes a beginning is so good that a middle and end can't meet its expectations. Sometimes all three are so patronisingly short that the story may well have not have been bothered with. Sometimes one or all elements are bad. But AEW is most excellent because effort is made to see to it that all three are catered for.
Mostly excellent. Most of the time. Most, but not all...
10. Elite Hunter Frankie Kazarian
Not everybody on a wrestling roster can be World Champion.
The dynamic of a diverse and dense wrestling show requires the quotient of losers and winners to be about the same, if not just to ensure the latter group get over but also to highlight the difference between the two sides. Within All Elite Wrestling, the rankings and careful plotting of talent typically foreshadows exactly who will matter most in the weeks and months to come, rewarding early investment when a grand payoff arrives.
A rule-proving exception, Frankie Kazarian was all the way over until he found himself buried six feet under in a matter of weeks,. The former SCU man and AEW Day One'r had lost his best friend and partner Christopher Daniels by virtue of The Elite's sh*housery, and made it his new mission to seek and destroy all that had caused him misery.
He was at first blocking interference every time they tried to use a numerical advantage, and later vowed to run through the group en route to World Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega. The plan was foiled from there - he lost matches to The Good Brothers (including a damaging defeat to Doc Gallows on Dynamite) before claiming a token victory alongside Christian Cage against Brandon Cutler and a hotdogging Omega.
He all but concluded his attempt to disband The Elite save for yet another losing effort against Adam Cole a month after the feud had fizzled.