5 Key Focus Areas For AEW Dynamite Year 3

5. Keeping Everyone Happy

From Christian Cage and Paul Wight at the start of the calendar year through to Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole and Ruby Soho at this month’s All Out, AEW have made marquee signing after marquee signing over the course of the last 12 months, in addition to promoting a sizable number of developmental talents.

As a result, the company currently has 126 contracted performers on the roster – 92 men, 25 women and 10 managers, a marked increase on the 83 they had at the same time last year without the inclusion of non-contracted talents that nevertheless appear regularly, like Julia Hart or The Good Brothers.

Though the prevalence of stables ensures that most of these get their fair share of air and ring time, there are a multitude of talents that now go missing in actions for weeks or months on end or are now seemingly solely confined to Dark, such as Joey Janela or Big Swole.

Given that the majority of new signings are being immediately thrust into a high-profile spot, a key challenge will be continuing to keep the whole roster content and relevant, particularly if it’s going to grow further with the likes of Bray Wyatt. Extra programming like Rampage certainly helps, but will the herd need to be culled sooner rather than later out of necessity?