These Brilliant AEW Success Stories Should Have SUCKED
Injury bugs, cursed belts and "No fans? No problem!" when the whole world came to a standstill.
How great is The Righteous' entrance music?
Vincent and Dutch speak in vague idiosyncratic tones about trances and the like, but they needn't bother talking the nonsense talk when the entrance walks the walk. Or clicks its fingers along with it. It's a captivating tune, a total earworm, and a perfectly pitched accompaniment to their act.
It's also probably the biggest takeaway from their flirtation with the Ring Of Honor Tag Team Championships. Defeated by MJF in a handicap match at WrestleDream (and per the irrelevant numerical advantage and match layout, presented as relatively harmless clowns in the process), there hasn't been much else to particularly ponder about the immediate future of the defeated challengers other than when another opportunity arises to hear the awesome theme. And it's 2023, so that's pretty much when you go to YouTube to track it down.
But don't go yet! The backwoods pair are rule-proving exceptions at present - AEW has managed to make more seemingly doomed prospects work out. So much so that it'd be foolish to completely right off The Righteous, especially if you're still clicking those fingers. Now clicking "Next" for more...
10. Billy Gunn & His Sons
Somehow getting multiple newer acts as over in 2023 as he was in 1998, Billy Gunn's transition from Dad-to-two-idiot-kids to Daddy Ass-to-one-awesome-tag-team was far from seamless, but it was objectively successful.
After trying for a time to maintain order between The Acclaimed and The Gunn Club, the WWE Hall Of Famer turned on Max Caster and Anthony Bowens to side with his biological boys. Fortunately for the fans (and the company's merch-related income), the reunion was short-lived. Realising that he'd rather use his guiding hand for scissoring, AEW's original Big Bill saw the light and once again saw gold.
Aiding The Acclaimed in Tag and Trios Championship victories, Gunn got to see his kids thrive in the aftermath too. The future Bullet Club Gold men dethroned Caster and Bowens in order to transition the belts onto FTR in early-2023, and have finally found their place on the roster since shockingly linking up with Jay White and Juice Robinson.