10 Biggest Missed Opportunities From AEW So Far
AEW has had a great start, but it's far from perfect. Here are some of the reasons why.
AEW is a good wrestling promotion with a lot of strengths. In the year since its debut, the company has impressed in a variety of ways. The tag team division is arguably the best in the world right now, their World Champion is on an incredible run as a legitimate ratings draw, and there are plenty of future stars just waiting to excel in the years to come.
However, it can’t be denied that AEW has missed major opportunities and have long-running issues that need to be fixed going forward. No wrestling company is perfect and AEW is incapable of pleasing everyone with its booking decisions, but it’s worth bringing up where the company has fallen short so far.
We all want AEW to succeed and get better as time goes by. There is no fun in rooting against a promotion that’s doing a lot of good in the current scene. But there’s no benefit in denying the company’s shortcomings, maddening decisions and consistent failures in certain areas.
Hopefully in the future, AEW will have fewer and fewer examples like these as it comes fully into its own...
10. The Women’s Tag Team Tournament Not Being On Dynamite Regularly
AEW’s women’s division has a lot of problems. They have only been around a year and the pandemic put a lot of their plans on hold, making some of their drawbacks understandable.
However, the claim that they haven’t had the time to build stars in the women’s division rings false, especially when so much of their television time has been spent building male stars with lesser reputations before their signing. They have clearly not prioritised their female talent while building their show in the first year, which is very sad, and something that needs to change.
A chance to correct this problem was the Women’s Tag Team Tournament, which could have easily helped establish a collection of underrated women to the general audience. While Dynamite is only two hours, it seemed like it could accommodate space for an inaugural tournament, particularly when so many random matches for the men make it on.
Sadly, with the exception of the final, the tournament was put on YouTube and not promoted in the way it should have been. It would have been wonderful for AEW to promote their current roster of women and freelance talent on television, allowing their regular viewers to easily experience and make attachments to these characters. Hopefully next time.