10 Things AEW Are Getting Absolutely Right At The Moment
Great promos, great feuds, great musicals; AEW is ticking plenty of boxes right now.
AEW Dynamite has been somewhat hit or miss in recent months. The difficulties of the pandemic era continue to persist, and while AEW should be applauded for producing more good than bad, the bad continues to seep in. The women's division remains a booking afterthought, Miro's arrival has been plagued with issues and there remain issues on transposing BTE segments onto TV.
Ignore all that pessimism though, as AEW continues to provide arguably the most consistent two-hour wrestling show doing the rounds at the moment. Over the course of its one-year existence, AEW has shown that professional wrestling doesn't need to be complicated; good guys fighting bad guys for reasons. That's about it.
What is AEW getting right at the moment? Other than the impressive achievement of producing consistently good two-hour television? Well, the promotion needs to tick plenty of boxes for that to be the case. The writing must be logical but simple, the matches exciting yet relevant.
AEW's roster is tremendously stacked but the company needs to put the pieces in the right places for things to work. Dynamite is far from perfect, but the good certainly outweighs the bad.
10. Big Will Hobbs
Much like western history and dates, the AEW career of Big Will Hobbs can be neatly divided into two periods; Before All Out (BAO) and After All Out (AAO). BAO, Hobbs was 0-7 on Dark, routinely losing quick matches to performers like Shawn Spears, Scorpio Sky, and in the most literal example of the 'quick' used there, a 13-second loss to Orange Cassidy. Going into the 21-Man Casino Battle Royale at All Out 2020, nobody was expecting anything from Hobbs.
In the near two months since that event, the career trajectory of Will Hobbs has done a complete 180. Hobbs is 4-1 since that show, the only blemish being a more than competitive defeat to Brian Cage. On top of that, Hobbs has been loosely allied with AEW Champion Jon Moxley, saving the champ from a two-on-one attack by Cage and Ricky Starks. In between it all, AEW announced that Hobbs had officially signed with the company.
While far from the finished article, there is something about Hobbs that really grabs. The man is a physical standout with immense charisma, and AEW has clearly understood that they might have something special on their hands. The promotion isn't going to rush Hobbs into the spotlight, but this is definitely a case of 'when' and not 'if'.