10 Worst Moments In AEW History
7. The Booking Of The Women’s Division (General)
In 2024, AEW - without much in the way of achieving anything close to parity - made significant improvements to the women’s division.
Prior to that…
Peaks existed, yes, but in totality, the women’s division was a marginalised endeavour, an anti-passion project. It was impossible to escape the idea that AEW felt like they couldn’t not promote women’s wrestling for the sake of the optics.
The old excuses - the shallow free agent pool, the joshi talent being confined to Japan throughout the pandemic - became less convincing when AEW signed or developed top talent, only to maintain the one match per TV show policy.
Khan’s big mistake was in treating the women’s division like the men’s. In the men’s singles ranks, on TV, top stars would rarely face off one-on-one. Khan would rely on veterans, solid midcard hands and emerging prospects to lose to his pushed stars (think Dustin Rhodes, Jay Lethal and Wheeler YUTA respectively).
In the women’s division (and the one allocated 8+ minute match), instead of using his actual talents more frequently, Khan went for the name wrestler versus emerging prospect option week after week after week.
There exists now a graveyard of talents who were arbitrarily slotted into this “one to watch” role too infrequently for them to actually capitalise on it: Anna Jay, Red Velvet, Lady Frost, Abadon, Kiera Hogan, Tay Melo, Penelope Ford, Leyla Hirsch…
Some did better than others - Julia Hart was on the cusp before her injury - but the sheer amount of predictable TV matches with those on the losing side who went nowhere is staggering.