12 Exact Moments AEW Booking Stopped Making Sense

8. The TNT Title Picture (April 27, 2022)

Eddie Kingston should have dethroned TNT Champion Miro at All Out 2021.

Kingston was the rarest of wrestlers in the modern scene - all soul, a living folk hero - and his output that year was phenomenal.

Tony Khan instead gave the nod to Sammy Guevara, who defeated the Redeemer on the September 29 Dynamite. This was an understandable decision and noble failure. Guevara was a day-one project who for a time was very over as a charismatic, obnoxious heel; the TNT title was both his reward and an instruction to the fans that, if they connect with a wrestler, that wrestler’s career will progress. Your long-term investment matters.

If the Guevara push was a justified tactic, the Scorpio Sky push was irritating.

Guevara in his second reign dropped the belt to Sky on the March 9, 2022 Dynamite. Guevara won it for the third time proper at Battle of the Belts on April 15. The idea of one Scorpio Sky reign was inexplicable enough, since he was a mere solid hand in the midcard scene whose work never approached Best Match In AEW History-level. He embarked on his second after winning back the title on April 27 before dropping it to Wardlow on July 6.

This was all kinds of awful. Sky was a barely over heel whom Khan saw more in than most; Guevara an increasingly unlikeable babyface. Nobody wanted either man to reign with a belt that lost its prestige at an alarming rate. A blur of hot potato nothingness with minimal fan interest, the “What are we doing here?” of it all was compounded by the fact that AEW’s roster of 2022 was teeming with countless better options.

Tony Khan is a patient, loyal booker - but this was idiotically stubborn business.