14 Ups & 5 Downs For AEW In 2021

10. The Four Pillars

It's not what a wrestler does that gets over; it's when they do it.

The "when" in the tremendous AEW Four Pillars storyline might be the most intelligent AEW masterstroke yet.

In the wake of AEW signing CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, anxiety followed the euphoria. Would their presence minimise the patient work that was put into building "in-house" projects? It's all well and good saying that Sammy Guevara et al. were future stars. When was that actually going to happen?

Ingeniously, it happened just as it was suspected that it might not.

MJF enjoyed a phenomenal year individually. The man almost stole what is considered by many the greatest AEW PPV ever, was a heat machine on the stick, and continued his evolution as the most compelling episodic TV star in wrestling with his clever strategy of teasing something for next week every week. He worked fellow "Pillar" Darby Allin at Full Gear in a classic pitched to put over the idea that the homegrown acts are equal to the dream free agent signings. At All Out, few would have said that anything involving Punk, Danielson or Cole would have been outmatched at Full Gear. MJF hardly made their brilliant efforts look "mid" in comparison, but nor was the reverse true. MJF is no longer a precocious young wrestler. He's as big a star as anybody in the promotion.

Allin never once felt like Sting's apprentice, Sammy Guevara became a worthy TNT Champion, and Jungle Boy learned how to cut a promo and evolved past his spirited rookie persona to win and win convincingly.

All of this has happened deliberately, with precision timing, to make AEW feel like the anti-TNA.