AEW Planning International & Continental Title Merger (AEW News)
Could Omega vs. Okada be setting up a title merger?
With certain fans forever complaining about AEW having too many titles, it looks as if the company is looking at trimming at least one of those belts by merging two championships together.
Per Fightful Select, there have been discussions about merging the AEW International Title and the AEW Continental Title at some point. At present, the International is held by Kenny Omega and the Continental has long been held by Kazuchika Okada, with many predicting those two will be doing battle at All In in July - as nicely foreshadowed by Omega and Okada having the All In logo conveniently behind them when Kenny returned at Worlds End in December to hand the Rainmaker the Continental Championship.
Not only have fans presumed we'll be getting Omega vs. Okada at All In, but the Best Bout Machine winning the International Title from Konosuke Takeshita at AEW Revolution last weekend had some suggesting this All In match could indeed see those two titles becoming one. And it appears that, yes, AEW has been thinking along a similar line, with this Fightful report adding how this merger has been pitched for a number of months, although the outlet hasn't heard whether it would be Omega or Okada winning out here, nor whether the titles would be a new collective, be carried out as two belts, or what rebranding there would be.
Finally, it's worth noting that this report also mentions how Fightful hasn't specifically heard if Okada and Omega are indeed part of the plans to bring the International and Continental belts together, so we could always see different champions if and when a merger happens. Though right now, one has to imagine that these long-time rivals, competing on the major stage of All In, with the high stakes of two championships on the line... that's something that just makes too much sense. Of course, that's merely your writer spitballing, and things could always change.
AEW Titles
For the past few years, certain sections of the wrestling world have knocked AEW for simply having too many championships in play. As it stands, the promotion currently has eight active titles, which in itself isn't massively unreasonable. Of course, there's also the fact that Tony Khan will often feature Ring of Honor belts on AEW, or even feature championships from other promotions - Mercedes Moné presently also the NJPW Strong Women's Champion and RevPro Undisputed British Women's Champion in addition to being the AEW TBS Champion.
In addition to Mercedes, Omega, and Okada, we've got Jon Moxley as AEW Champion, Toni Storm as AEW Women's Champion, Daniel Garcia as AEW TNT Champion, Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin as the AEW Tag Team Champions, and PAC, Wheeler Yuta, and Claudio Castagnoli as the AEW Trios Champions. ROH World Champion Chris Jericho is also a regular presence on AEW programming, and certain other ROH title holders make sporadic appearances, although for whatever reason, ROH Women's Champion Athena is someone who never appears in AEW despite plenty of fans pushing for her to be featured more.
To its credit, AEW did remove one championship from the game last year, with Hook retiring the FTW Title as he handed it back to his father, Taz. And now, it appears that we could well see one other AEW title dropped in a few months.