EVERY Solution To EVERY AEW Problem

AEW finds itself trapped in a loop.

The shows are hardly well-received and are bereft of atmosphere. The idea that AEW is capable of “restoring the feeling” has disintegrated, since the promotion has promised to do this on several occasions throughout 2024.

2024, per Tony Khan, was meant to be the new 2021.

Yes, he brought in Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada and Mercedes Moné - mirroring the exciting new signing spree of CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole - but 2024 was not 2021. 2021 was white-hot, the promos were great, there was a sense that AEW was truly invincible.

It’s both a bit odd and extremely telling that AEW, via the announcement of the Winter Live Events schedule, has almost happily announced that it is downsizing. What should be a source of embarrassment is actually a relief for many fans; the ill-fated, arrogant and deluded bid to fill massive arenas was a bad idea.

Hopefully, this move to more modest venues will summon the return of the all-important vibe. Dynamite has been so quiet and lifeless so often this year that you almost wish Austin Gunn was back in the front row. You can hear the silence even if you can’t see the empty seats.

AEW has identified a problem and crafted a solution to it.

What else needs to be done…?

11. AEW Lacks Identity

Problem:

What is All Elite Wrestling, and who is it for?

Is it a hackneyed episodic cable TV show set in a heightened world in which crimes occur, with no repercussions, not even fines, on a weekly basis? Is it the company for the “sickos” who love proper in-ring wrestling? And if so, why is Chris Jericho doing yuk-yuk almost every time he’s on TV? Or a total WWE-style talk show segment complete with awful props?

Is AEW a promotion indebted to the glory years of the big puro leagues, with a clean finish policy and sports-based narrative framework? Is it aimed at a more sophisticated audience who really don’t need their babyfaces to get cheated out of wins?

Or, complicating things, is it a buffet? And is the buffet less “we embrace every style” and more “we just call it that so we can get away with doing whatever”?

Solution:

As will become a theme, Tony Khan needs to have a word with himself and enter a period of deep introspection.

He can’t get the heavily produced, convoluted, WWE-leaning stuff over with an audience that doesn’t like WWE. He can’t get the WWE audience; they are conditioned to think everything else is an imitator - even an affront. Now that he pumps out hokey angles almost all of the time, Khan has developed a reputation as a feckless poser amongst the core audience.

The answer seems obvious, no?

10. There Are Too Many Titles

Problem:

Kazuchika Okada wears the Continental title in what is a cheap narrative accommodation lacking entirely in credibility and effectiveness. AEW is trying to tell you that he’s a “great” champion, when really, he isn’t. It’s an insult to the fans’ intelligence, if you want to be really harsh about it. Jack Perry is the TNT champion because AEW thinks that will establish him. It hasn’t. It doesn’t work that way. Perry, a very good babyface, is a try-hard heel and most people see through his act.

Konosuke Takeshita is the International champion. Good! It suits him, and there might be something to this banger division. Every Int’l title defence on PPV has kicked ass in 2024.

Therefore…

Solution:

Unify the TNT, Continental titles and International titles under the name of the latter, which functions much like the fabled WWF Intercontinental title. There’s an identity to it.

If that move means that certain name wrestlers don’t get a turn or something to do, great! A title should reward excellence and popularity. The belt doesn’t make the man.

It’s 2024. Fans are more sophisticated than that.

AEW was built on believing that fans are more sophisticated than that.

9. WWE Is Red-Hot

Problem:

WWE is red-hot and if anything, will become white-hot imminently: John Cena is coming back to do something of substance, and the Rock is following him. A brand new and huge Netflix audience awaits them. Historically, when WWE gets hot, everything else suffers.

Solution:

AEW must double down on presenting itself as an alternative. This is vastly more difficult than it was in 2019. For one, WWE allows its top stars to cut their own promos, which was once AEW’s key competitive advantage. CM Punk, Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens are best in class in 2024. Still, AEW needs to fight fire with fire here - and get more of their best promo guys in the ring.

Keep the finishes as clean as possible, and if the wrestlers don’t fancy losing clean, Tony Khan shouldn’t fancy booking them. The psychology in too many AEW matches is off; an ugly hybrid of the competitive banger and the cheap U.S. TV finish, this is one of many issues that plague the promotion. If you like proper heat structures and trad American wrestling, you’re screwed. If you’re sick of carny finishes, you’re also screwed.

There’s another point here so significant that it warrants its own entry…

8. The Backstage Segments Are Lame

Problem:

AEW too often feels like the worst of Vince McMahon’s WWE, Vince Russo’s WCW, Everybody’s TNA.

The backstage segments are absolutely f*cking pathetic and should be a source of fury or at least disgust to anybody with a working brain.

What are we doing here?

Who in their right mind really thinks that Kris Statlander smashed Mercedes Moné through a wall? And not a piece of cardboard?

The acting is awful, the props an atrocity, the situations so heightened that AEW might as well put Dynamite on Destination America and get it over with.

A great amount of pro wrestling fans despise this sort of thing: HENCE WHY AEW EXISTS IN THE FIRST INSTANCE.

Solution:

Erect a whiteboard in the production meeting room. Write on it a list of rules. This is best practice generally. Phrase the rules as if they’re questions, like so:

Is this backstage angle you just pitched some insulting, contrived bollocks that wrestling just…does in spite of itself? Is this something that is absolute garbage, but the sort of garbage increasingly disillusioned fans have simply come to expect?

Yes?

Then don’t do it!

Really, a completely radical approach to presenting and formatting pro wrestling TV on cable needed to happen a long time ago.

AEW needs to find the answer, and the answer isn’t chaining Jack Perry to the hood of the silly little bus he drives.

7. The Bad Faith Actors Are Being Mean

Problem:

The bad faith actors are being mean about AEW.

This sounds facetious and ridiculous, and the extent of the issue is impossible to accurately diagnose, but it absolutely cannot help. Eric Bischoff and Jim Cornette rack up the listens because, for whatever reason, the mere existence of AEW is fundamentally upsetting to a lot of people. YouTube is crawling with anti-AEW rhetoric.

To be absolutely clear, the majority of AEW’s problems are of Tony Khan’s own making - but if you were an actual casual fan and were halfway curious about this somewhat “new wrestling” thing, you’d think it was WCW 2000 or Five Star Wrestling bad.

Solution:

Ignore them. They will never change their minds because there is no lucrative market for toxic AEW positivity.

This bad faith grifting has fuelled within AEW a defensive sense of paranoia. The promotion has lost a certain accountability because they feel as though every criticism is disingenuous and unfair. “To be AEW is to be constantly under attack,” Tony Khan once said, and this mentality has infested the creative. The constant “we’re still great” rah-rah speeches, the recurring promises to “restore the feeling”, the grating idea that AEW has a “soul” that the wrestlers care about more than individual glory: AEW needs to stop operating like an ostracised cult obsessed with itself.

Ignore the grifters, listen to the audience, reorient the promotion as a backdrop to title programmes and grudge feuds.

6. Wins & Losses Don’t Matter Anymore

Problem:

The House of Black are the “winningest” trio in AEW history, yet have only challenged for the Trios titles twice in 2024 at time of writing. Hologram, before succumbing to injury, won matches on Collision virtually every week, and didn’t receive a single shot for any of the four (!) men’s singles titles. Meanwhile, Emi Sakura, who hasn’t won a singles match since Dark: Elevation was still on air, challenged for Mercedes Moné’s TBS title on the October 8, 2024 Dynamite.

These are just three examples of a wider trend that is out of control.

Solution:

Implement the rankings system (again). It was a flawed system that required much in the way of head canon to work, but before Khan gave up on the idea - remember the farce that was FTR’s record in 2022? - it was selectively very useful and credible, the best example of which was the rise of Darby Allin. Just seeing his rendered face close to Jon Moxley’s was a visual representation of a functional hierarchy.

Or, failing that, simply get your sh*t together. Don’t book wrestlers to win a lot if you don’t want them to be in the mix yet; don’t award title shots to wrestlers who haven’t earned them, unless the match is in the specific context of an open challenge.

With proper, considered planning, this truly shouldn’t be too difficult.

5. There’s A Sense That Everything Has Been Done

Problem:

AEW has normalised everything that fans had missed throughout the WWE monopoly era: talent jumps, blood, unscripted promos, violence…

Consider Chris Jericho’s fall of ‘24. On October 23, he defeated Mark Briscoe for the ROH title in a Ladder War. Literally 14 days later, in a Fight Without Honor, Jericho was involved in another match that involved a ladder. This was ridiculous; totally excessive, meaningless nonsense. Jericho knows he can’t really go anymore - but the fans shouldn’t have to lose their sense of what pro wrestling violence means because he is reliant on shortcuts.

There is no style that AEW hasn’t embraced, few promotions it hasn’t collaborated with, no free agent Tony Khan hasn’t signed. Greed is not good.

Solution:

Scale everything back and implement a sense of discipline.

Going back to the production room whiteboard, create and adhere to internal rules - i.e. book only one ladder match per year, but not at the same point every year. Tony Khan should ask himself if what he’s doing is truly necessary, and whether that idea might prove to be a headache in a few months’ time.

Do you really need to gimmick this match up? If it’s not really going to accomplish anything - the rating will stay the same and certain critics will praise a Jericho match regardless - then don’t do it. It is possible to reheat a moribund stipulation match. WWE did it with Hell In A Cell. With the necessary patience and a strong story, why can’t AEW do this with a Ladder match?

If you go at least full month without a single use of plunder, might a table spot actually feel transgressive?

Wasn’t it awesome when the steel cage first lowered for Cody Vs. Wardlow?

You can’t go back to that, realistically - but Tony Khan can and should attempt it.

4. Tony Khan Is Burned Out, And There Is No Long-Term Planning

Problem:

Konosuke Takeshita wins the International title, and is pinned within weeks by Ricochet to set up the next PPV title match because that’s where AEW is right now: so bogged down by the content farm churn that the most unimaginative route imaginable is too often taken. This also happened every time the Young Bucks had to defend their Tag Team titles in their third reign. Remember when Don Callis attempted to recruit Rush? Who had apparently joined the Family offscreen, since he was exchanged for Lance Archer?!

Yes: the continuity is positively baffling, too.

Solution:

Tony Khan must replicate the conditions with which AEW became such a sensation in the first place. Remember when you were told, through chat on the press circuit, that AEW had planned out two years’ worth of storylines at the top level?

Watching Hangman Page ascend to the main event bracket - and the AEW World title - was immensely rewarding. The character work was great, the pacing a compelling cycle of despair and hope, but what really worked was the sense of reassurance. You trusted AEW to pay it off.

The only way for Khan to do something like this again is to allow Will Washington to run the week-to-week for a month or two - perhaps December, since the pre-planned annual Continental Classic makes up the bulk of the programme - and then go home. Sit down. Reflect. Plan.

With no distractions, no ego-fuelled wrestlers in his ear in the back every week, he might get done what he himself actually wants to do.

3. Tony Khan Signed Too Many Wrestlers

Problem:

Tony Khan has signed far too many men’s singles wrestlers who should realistically win on pay-per-view more often than not to extract the maximum value from them. Fans back - and emotionally and financially support - winners.

Tony Khan can’t job out Hangman Page, Swerve Strickland, MJF, Will Ospreay, Bobby Lashley, Adam Copeland, Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, Kazuchika Okada, Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy…

Or at least, he shouldn’t. Otherwise their star power will wane (more).

The narrative ecosystem is broken. How can a young star actually ascend with such a politically delicate logjam at the top of the card? How are the women going to get the TV time they need and, increasingly, deserve? Isn’t this ludicrous signing spree - and the resulting need to book so many men’s singles matches on pay-per-view - precisely why the Tag and Trios divisions have nosedived?

Kyle Fletcher is one of few real highlights on Dynamite. This is actually a problem, weirdly: do you really believe that he’ll headline, say, Double Or Nothing 2025?

And, knowing how unlikely that is…what, really, is the point?

Solution:

For starters, do not sign anybody else. Unless Cody Rhodes or Roman Reigns magically become available, there is absolutely zero point. The needle cannot be moved with the vibe being what it presently is. Adding new names at the theoretical main event level is just going to warp things all the more.

Go back in time and stop being so greedy.

That’s all Khan can do, and he can’t do it. You don’t sign eight strikers or eight quarterbacks because they don’t play and they depreciate in value.

The only workaround (with successful precedent) is for Khan to split the rosters. AEW is nowhere near hot enough to make that work - it would feel more like 2004 WWE than 2024 WWE, and the last thing AEW needs is a second World title - but, while inelegant, it is the only practical solution.

Unless he benches the top players who aren’t performing.

2. The Women’s Division

Problem:

The women’s division is only highlighted on Dynamite in one match - one match that feels like an utter obligation for the sake of the optics.

Can’t get cancelled, now!

This is rubbish, because Jamie Hayter, for one, should be wrestling most weeks. Someone like Anna Jay - who always gets over and is always so agonisingly close to being somebody - will disappear when her bi-monthly loop is over because there’s no space with which to accommodate her progression. The fans very rarely make noise for the women’s matches because the stigma took hold too long ago: the women’s division is not important.

The wrestlers come and go and it’s impossible to get behind most of them, since you’re quite certain nothing that you absolutely must watch is going to happen. Even Britt Baker is barely the focus of anything anymore.

Solution:

Book two women’s matches on Dynamite. If this involves not booking Chris Jericho, then so be it. Also: the world can go without one of three predictable winner versus obvious loser matches every week.

There has to be something to it. Either Tony Khan doesn’t care about women’s wrestling, or Warner doesn’t want much of it on their programming.

Which is it?

1. Tony Khan’t Say No

Problem:

The infuriating thing about Tony Khan is that he knows what good wrestling looks like and is very much capable of booking it. He was there in 2021!

To underscore just how little spine and bollocks he has, consider this.

Across 2024, he branded AEW ‘Where The Best Wrestle’. The very same year, he let Jon Moxley talk him into presenting the idea that AEW absolutely sucks and must be saved from itself.

What do you want, Tony? And why do you never seem to ask yourself that question?

Don’t you get the feeling that Tony listens to an idea, his gut tells him it sucks, but he meekly agrees to it because that’s just who he is?

Solution:

Tony Khan needs to grow a backbone and trust his instincts. AEW was significantly better when he took on full editorial control - and before he listened to bad faith actors who insisted that he needed “help” with the booking.

But is this too dramatic and unrealistic a shift in personality?

You can’t change somebody’s wiring, but the maddening thing is that he’s done it before. Khan disbanded the original creative committee when the post-Full Gear ‘19 period was savaged by critics. He then embarked on AEW’s creative peak. Increasingly, though, Khan seems constitutionally incapable of making bold, unpopular decisions that might upset his star wrestlers.

CM Punk said that Tony Khan isn’t a boss. It’s hard to disagree with that assessment.

Is AEW fated to be a wildly uneven promotion with no identity forever?