It's Official: The AEW Roster Is FAR Too Big

Consider where many of those stars are, and where they once were.

The Young Bucks experienced their best year ever in 2021. On immaculate form as grotesquely rich characters and in-ring mavericks, they dominated programming when there was space to dominate it. Now, they mostly cut pre-taped backstage promos. They're still wearing the same hideous gear, but they aren't really there to resent them for it. A booker could build an entire promotion around Bryan Danielson, and at time of writing he's playing a supporting role in a feud between Eddie Kingston and Chris Jericho. Danielson had the idea to form the Blackpool Combat Club as a way of reshaping AEW in the image of pure technical violence and win all the belts. The Jericho Appreciation Society are thus natural rivals in a fun diversion, but it's still more cute on paper than it is an emotionally intense philosophical war. The long, invisible wall segment last week was an actual sports entertainment segment, which is something of a self-own.

They're essentially battling for the very soul of the promotion, but that doesn't ring true, when this programme forms just one small part of it. It feels like it should be a bigger thing. When you think about it, the scope isn't unlike nWo Vs. WCW, or its NJPW Vs. UWFi antecedent - but in practise, it's just another weekly segment on the show. Hangman Page has taken his character in an inscrutable new direction of late: does he simply not have time to properly flesh it out?

These stars don't feel as big as they were because there are simply too many of them. AEW Dynamite feels more like a streaming service with too much choice than a water-cooler television show in 2022.

Consider also the landscape in which MJF evolved into a superstar.

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