The Answer To AEW’s Prayers Is 151 Years Old.
How to restore the magic - literally…

AEW is not in a great place. You will have read or heard variations on that take rather a lot recently. In fact, the promotion is rapidly approaching a point at which it has been cold and disappointing for almost as long as it was fashionable and life-affirming.
AEW fans do not want to see hokey backstage segments that reek overwhelmingly of 2019 WWE. They do not want to see crimes committed in a daft, heightened world. They don’t want to see geezers on top because Tony Khan is not a disruptor.
They want a sports-oriented presentation, or framework, and there’s a 151 year-old competition in the world of professional football that AEW could and should draw from - literally.
The FA Cup.
A primer on what this is:
Unlike in most American sports, in England, football clubs exist in a tiered system. The Premier League is the top league. Then, there’s the Championship, League One, League Two, and so on. The complexion of each league changes each season through the relegation and promotion system, but it’s possible, for years and even decades, for fierce rivals never to play one another in the regular season. The cup, however…
Levels 1-10 are, after some early qualifying rounds, eligible to compete for the FA Cup.
In theory, it is possible for North Shields, a tiny team who play in front of a maximum of 1,500 fans every week, to play in the final against Liverpool at Wembley in front of 90,000.
Brackets do not exist. After each round, every advancing team is thrown back into the pot alongside a bigger group of names until the Premier League and Championship teams enter.
The televised draw is itself a draw. Fans of each club wait in anticipation for their team’s “ball” to be removed by a legend of the sport as part of the ceremony. Fans of clubs with a vague chance of winning the whole thing cross their fingers. They don’t want the Premier League leaders. They want a team low down on the footballing pyramid for an easier time - but then, it’s not always easy.
The institution is, quite literally, magic. The phrase “the magic of the cup” has endured for almost as long as the competition itself. Nowadays, it’s more of a promotional tactic than anything else - in the 21st century, the major clubs tend not to treat it with the same seriousness as the more financially lucrative PL - but it still exists. The magic of the cup refers to the idea that, even if you follow a small team, a minnow, you might still get to go to Wembley. This rarely happens. The big teams are big and successful for a reason. But if the lowly (and relegated!) Wigan Athletic can win it in 2013, why shouldn’t fans of the smaller teams dare to dream?
There’s something about the cup, the stakes - the magic - that galvanises the smaller clubs. On their big day, they want to knock the big sides off their perch. They didn’t beat a tinpot team in a hard-fought and windy midweek tie, just to roll over for a glamorous member of the European elite. To borrow from the pro wrestling vernacular, the FA Cup instills within the lower-tier sides a sense of fighting spirit.
The most recent competition is ongoing.
In the fourth round, Plymouth Argyle - all but certain to get relegated into the third level of English football after a wretched league campaign - defeated Premier League outfit Brentford. At Brentford’s stadium. Brentford are the hipster team of the day, and were before kick-off unbeaten at home.
That result doesn’t even rank amongst the most impressive “giant-killings” in the competition’s history. In 1972, non-league Hereford United, playing in the fifth tier, defeated first tier Newcastle United. This was the equivalent of an indie wrestler with a day job defeating Hangman Page on Dynamite - only, it was real and it actually happened.
Sport is absolutely mint. It is the absolute best. Wrestling has the ability to emulate it, to tell these stories at its convenience, and instead opts to book kidnapping angles. Why?

Here’s how the whole thing could work in a pro wrestling context:
Every single men’s division talent is eligible, and must at some point enter. This can’t be the Continental Classic, as great as that is. Tony must operate on the G1 Climax principle for real. The very best must beat the very best. This has to mean everything.
This idea - let’s call it the AEW Cup for ease of reference - is not plausible. If everybody of note is in it, all but one male wrestler on the roster must do a clean(ish) job. But this is fantasy booking (and in reality, Khan should have laid down the law a long time ago).
In a phased rounds system, the “lower tier” guys wrestle one another in the first round of ties, which is mostly consigned to Collision. The idea is to build and build and build. The AEW Cup will grow in importance as it unfolds; in much the same way as investing in a new wrestler on the ground floor is rewarding, eventually, the Cup will become something that the fans develop a relationship with before it becomes narratively significant. The fans should want the prelim guys to win against the big names. AEW should want to build sympathy on behalf of the underdogs. That has to be more effective in getting young talent over than casting them as pin-eaters in yet another stable.
A later tie between, say, Lio Rush and Hangman Page would mean so much more than a random meeting between the pair, if Rush is given the opportunity to blow people away in matches with stakes.
16 wrestlers, 32 matches. Initially.
Without delving too far into the logistics of it, the AEW Cup should run for a very long time. Winning it should be rewarded with a title shot at All In; the final meanwhile should take place on a special themed Dynamite. A TV show that has lost its lustre should feel like it’s giving you something worth paying for free of charge. That’s another feeling AEW must restore. Tony Khan can use the rest of the special to shoot big angles in the ongoing blood feuds, which can’t go away.
In the second round, an additional 16 names enter the hat. This is when some of the bigger stars enter the pool - your Powerhouse Hobbs, Claudio Castagnoli types.
The draw should be advertised as a major segment, a selling point for that week’s Dynamite. Renee Paquette should preside over it, and she should be joined by Ricky Steamboat, who can lend his gravitas to the occasion.

Renee and Ricky take it in turns retrieving a ball from the bowl (the clinking sound of which is inordinately satisfying). Those names wrestle against one another. Again, there are no brackets. Remember the 2023 men’s Owen Hart Cup?
A meeting between CM Punk and Samoa Joe was all but guaranteed. The bracketing made it obvious. This is a flaw of the single elimination format in general - the brackets are a spoiler - and AEW matches are predictable enough as it is.
At least one upset should occur in the second round, to set the tone, and the beauty here is that Khan could be flexible and in doing so treat AEW like a meritocracy. Who impressed? Who got over in the first round? Put them over.
Then, the third round. This is when the 16 biggest names enter.
Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, Swerve Strickland, Will Ospreay, MJF, Jon Moxley, Darby Allin, Kazuchika Okada, Kyle Fletcher, Bobby Lashley, Eddie Kingston, Orange Cassidy, Chris Jericho, Konosuke Takeshita, Cope, Jay White.
Even putting a name in there like Fletcher could act as confirmation that he is considered a top-tier wrestler. Additionally, actually naming the wrestlers you are meant to care about most would clarify what is a very broken roster hierarchy.
Tony Khan can book a tournament. Both iterations of the Continental Classic were superb. The first did a tremendous job of reheating Eddie Kingston; the 2024 edition was laid out in such a way that multiple wrestlers were still in the mix ‘til the death. Will Ospreay was out of this world throughout, and while his final against Kazuchika Okada was G1 Climax-tier, the occasion was lacking.
Neither tournament captured the all-important sense of ceremony, but the AEW Cup would force Tony Khan into doing his job as a promoter. Anticipation is key to the art of promotion. This specific tournament construct would add so much to AEW as a must-see promotion worth buzzing over.
Imagine the scene. Renee and Steamboat present the draw. The crowd is abuzz. They know who’s in the pool. The fans might be seconds away from the announcement of a free TV match worthy of headlining a pay-per-view. (The length of the competition would mean that the very best fixtures are promoted on PPV).
A ball is drawn from the bag. Renee’s eyes light up. “Kenny Omega…” she reads out. Steamboat puts his hand in, shuffling the balls that represent his opponent. Okada is still in play. Ospreay. Hangman. An episode of Dynamite could resemble some of the best nights in the 2010s era of the G1, or harken back to its own glory days.

It might be too ambitious - a wrestler might get injured, requiring an alternate, which is less than ideal - but AEW needs a new idea. Nobody is into the TNA-coded sh*t you see too often on Dynamite every week. It’s a massive logistical challenge - but AEW needs to show the fans it is capable of seminal long-term brilliance all over again.
If it’s a success, there is scope to expand. What if RevPro and Ring Of Honor host qualifying rounds? A true minnow story could be told, the ultimate cup run. Khan - and this really is fantasy booking - could also run a women’s AEW Cup in parallel.
There is a risk that, with a shoot draw, TK burns through his biggest match of the year before he’s ready.
But that is a fascinating prospect, the biggest matches in AEW don’t feel that big in 2025, and it’s not as if Khan’s miserly approach of saving all-star matches has proven itself to be a winner over the long haul.
Moreover, Gedo booked rematches throughout the 2010s constantly. New Japan Pro Wrestling’s renaissance was built on the idea of the return match, and it lasted longer than most hot periods.
Tony Khan would need to identify a winner before booking the thing to begin with, but, again, he can be flexible elsewhere.
The scope for storytelling is vast.
An FA Cup-style tournament could disrupt Tony’s logical if boring booking patterns.
In the actual FA Cup, the random nature of the draw creates a sense of excitement. You see fixtures you aren’t meant to see. Your team might not be in the same league as your hated local rivals - but the cup, as was the case with Sunderland Vs. Newcastle in January 2024, can draw them together to reignite the feud. Or, you might see a clash between two massive sides who weren’t expecting to play such a high-stakes match at that point of the season - i.e. Arsenal Vs. Manchester United in January of this year.
AEW Dynamite is often predictable. Take for example this recent Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay Vs. Callis Family programme, which is so typical of Tony Khan’s signature approach. You know which matches it will yield. Will Ospreay Vs. Brian Cage. Kenny Omega Vs. Lance Archer. Both these singles matches could be spliced into a tag. Omega Vs. Konosuke Takeshita III. You get, and almost invariably receive, the idea: very predictable filler bereft of real drama.

These matches make sense, but are contrived, formulaic, and the results are never in doubt. You’re not likely to see Kenny Omega Vs. Roderick Strong, as an example, any time soon. They’re both babyfaces, and they’re each in different narrative “zones” at time of writing. The AEW Cup could force Khan to change a dull format.
This AEW Cup, promoted and booked effectively, could act as a vehicle to get a new star all the way over. A lot of AEW fans were instantly besotted with the Beast Mortos, but he soon settled into the role of jobber to the “stars”. What if he embarks on a giant-killing run? What if he beats Hangman Page in the quarter-final? If he then doesn’t go all the way, what if fans start to believe that, one day, he can?
The AEW Cup could also dovetail into the established narrative terrain. What if Big Bill progresses, gets a streak going, but a jealous Chris Jericho can’t sanction that, and cheats him out of a late-round tie? (This would function a lot better if people cared about Jericho enough to see him lose in the end, but you get the idea.)
This might piss some of the wrestlers off, but that’s a good thing, arguably. AEW needs the discipline.
Pro wrestling itself badly needs a new, bold and distinct booking idea. Everything is indebted to late-stage WWE, with the pervasive wacky angles and convenient backstage interruptions.
A pro wrestling FA Cup could be it. Or, AEW can continue its silly little crime spree. One of the two.
The AEW Cup could work around and refine the inherently flawed rankings system, bypass the predictable booking traps Tony Khan falls into, act as a vehicle to elevate young talent, and finally erect the fabled, sports-oriented framework.
The AEW Cup could be magic.