The One MAJOR Problem Nobody Wants To Admit About AEW

All Out presents two women's matches: the 21-person Casino Battle Royale on the Buy In pre-show and Shida vs. Riho. The lack of character-driven storylines works here because the bouts are designed, primarily, to book AEW's first Women's World Championship match, with the winners colliding on the 2 October TNT debut show. For now, that's enough.

Where they go from there is critical. Whether All Out leaves is with Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker, Riho vs. Awesome Kong, or something different entirely, AEW must use Road To, Being the Elite, or a new YouTube series to build the match. It's time for the promotion to start putting serious storytelling stock into these performers: the build must be more Cody vs. Shawn Spears or even Brandi vs. Allie than, say, Baker and Riho vs. Bea Presitley and Shoko Nakajima.

That being said, it's important to know that AEW, at the time of writing, has only held three shows tied together by YouTube videos. They have already demonstrated outstanding in-universe storytelling elsewhere across their product, but the platform is limited. We therefore can't go too hard on any missteps and trust Brandi, Cody, and Tony Khan to come good on their promises, though signs of progress are now long overdue.

WWE's Women's Revolution isn't perfect, but it has raised the bar for the promotion and presentation of women's wrestling at a mainstream level. AEW must at least match this going forward.

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