Last night on AEW Dynamite, Adam Cole lost to Konosuke Takeshita ensuring he would not get his match with Maxwell Jacob Friedman at Full Gear 2024. Cole had to his next three matches to do so.
Cole had been hoping for a three way match as Roderick Strong was doing the same. Strong won his third match just prior against Lance Archer. Cole had stiffer competition with the AEW International Champion who needed MJF’s Dynamite Diamond Ring to win the match.
The problem is that the eye test told anyone watching that Takeshita should have never needed such a thing. Takeshita absolutely dominated Cole in every aspect. In power, in speed, in technical ability, in lack of wasted motion, and in combination strikes and moves. Pro wrestling is just telling a story, but this didn’t feel like an underdog story. This felt like someone trying to fight at a level they just weren’t meant to work at.
It’s complicated when it comes to talking about Adam Cole. The guy gets way too much vitriol online. The amount people care about his physical body is ridiculous. I’ve commented myself on it in the past but some people obsess over it no different to a paparazzi magazine discussing Celine Dion’s weight. You might think it’s okay since pro wrestling is a visual live experience but it’s the obsession that’s the problem.
Cole is a common subject when people discuss Luchanarrative Dissonance, my term for the difference between real to sport and real to wrestling. He is a middleweight wrestler often pushed to take on heavyweight wrestlers bigger in height and weight, and unlike a Darby Allin who uses his lack of size as an advantage he instead works like he’s 6’1″ 230lbs doing the same moves as other heavyweight wrestlers but to those heavyweight wrestlers. His style doesn’t match the wrestler we see, and the only time it works is when he’s working someone who is his size.
That’s why it was fine when he was working MJF and it’s fine when he’s working Orange Cassidy. I was okay when he was a heel facing heavyweights because as a heel he can cheat to bridge the gap on the disadvantage, but it’s hard to buy into Adam Cole being on offence against a Hangman Adam Page.
There was a time where Adam Cole was a bit faster, bit lighter on his feet, so he could at least be recognized as one of the middleweight wrestlers who worked hard enough to hang with the best in the business. That was basically his 2010s. Now in 2024, after multiple injuries, Adam Cole is still a recognizable name but he just doesn’t wrestle in a way that works for AEW right now.
Adam Cole doesn’t fit The New Standard.
I couldn’t buy Adam Cole against AEW International Champion Konosuke Takeshita. I can’t buy Adam Cole against AEW Continental Champion Kazuchika Okada. I can’t buy Adam Cole against Swerve Strickland as a top program. I can’t buy Adam Cole against Jon Moxley for the AEW Men’s World Championship. He just isn’t on that level anymore.
It’s frustrating because only a year ago he was main eventing the biggest pay per view in AEW history in All In 2023. The fans absolutely adore the guy. All the time he was heel you could tell they wanted him to be a babyface. Now he’s a babyface and his matches have had a scattering of boos against Buddy Matthews and Malakai Black because they just don’t buy Adam Cole winning these one on one matches. It doesn’t help that Matthews and Black in House of Black have been turning babyface either.
Sidenote, why was he fighting House of Black? And why didn’t he complete House of Black and face Brody King? Made no sense. If he has to win three matches against handpicked MJF opponents why isn’t he taking on someone MJF adjacent? Why wouldn’t MJF make Cole and Roddy face each other? Absolutely befuddling. Cole should have been facing pure heels, or at least face all of House of Black.
All this is to say that Cole is overpushed, and AEW does recognize it a bit by having him lose this match to Takeshita. It’s good that they are not pinning their International champion two weeks in a row, but he still had to get the help of the diamond ring to accomplish it. I’m sure this feud with MJF will go to World’s End now with Roddy getting the Full Gear match and Cole getting MJF at World’s End before they move onto a new program in 2025.
As much as Jon Moxley’s Crusade provides a reset for AEW and a way to stop looking back, these Cole matches just remind us that Adam Cole used to be the ace of NXT Black and Gold, and he isn’t that guy anymore. He isn’t really an AEW act yet. He’s a nostalgia act from 2018. The end of the match with Takeshita ended up being Kyle O’Reilly, Roderick Strong, and Adam Cole in the ring together. A reminder of Undisputed ERA. Again, not an AEW act. It’s a mix of ROH and NXT nostalgia that AEW just can’t get over to just celebrate AEW. Heck, they are now buying November Rain by Guns N Roses to counter WWE’s ECW nostalgia. Sigh.
All of this is to say that I feel bad for Adam Cole. He isn’t that wrestler anymore he used to be, and he’s a constant reminder of who he used to be and who he isn’t anymore. He’s got critics who are absolutely legitimate and critics who are unfair and bullying. He’s very well liked backstage and still has his fans but he isn’t in the spot he needs to be. The more he stays in the upper midcard the more fans and critics will resent him and the less he can provide for All Elite Wrestling as a performer.
Unlike Powerhouse Hobbs who I think should go to the tag team division to get the best out of him, I feel like Adam Cole needs to move out of the singles divisions to basically protect him from his current limitations. Cole, Strong, and KOR might feel like a nostalgia act at this point but they would be perfect for the trios division and it would allow them all to move out of singles title contention.
If it ever comes to a point where Cole becomes the wrestler he used to be, instead of a reminder of who he used to be? Then it would make sense to push him as a top guy again. Until that time comes? He shouldn’t get his revenge on MJF. He shouldn’t be going toe to toe with Takeshita. And he shouldn’t be taking up a spot better suited for a better wrestler.
