The defeat of Bryan Danielson at WrestleDream 2024 didn’t just feel like the end of his full-time career but also a changing shift in All Elite Wrestling.
When AEW first started in 2019, the predominant influence felt like New Japan Pro Wrestling. They were essentially built on the back of NJPW’s American expansion, with The Elite as the focal point of the promotion. The first pay per view was main evented featuring the rematch from Wrestle Kingdom 12 between Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega.
While AEW was trying to be its own thing, it definitely took influence from what NJPW had built in 2017 and 2018 as a base of influence, and a big reason why people turned to them. Between 2019 and 2021, it felt like they were building the vision of what AEW actually was. It’s why people are so loyal to that period. That was when AEW felt like AEW.
Vision Change
Starting in the summer of 2021 was not only the return of CM Punk to pro wrestling but the debuts of Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole. All three men had prominent careers in Ring of Honor and WWE, with Cole’s time mostly spent in NXT. With the main event of Full Gear 2021 being the passing of the AEW Men’s World Championship from one member of The Elite to another, this felt like even though these heavy influences from other promotions would be coming in? The company would still be about All Elite Wrestling.
However, in 2022, it became pretty clear that the predominant vision of AEW was being altered a bit. Despite being the champion, Hangman Adam Page wasn’t the true focus of the show. That focus was instead on CM Punk. With Tony Khan purchasing Ring of Honor and the debut of Samoa Joe, you could feel that Tony Khan was no longer focused on a vision for an AEW that’s about AEW but was now an AEW that’s about paying tribute to the Ring of Honor that Tony Khan loved in his 20s.
From Page to current champion Jon Moxley, AEW has had five champions in between (not including Moxley since he’s current champ): CM Punk, MJF, Samoa Joe, Swerve Strickland, and Bryan Danielson. Three of those are ROH legends of the 2000s in CM Punk, Samoa Joe, and Bryan Danielson.
I’m sure many are going to fight back on this narrative because Danielson was only champion for 48 days and Samoa Joe only 113. MJF was champion for 406 days. How can you say the vision broke into a tribute to ROH? 2023 was the Year of Maxwell and felt more like AEW losing its identity more than anything then wasn’t it?
Get Off Track
MJF was absolutely someone always planned for the title, and his run was about building the vision MJF had for All Elite Wrestling. He was also a young champion who was still figuring himself out, and if Tony Khan was really focused on AEW at the time like he should have been? He would have realized MJF wasn’t ready to be a babyface World Champion and that he was putting too much responsibility to carry the company on his shoulders. MJF to this day is still one of the few draws for AEW (the last time a first quarter Dynamite broke 950,000 viewers was for MJF’s return promo in the spring of 2024) and it certainly looked to be that Tony just thought making Max champ was the right thing to do and allowed him to focus on what he really wanted to do: mend fences with CM Punk.
CM Punk despite his locker room fights and temper tantrums, his canceling promotional for him on AEW Collision despite the show being given to him to essentially run, appearing backstage at a WWE Raw to basically say, “Hey I’d rather be here”, all of that he was still the main focus of attention for Tony Khan. Tony wanted the guy he loved in ROH in the 2000s to be happy in AEW. Short of forcing people to work with CM Punk (Punk never got his Elite trios match or his title for title match with MJF) Tony Khan was ready to give up his vision of AEW just so his favourites would be happy.
When the MJF run went far too long and was limping to the finish on the Devil storyline, he didn’t turn to someone who would be argued as the best wrestler in the company. Instead he turned to Samoa Joe, a dependable veteran midcard who already lost his feud with MJF prior at Grand Slam. Why? Because he was an option MJF would be comfortable losing to, and he was an ROH legend. If Tony couldn’t have CM Punk as his World Champion he was going to Samoa Joe.
That Samoa Joe run isn’t insulting or a disaster by any means, but it was definitely a low point for the championship to have someone who wasn’t much of a draw and couldn’t have top of the industry matches to hold the top title in the game. Moving to Swerve Strickland was the right move. Investing in someone fresh and despite working NXT was less about where he came from and what he had grown into in AEW? That felt like bringing the vision back. And then Bryan Danielson got his goldwatch run from All In to WrestleDream.
I mentioned in The Liberation of AEW by Jon Moxley that this was the Dream Match Era, something that is absolutely influenced by what ROH was in the 2000s. It was a confluence of the best wrestlers of the independents together under one roof to have big matches. ROH at its best had great storylines to tell, but the big matches are what are remembered. Danielson’s final year in AEW felt like a way to try to get as many big matches in as possible before he finally went down.
Black To Gold
Now that I have those 1000 words out of the way, am I saying that we are at the end of this ROH tribute era? I think we are, but I found it intriguing that last week on Dynamite, it felt like Tony Khan was now ready to pay tribute to a new era. That era being the Undisputed Era. The NXT Black and Gold that he actually ended.
Adam Cole got confronted by Undisputed Kingdom for the purpose of having him re-align with Roderick Strong to take on Maxwell Jacob Friedman, but later that night Buddy Matthews challenged Adam Cole and called him fragile. This all building to their match tomorrow night for Fright Night Dynamite. At one point they even had Kyle O’Reilly looking on at Cole and Strong being back together.
Adam Cole. Kyle O’Reilly. Roderick Strong. Buddy Matthews. Malakai Black.
Maybe this is AEW just scaring me. It is Halloween season. The Jon Moxley storyline is all about AEW re-aligning finally to be about AEW. Meanwhile underneath the top you have what’s basically going to be an NXT Black and Gold tribute match.
What’s funny is I would honestly welcome Undisputed ERA getting back together. The Kingdom isn’t working and hasn’t worked for months. Roddy is ready to turn babyface. KOR is good in The Conglomeration but still a bit lost. Adam Cole shouldn’t be at the top for singles. Having them work as a trios would be much better for all three. Either that or just have Cole join The Conglomeration and re-team with KOR as Future Shock.
I’m more than likely just being a bit twitchy and fearing that Tony Khan is just going to replace his tribute of ROH in the 2000s to a tribute to NXT in the 2010s. I even made a joke about Keith Lee replacing Brody King in House of Black which I kind of hate myself for.
Maybe after this Tony can go back to the tribute of New Japan Wrestling in the 2010s and build around Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, and Kota Ibushi? And maybe when all those tributes are out of his system he can finally focus on All Elite Wrestling?
Or maybe I’m jumping the gun. It’s just a Dynamite match. The real program is Adam Cole versus MJF which I’m sure is going to go right to the end of the year. None of this is breaking the focus of the top angle in All Elite Wrestling being Jon Moxley’s Crusade. Instead of constantly worrying about how things could change for the worst? It’s best to watch what story is actually told.
NXT was the Black and Gold brand. AEW has black and gold in the logo, but it’s not a Black and Gold brand. The gold in the E of AEW is for the Elite, and once AEW keeps its focus on that? It will be the AEW it was promised to be. The AEW it was originally meant to be.
“We came too far to be looking back
The path is drawn, we won’t get off track
Vision changed from black to gold”
– Black to Gold by Dear Rouge