“I don’t consider (AEW) competition in the way that I considered WCW back in the day. Not even near close to that. I’m not so sure what their investments are as far as talent is concerned. Perhaps, we can give them some more.”
– Vince McMahon, alleged rapist, 2021
I’ve thought about that sentence by the former Chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment, who still holds stock in TKO and is involved in a lawsuit along with WWE for sex trafficking, on what he meant when he said, “perhaps we can give them some more.”
It’s likely he meant figuring out the investments of All Elite Wrestling and giving more thought to it, but it sounded more like he was saying to give them more talent investments. I have thought about that. Was he suggesting to release talents to AEW that he knew would be difficult for the company to handle? Pack them full of former WWE stars the way WCW and, another potential rival to WWE in TNA, were packed full of?
Maybe so. Maybe not. My personal opinion of Vince McMahon is on record so the less I have to think of him the better. But it’s well understood that in battles between wrestling promotions there’s always an exchange of talent that can go positive and negative. Sometimes gaining the talent of your competition helps. Sometimes it hinders.
The First Era of AEW
I always try to think of these things under the lens of sports, where acquiring major free agents is just part of doing business, and you need to acquire great talent to get better. It doesn’t matter if it came from your rival, and honestly it feels good to take top stars from your rival. AEW started in 2019 and in the original roster included a former WWE midcard wrestler in Cody Rhodes, a former legendary WWE broadcaster in Jim Ross, former multi-time World Champion Chris Jericho, and debuting on their first pay per view Double or Nothing was recent star still in his 30s in Jon Moxley.
AEW continued to gain new names to the roster, often from wrestlers being released. Some chose AEW over WWE like Christian Cage and FTR, some requested releases like Dustin Rhodes and Shawn Spears, and others came released like Malakai Black and Swerve Strickland based on WWE’s budget cuts they do a few times a year. There was a lot of those releases during the pandemic, which was beneficial to many wrestling companies in procuring new stars, not just AEW.
In the summer of 2021, with ratings at some of their highest points off the back of Kenny Omega’s feud with Hangman Adam Page and fans coming back from pandemic measures dropping, AEW was able to sign CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Adam Cole in a matter of months. AEW’s roster exploded with new talents either with WWE background or coming directly from the company. Mark Henry, Paul Wight, Miro, Buddy Matthews, Kyle O’Reilly, Roderick Strong, Bobby Fish, Mr. Brodie Lee, Saraya, Toni Storm, Ruby Soho, Matt and Jeff Hardy, Angelo Parker and Matt Menard, Mercedes Martinez, Tony Nese, Claudio Castagnoli, Keith Lee, Athena, Samoa Joe, and believe it or not there’s more.
Since that summer of 2021, the AEW roster exploded with talents coming from WWE and other parts, all wanting a piece of the AEW success. The company felt secure that fall with a young Men’s World Champion in Hangman Adam Page at the top. Dr. Britt Baker DMD was Women’s Champion, another wrestler best known for her time in AEW than anywhere else. The Lucha Brothers, who first really got known from Lucha Underground, were AEW World Tag Team Champions. Despite all of these WWE stars coming in, the company hadn’t lost their roots of what got them to the show and what got them so many stars wanting to join the party.
They did begin to lose it in 2022.
The Second Era of AEW
2022 saw the exit of Cody Rhodes to WWE, the first major exit of a top name in AEW to WWE. It saw CM Punk, a veteran in his 40s who just made his return to pro wrestling, beat Hangman Adam Page for the AEW Men’s World Championship. The Hardy’s were beating the Young Bucks on that same Double or Nothing. Kyle O’Reilly beat Darby Allin on that same pay per view in a singles match.
Punk’s title reign was short lived due to injuries and his propensity to attack his co-workers backstage, and the AEW Men’s World Championship would constantly go back to Jon Moxley for “balance” before it went to Maxwell Jacob Friedman. MJF is an original of AEW, coming out of Major League Wrestling and the American indies, but his title reign at times felt less like a young star rising to the top of AEW and instead a shift in program tone. That shift wasn’t just because of MJF, but it happened under his reign in 2023.
In 2023, CM Punk fresh off his suspension got to pretty much have his own AEW brand in the Saturday night Collision, which debuted on TNT including a soft brand split of wrestlers, some returning, who all had former WWE backgrounds. Malakai Black, Andrade el Idolo, Buddy Matthews, Miro, and FTR all featured heavily on the show along with CM Punk. It was almost like the former WWE wrestlers were carving out two hours of their own, a Vatican City in Rome for AEW.
Eventually CM Punk would punch his way back to WWE. Andrade would also return to WWE. Talk is that Malakai Black is soon to be making his way out as well. Mark Henry is already gone. I didn’t mention William Regal but he was in and out pretty quick. Bryan Danielson has retired from full-time competition but is expected to return at some point.
Some of these wrestlers have been absolutely fantastic for AEW. Swerve Strickland barely got a shot in WWE, only a run in NXT, and has since made AEW his home and is one of the top stars in the company. Toni Storm left WWE on her own accord and nearly quit the business. She’s been fantastic in AEW with three Women’s World Championship runs. Plenty of wrestlers have made AEW home and feel accepted by AEW. But it makes me think of that quote from Vince and the deluge of talent, and whether it was intentional or a byproduct of the pandemic, it certainly did damage to AEW’s core.
TNA’s First Six Years
The reason I spent 1,000 words talking about AEW’s growth is because early on I mentioned another “potential rival to WWE” in TNA Wrestling. TNA Wrestling started in 2002, essentially out of the ashes of World Championship Wrestling. TNA was spearheaded by Jeff Jarrett and quickly assembled a roster of anyone WWE hadn’t signed after the deaths of WCW and ECW. It tried to be something new with the X Division. It tried to build their own stars. It included some of the best of American indies and tried to respect international wrestling flavours through the X Cup. Sting choosing TNA over WWE was a major moment in establishing the company as an alternative to WWE.
Six years in, TNA in 2008 had a roster of established originals like AJ Styles, James Storm, Bobby Roode, Petey Williams, Motor City Machine Guns, Jay Lethal, LAX, and more. They had their Knockouts Division which was one of their best ratings gains with women’s wrestling. Joining Jarrett and Sting they had Christian Cage, who left his WWE contract to sign with TNA. The Dudley Boys jumped to become Team 3D. Kurt Angle got let out of his WWE contract and he signed immediately to TNA to become their biggest star, and build a major rivalry with Samoa Joe.
They also had Kevin Nash. And Scott Steiner. And Scott Hall. And the Voodoo Kin Mafia, which was the New Age Outlaws. They had Booker T jumping over. They had appearances from the likes of Test, Rikishi, Diamond Dallas Page for a few pay per views, Norman Smiley, Disco Inferno, Johnny Swinger, and so many more. Anyone not loved enough from WWE went to TNA. Anyone WWE didn’t want went to TNA. By 2008, there was a split between the wrestlers TNA fans accepted as “theirs” and the high priced ticket items with name value from dead promotions and the former World Wrestling Federation. Most of these wrestlers were in their 40s and 50s and taking advantage of TNA’s desperation to be an alternative to the WWE.
Sound familiar?
The Main Event Mafia
2008 wasn’t originally a bad year for TNA. They had their biggest pay per view of all time with Lockdown 2008, featuring Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle in a cage match they worked less like a pro wrestling match and more like a worked MMA match. Three months later Samoa Joe was still TNA World Heavyweight Champion but he was wrestling no contest main events against Booker T. In October he lost the championship to Sting. That Bound For Glory had Jeff Jarrett beating Kurt Angle in the semi-main with Mick Foley as a special enforcer.
Two Impact’s later fans watched AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, the two biggest young stars in TNA without any ties to WWE, true alternatives, losing in the main event to Kevin Nash and Sting. TNA knew that fans were getting frustrated with the older wrestlers on top. They didn’t try to placate the fans. They instead leaned into it and formed the Main Event Mafia.
The Main Event Mafia was Sting, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Kevin Nash, and Scott Steiner essentially winning all of the titles in a feud with “The TNA Front Line”, and it just magnified the issue of having these older stars lord over the wrestlers in their prime and in their youth. It was a battle of wrestling philosophies on display, to either favour the veterans, the people who had experience being world champion and drawing houses, over the wrestlers who didn’t have that same experience but felt like the true gasoline in the engine of the promotion.
And it sucked. Boy it sucked. It sucked for the same reason New Blood versus Millionaires Club sucked in WCW. It also turned Sting and Kurt Angle into being “part of the problem” in TNA instead of part of the solution. Fans didn’t see them the same way after that, though both still stayed popular. TNA would essentially repeat history when Hulk Hogan showed up with a bunch of even older guys like the Nasty Boys and Ric Flair to once again lean hard on the old guys who already made their money over the younger guys the fans rallied behind who wanted their shot.
2008 was the sixth year of TNA. 2025 is the sixth year of All Elite Wrestling.
Maximum Carnage
You might not care about me explaining TNA, and you might have even rejected this entire piece because the thought of AEW and TNA in the same sentence grosses you out. AEW was supposed to be different from TNA. It was supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past to not make those same mistakes. There’s no faction of old guys running AEW. It’s Jon Moxley, a well respected and first PPV guy. Yeah he’s a former WWE guy but he’s also a diehard AEW star. He’s been the Ace of AEW.
And there he is, with his Death Riders, starting a war against the young wrestlers in AEW who struggled to get to the top. He’s trying to motivate them. He’s trying to get them to break through that glass ceiling and be the greatness AEW needs them to be. It’s about motivation right? Except Jon Moxley destroyed them all. He destroyed Orange Cassidy. He destroyed Darby Allin to the point where he’s going to be gone likely for half the year. He beat down Private Party then didn’t care they won the tag titles.
This Crusade against AEW involved the youth of the company struggling to get to the top until World’s End, when now it also involved Adam Page and Jay White. And after Moxley won the match, out came FTR and Adam Copeland. It’s now Rated FTR versus Death Riders. Former WWE guys. Former WWE stars. Feuding each other. Not the youth, not the guys on the come up. It’s now just about these old guys.
At the same time, you have Jeff Jarrett trying to do what Bryan Danielson did, declaring he’s trying to become World Champion before retiring. He’s now feuding with former World Champion MJF. And Hangman Adam Page, another former World Champion who helped bring AEW’s rise in 2021, is now feuding with Christopher Daniels, a 54-year-old who since 2020 has been used more as an AEW executive/staff member than pro wrestler. The cherry on top is Chris Jericho, the first AEW Men’s World Champion, after months working undercard and winning the ROH Men’s World Championship to try to help ROH get a TV deal, is now in the mix with the Death Riders and Rated FTR.
The rejection of these storylines came to a head online as AEW announced that next week on Collision: Maximum Carnage, a 12 wrestler tag match would be the main event. In that main event? 54-year-old Chris Jericho, 44-year-old Claudio Castagnoli, 39-year-old Jon Moxley, 38-year-old Big Bill, all former WWE stars, with Wheeler Yuta and Bryan Keith, against 51-year-old Adam Copeland, 40 something FTR, the youngest men The Outrunners, and Powerhouse Hobbs. The problem isn’t Hobbs, or Outrunners, or Keith, or even Big Bill. It’s seeing Jericho, Moxley, Claudio, Copeland, and FTR all in this match. All the problems all in one place.
Former WWE stars. Veteran main event stars clinging to their spot. Old tired acts that never refresh. Men in their 50s as the top stars instead of the youth and wrestlers in their prime.
AEW’s Main Event Mafia Era
This is essentially the birth of a Main Event Mafia in AEW. The fans outright rejection of it with screams for AEW to pivot from the Death Riders storyline, which is expected to run to Y’All In 2025 on July 12. That’s when Darby Allin is expected to return from climbing Mt. Everest to get his revenge against Jon Moxley. Moxley did try to make this about building Darby into a main event star, but the constant heat on Darby getting beaten down week after week, combined with him leaving for months, has got people apathetic about the angle.
The Death Riders lost their purpose. Rated FTR works as a trios feud against The Death Riders but not as Adam Copeland feuding for the world title. Jeff Jarrett taking TV time, Chris Jericho taking TV time, Christopher Daniels getting any licks on Adam Page, it’s all the wrong way. It’s the wrong message. It’s reminding everyone of the sins of TNA. The sins of WCW. All of the lessons AEW was supposed to learn from. All of the mistakes AEW wasn’t supposed to repeat.
And now AEW President Tony Khan is in the precarious situation of having a fan backlash telling him to pivot from a major storyline that got Jon Moxley out of the house and back into the company after a several month break. A major storyline involving respected stars he listens to like FTR and Adam Copeland. All of these older stars like Jarrett, Jericho, and Daniels are all guys Tony wants to show respect to. Doing so has caused AEW to feel like a product making all the same mistakes his predecessors made.
The problem isn’t former WWE talents. Lots of former WWE talents have been great in AEW. I never mentioned Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin, two men who are both in their 50s but have done a lot more to feel a part of The New Standard. They don’t really feel like old guys taking advantage of their status. They feel like fresh parts of the AEW product. For now.
The problem is that the perception in AEW has hit a critical mass. The Two World’s I talked about? This is the result. A fanbase upset, divided, frustrated, and providing no faith to AEW for the storylines they are trying to tell, or where they are trying to go with them. The plan might be for MJF to annihilate Jeff Jarrett and Hangman Adam Page to murder Christopher Daniels Saturday night in the Texas Death. It doesn’t matter. People don’t want to see these guys messing with old men. They want them at the top of the card against the best in the business.
It’s unfortunate because in the midst of this, I think AEW has done a fantastic job building up Powerhouse Hobbs for his singles match against Jon Moxley on Wednesday. He actually feels like a threat to the Death Riders and to Jon Moxley’s championship, to the point where folks like myself have been saying, “Hey, if you want to take something from WCW? Take Lex Luger beating Hollywood Hogan on Nitro.” Hobbs even uses the Torture Rack. Imagine the reaction of Hobbs unexpectedly becoming Men’s World Champion and beating Mox in his hometown?
But it doesn’t matter. The combination of Kenny Omega’s return being less impressive in AEW than his return at Wrestle Dynasty in Japan, the end of the Continental Classic, and AEW highlighting their old stars over future young stars in the dog days of winter have a fanbase that’s telling AEW they are not here for the ride. AEW may have accomplished the WBD rights renewal which allows them to be an extremely profitable company for the next several years, but fans are vocally unimpressed with the product being delivered.
Pivot or Stay Course
I’m not as down on the product, but I completely understand why people feel this way. I see the same things they are seeing. I’m hearing people say that a lot of wrestlers are frustrated, and that frustration could be leading to people looking to jump to WWE for a fresh start. We saw the first of it being Penta debuting on Raw this week. This doesn’t feel like a company on its way up. This doesn’t feel like a company making their biggest profits ever. This doesn’t feel like an alternative to the WWE. This feels like just another rival to WWE acting like every other rival to WWE has acted.
Trust the veterans, ignore the youth, lose the youth, lose the veterans, be left with nothing.
TNA had their Main Event Mafia that confirmed to fans that the product was never going to change. They knew the problem and they were going to use it for cheap heat. That title reign of Samoa Joe meant nothing. All that matters are the former WWF and WCW stars that looked good on a poster to a casual fan.
AEW is close to their Main Event Mafia Era. And it sucks. Because it’s the road to hell paved with good intentions. The Death Riders was about making Darby Allin, but the product on TV and pay per view hasn’t been strong enough to justify the wait. In moments like this, the best thing to do is realize you’re going too far with the heat. It doesn’t matter how well laid out your plans are, sometimes it’s too suffocating. We’re not getting a lot of sun as it is in January. Give us some sunlight in our AEW product.
Do I expect AEW to make a hard pivot? I don’t. I think Tony would rather keep his veterans happy, even if he knows it’s hurting the product. But as I said on Twitter, integrity in a leader is telling people things they don’t want to hear when you’re standing up for your business. In the moment they’ll be angry, but if they also have integrity? They will respect your decision in the end.
2025 should be a banner year for AEW. They’ve survived what Vince McMahon tried to inflict on them, they’ve survived the issues of CM Punk, they are getting Kenny Omega back from injury, and they got their WBD extension. It sure doesn’t feel that way.
Tony Khan wanted this as a new era. It is possibly one, but it won’t be the one he wanted. If he doesn’t listen to the fans, if he doesn’t end these angles, if he doesn’t make AEW about, “The best of AEW” instead of, “A reminder of previous generations and previous promotions” the new era he’s looking at is the Main Event Mafia Era of AEW.
The fans want an AEW they can believe in. It might be annoying to see the word “pivot” on every reply to AEW tweets, but it’s going to be a lot worse when they say nothing at all.