In a weird announcement on Wednesday, Tony Khan went live on Twitter with Tony Schiavone to announce that there will be a new championship coming to All Elite Wrestling: the AEW National Championship. The championship will be won at Full Gear by whoever wins the Men’s Casino Gauntlet.
Everyone was of course normal about this instead of freaking out. Of course.
I’m going to disregard people in the National Wrestling Alliance freaking out about AEW introducing their own National Championship and bringing up the belt that was on TBS 40 years ago. NWA doesn’t own “national” championships, and either way? Their championship is a National Heavyweight Championship. AEW doesn’t do weight classes. Also they weren’t referencing the title on Mike Mondo (sigh) but the title Nikita Koloff unified with Wahoo McDaniel. Is it technically the same title? Yes, but Shiavone’s reference was only that. It wasn’t saying AEW was taking that exact same title. Settle down. Willie Mack was your best Zwan-era NWA National Champion and Silas Mason is great.
The AEW National Championship, at least from what we’ve heard so far from the two Tony’s, is going to take a lot of the attributes of what the AEW All-Atlantic Championship was supposed to be. When that was introduced in 2022, the talk was it would be defended around the world and against AEW partners. Tony Khan made sure to bring up that he has promoters interested in seeing the National Championship defended in their promotion, so it’s likely to be defended in places like CMLL and NWA.
I want to spend more time talking about if adding a new men’s singles championship is a good idea for AEW, what’s too many titles, and who this could be good for. We should also nickname it the Natty Championship.
“All the gold and the guns in the world”
The AEW National Championship will be (technically) AEW’s 11th championship.
I say technically because the Unified Championship is not a championship in the sense of the others. It’s just to represent the winner of the match between Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega. The International Championship and Continental Championships are still individual titles and could be defended separately. Unless Tony decides to officially merge them, which would mean AEW only has nine championships.
AEW has introduced a championship almost every year.
2019: Men’s World, Men’s Tag, Women’s World
2020: TNT, FTW
2021:
2022: All-Atlantic/International, Trios, TBS
2023: Continental
2024:
2025: Unified (just the International and Continental combined), Women’s Tag, National
As you can see, only 2021 and 2024 had no championship introduced. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer decided this meant that AEW was its most successful with less championships, a claim that suggests a correlation between less titles and more success as a promotion. Cool. Tell that to CMLL.
(Also combining AEW and ROH is silly. Are we combining NOAH with DDT and TJPW when we do these counts? NJPW with Stardom? Are you going to act like the NJPW TAMASHII Tag Team Championship is conflicting with cards? ROH titles are not on all AEW shows. Sigh.)
I present this because it seems like Tony Khan likes to do this. He likes having new gold in the promotion. It’s something he likes to do to shake up his creative. This year will be the most gold introduced since 2022. 7 possible years of the company existing and 5 of the 7 he’s brought in a new championship in a calendar year.
If the title is used as more of a touring title, something to be defended in partner promotions and independents? I see it as almost an AEW advertisement of sorts. Send the AEW National Champion out to defend it around the world. If they are out defending it more than being on TV? It won’t feel like they clogged up the championship scene.
“All That Glitters is Gold”
My personal stance if I ran a promotion in this: one title per division.
If it was up to me? There would be no National Championship. No Unified Championship. No TNT or TBS Championship. Just a Men’s Championship, Women’s Championship, and so on. I believe no matter how many wrestlers are on your roster, there’s only one championship they should be fighting for. To me the championship is like the Stanley Cup of hockey. You can’t have a lesser Cup.
But that’s just me. That’s my view. My view is rarely reflected in any wrestling promotion. Heck the NBA now has an NBA Cup and the NBA Championship so I can’t always point to sports. Even DEADLOCK has two singles titles for the men, with their own National Championship to go along with the World Championship. If I don’t see what I want in any wrestling promotion in the world worth a damn, how is it appropriate for me to apply that to a promotion as a criticism?
I also think Tony Khan as a booker does care how many wrestlers are in a division, and once he feels it breaks the 10+ mark, he needs to give another championship for wrestlers to go after. He also doesn’t look at it in the “belt for a midcard, belt for the main event” style some book but that the championships can build their own credibility and main event depending on the strength of the champion.
So AEW introducing another championship doesn’t really bother me. He can come out with a new title every year for all I care. Also, you can always just deactivate a championship that isn’t working. Any company around for more than five years has had to do this. It’s okay. Stop trying to apply a pressure to AEW that you have allowed every promotion in the history of wrestling to get away with without complaint.
It also wasn’t that long ago that AEW had four singles titles for the men: World, Continental, International, and TNT. It’s just going back to that folks! World, Unified, TNT, and now National.
That said…
“Golden Needles cannot mend this heart of mine”
A legitimate argument to not introducing a new championship is an audit to how well AEW is handling their existing championships.
We can start at the top, though I’ll focus mostly on the men. Hangman Adam Page is a great choice for AEW Men’s World Champion, but the company did do a poor job building up heels for him to face. Once Jon Moxley was exhausted as an opponent and Maxwell Jacob Friedman got his shot early? The battlefield was empty. They had to have Page face the TNT Champion and now he’s facing Samoa Joe two pay per views in a row.
Kyle Fletcher is the perfect choice for TNT Champion, as he’s the best young star on the roster. The problem is that Tony with the TNT Champion often gets them an opponent they face over… and over… and over. Sammy Guevara and Scorpio Sky basically ruined the title in their back and forth. The belt bounced back and forth between Wardlow and Samoa Joe at one point with Powerhouse Hobbs and Darby Allin in between. Christian Cage and Adam Copeland of course made the belt about their feud with each other. Daniel Garcia got sucked into a vortex of Adam Cole. Now we got Kyle Fletcher tied up with Mark Briscoe. When it’s less about open challenges and one guy getting match after match? It freezes the division.
Kazuchika Okada was basically on autopilot because the Continental Classic is around the corner, but as Unified Champion he also represents the International Championship. AEW had him instead getting involved trying to be AEW Men’s World Tag Team Champions instead of building a contender for his title. That division is basically one man holding his shiny belt. It’s a good thing it’s someone as great as Okada. He did have a fantastic match with Bandido and the three way at All Out Toronto was my favourite match of the night, but he doesn’t really have a program except Takeshita, who likely won’t win the title since he’s IWGP World Heavyweight Champion.
To steer a bit to the women, you also have Mercedes Moné as TBS Champion essentially going after the AEW Women’s World Championship and AEW Women’s World Tag Team Championship when it comes to AEW storylines. She is doing a good job defending the title outside of AEW, which she defends then wins another companies gold, which is great, but for a program? The last two major programs for Moné haven’t been for the TBS Championship. It’s for the Women’s World Championship.
So no, it’s not like all of these divisions are on fire and that means AEW can go ahead and open the door for a new championship because someone is left behind. They are left behind because these divisions are clogged at the top with repeat programs and champions not feuding with contenders.
It’s why I said it made sense to do the AEW Women’s World Tag Team Championship. The tag division for the men is going great. It was a deep division with multiple contenders. It is doing fine. It made sense to now focus on building a women’s division.
When AEW ended the FTW Championship I said it was unrealized potential once again rearing its ugly head. There was more that could be done, but it made more sense for them to just end it if it was really just a trinket for Hook so he didn’t have to lose. I felt the same way on the International Championship, unrealized potential, and if AEW does handle this National Championship the way we were promised when the International was called All-Atlantic? At least that’s an opportunity to do that over again.
So if your criticism of the championship isn’t just a quantity issue and more of AEW not putting enough effort in building these divisions up? I’m with you. They should do better, even if things are not bad. They absolutely have issues that would be better to address than just start up a new title.
“G-O-L-D, G-O-L-D, that’s gold”
Who wins it?
I have three suggestions that first came to mind when the announcement was made.
Ricochet
I’ve felt for a while now that Ricochet deserves something to say thank you for your service in 2025. Ricochet’s heel turn has been a big success, and for some reason hasn’t earned him a shot at Hangman Adam Page for the AEW Men’s World Championship. He did get an International shot at Dynasty, and he did get a shot at The Opps for the Trios Championship, but I feel like that’s not enough of a reward for the work he has put in. Making him National Champion would be great. I’m sure he’d be happy to defend it anywhere too. He’d be perfect for CMLL, and New Japan of course loves him too.
The only problem is it might stunt the development of The Demand as a trios team the way it did for Adam Cole winning the TNT Championship while Paragon was trying to be a top trios team.
Orange Cassidy
There hasn’t been much for OC to do since returning except go right back to feuding with Death Riders, which he clearly isn’t enjoying if you heard him announcing Blood and Guts. But OC is one of the biggest stars in the company, and his run as International Champion was phenomental. OC doing this would be more of the same to that, but he’d be a great first champion. It would also help The Conglomeration feel like more than just a punching bag for heels like Don Callis Family and Death Riders.
My only issue is that OC winning this in a Casino Gauntlet when he really wouldn’t be a number one contender for the other titles would mean you would have to work him up with some wins on TV to make it feel a bit more special.
Jon Moxley
When my mind went to Moxley? I realized this was made for him. Moxley is staying away from Page for the AEW Men’s World Championship. He’s unlikely to go after Okada or Fletcher. So what better for him to do than become a champion again? If you can’t win a title, make one for him.
Moxley recently started working indies again as he worked DEFY Wrestling in October. If there’s one guy you can put a title on and have him travel the world to represent the company? You want it to be Jon Moxley. He will be just as important as Mercedes has been in her appearances around the world. Making him AEW National Champion allows those companies to put him in a high spot and face one of their best.
It keeps Mox out of the world title scene (even if it could use him) and it allows him to feel like a world beater again. The only problem is that all of the secondary titles to the Men’s World Championship are still held by heels. Moxley is also already on TV all the time so having him be a champion just makes the result obvious. His recent matches with Kyle O’Reilly have been a breath of fresh air because they weren’t automatic wins.
“Never a Frown with Golden Brown”
So here we are. Here’s our little fire.
It’s okay to have a preference of less championships, but to pretend that more champions means less people will watch your show is plain stupid. I won’t be nice. If you are really trying to say CMLL or NJPW or any promotion ever would have been more successful if they cut down on belts to win? That’s an assumption you are making with zero evidence.
It is true, however, that AEW could do more to build up the championships they currently have, and while they do have good champions on all of their championships right now? They could use more time in building up contenders for said championships. Adding a new title isn’t going to make that problem go away.
We will have to wait and see how AEW does handle this, who becomes first champion, and if they do have it defended outside the company more than on television. I just don’t see this as that big of an issue, and once again feel like “too much gold” is one of those arguments in line with “not enough pretape explanation videos” where the critics leaning heavily on these are using their personal preferences and selling it as logical business strategy.
And hey, much like the National Championship its inspired by that came from Georgia Championship Wrestling to Jim Crockett Promotions? If it’s not working out? You can always just unify it someday to consolidate.
“Willie Mack with NWA title” by Tabercil is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 
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