Back when I wrote about the exit of Powerhouse Hobbs from All Elite Wrestling I started with a mini rant about the AEW Trios division.
In it I said I was going to wait and see how it takes for them to have Hangman doing stuff with Swerve Strickland and not defending the Trios Championship with JetSpeed before I got further about it.
Is This a Division?
Strickland faced Kevin Knight in a singles match the week after the Trios win and defeated him. Page would work a singles match with Katsuyori Shibata on Collision. Samoa Joe beat Speedball Mike Bailey. At least Page and Speedball were building to a rematch.
In February Page would… beat Mark Davis. On his way to the AEW Men’s World Championship. Okay. Kevin Knight beats Scorpio Sky on Collision. Hangman then beat Andrade El Idolo to become number one contender for the AEW Men’s World Championship. So hey, I was wrong. Hangman wasn’t doing stuff with Swerve. He was just off to try to win the world title against MJF.
Kevin Knight would have another singles match on Dynamite, this time against The Beast Mortos. We would then finally get an AEW Trios Championship match. Was it against The Opps? Nope. Joe beat Speedball then took a break. Was it against Don Callis Family? Nope. That Davis match was just to build up Page for beating Andrade and going after the singles title. Was it against SkyFlight? Nope.
It would be The Demand. The Demand probably should have won it too, since the future plan was for Ricochet to drop the AEW National Championship at Revolution. Instead they retain and the next Dynamite, Kevin Knight is back to winning singles matches. Adam Page the next week is squashing a jobber. But then we get a random main event where Don Callis Family does get a shot against the Trios champions and defeats them. Kazuchika Okada, Mark Davis, and Kyle Fletcher are now Trios champions.
So that should be in for the Jet Set Rodeo right? One defence then loses on a random Dynamite before Revolution? The DCF actually promise to defend the titles at Revolution, something that hasn’t happened since All In Texas. It’s pretty clear they didn’t want them to be champions and just had to get the titles off The Opps. Why else would Page and Knight be doing singles runs? Now they got time to do it and oh. JetSpeed are just getting a new partner.
And are winning the Trios Championship at Revolution with their new partner.
Is this a division?
Or is this a trinket?
Real Division
This sentiment ended up repeated by Bishop Kaun of The Demand.
What frustrates me so much about the Trios division is that it’s the perfect division for AEW’s gigantic roster. It’s a great way to take a bunch of wrestlers who you can’t put in a singles or tag division right now and still keep them important. Not just important but thriving.
This division should be a big part of why you watch AEW every week. Whoever is champion should bring a style and aesthetic to the division. It can be a showcase of styles. It can be a lucha party match. It can be a PWG party match. It can be a quick tag powerhouse match. There’s so much you can do with it but you have to actually take the time to build up contenders and build up rivals.
AEW has plenty of factions. They have plenty of already established trios teams. They even just established a new one in The Dogs. Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, and David Finlay. What did they do? They lost their first trios match and after won a tag match without Gabe Kidd. Sigh.
The Demand. The Death Riders. You can probably form three teams with Don Callis Family all in rotation. The Conglomeration. Young Bucks with Jack Perry, Kenny Omega, or Adam Page. La Faccion Ingobernable. Bang Bang Gang. Dalton Castle and The Outrunners. Johnny TV and MxM. Heck you got Tommaso Ciampa with FTR any time you want. SkyFlight. THE RASCALZ. REMEMBER THE RASCALZ?
Do you see how deep this Trios division could be? You could have a new match every week. One week you do a trios match to set up who faces the Trios champions the next week. When you establish a feud that’s when you do tag matches and singles matches. But otherwise? You should be showcasing this division every week. It should be a staple of AEW Collision. You know tuning in you’re always going to get a 15 minute Trios match that’ll melt your face.
What did we get for Collision last weekend? A crazy good Trios championship match? Nope, sorry. Kevin Knight facing Kazuchika Okada for the AEW International Championship. Still gotta keep the Kevin Knight singles run going. Which hey, I’m all for. But it shouldn’t be while he’s Trios champ. That should come after.
Does the Division matter?
Whenever I talk about this I get told not to care because hey it’s just the Trios titles. Just ice them. They don’t matter. Too many belts.
All Elite Wrestling has a real opportunity to do a lot of good with this division. Make it mean something. It doesn’t have to be the Von Erich brothers in Texas level mean something. Just make it so when people hear about a Trios match on the show they know they are in for a treat. This will be a match they want to sit down and enjoy. If The Dogs get booked against Bang Bang Gang you know it’s going to be a show. If LFI are facing Rascalz get ready for bodies flying everywhere by choice and by force.
Maybe it doesn’t bother other people and that’s fine but when I see a Trios Championship held by Speedball Mike Bailey, Kevin Knight, and Místico? I’m happy. That’s the kind of team you can develop a division around. These guys know the importance of quick tags in trios matches and building set piece spots to dazzle audiences. I want those guys as champions being proud champions.
Yet what I get instead is Kevin Knight caring more about building up his reputation as a singles wrestler. It isn’t done in an organic way for the division where they are feuding with someone so he’s working a singles match that showcases him. It’s here Kevin is, Trios champ, but actually we’re going to focus on him winning singles matches on TV instead of focusing on the Trios division.
Again, if that doesn’t bother you, if all you care about is good wrestler wrestles good match on TV, okay. But I’d like some garlic butter and Old Bay on my lobster. You can be happy with less. I think they can provide more.
Providing more is making the division matter. Making the division matter is making the champions want to defend the Trios Championship more than anything in the world. Singles and tag matches are distractions, a means to an end. The end should be the Trios. Wrestlers should be declaring for the Trios division, recruiting for the Trios division, and pushing for matches in the Trios division.
Does the division matter? Right now no. I don’t think it does, and it truly hasn’t since the Best of Seven between Death Triangle and The Elite. Remember how great that was? Ever asked yourself why don’t they do that again? Pretty simple answer. There isn’t two trios teams on that level. And until there is? You shouldn’t get one. More importantly? You should be asking for it.
King of Trios
Tonight on Dynamite we’re actually getting two Trios matches and one of them involves the women!
Triangle of Madness will take on the Brawling Babes with Mina Shirakawa while The Demand face Jack Perry, Brody King, and Kenny Omega.
I’m good with the women getting a trios match and it only makes sense that the Triangle of Madness work trios against the women in protecting the AEW Women’s World Champion. It’s a good way to actually use a trios match for the purpose of developing singles stories.
The Demand against three very strong babyfaces… I honestly hope The Demand win this. This could be a step in the direction of developing The Demand as the top contender for the Trios Championship at Dynasty. It’s not against an established Trios team so it’s okay if these strong singles wrestlers lose this one. Or rather, that’s what the logic should be. If they lose it’ll be a missed opportunity but I won’t be surprised.
I know the typical AEW fan response. “Quit complaining the show is great” I personally am always aware you’ll never get a perfect show. You can’t expect every division to be great, every wrestler used properly, every feud promoted to its full extent, etc. but I do think you should at least try. I don’t think for the past few years AEW President Tony Khan has tried his hardest when it comes to making the Trios division great.
I also think if you had a strong Trios division, it allows other divisions to thrive. It creates a better focus. It takes bodies out of the other divisions, even just for a PPV cycle, to allow the other titles to focus on contenders.
The dream of course is a King of Trios.
King of Trios, for those who are not old and need annual check ups, was a multi-night tournament by the CHIKARA promotion in the 2000s and 2010s that featured 16 teams competing to be the King of Trios.
AEW has already borrowed from New Japan Pro Wrestling to have their own G1-Climax (The Continental Classic) and their own New Japan Cup (The Owen Hart Memorial Tournament) so it only seems fitting if they are going to have a Trios division and so many teams? Go ahead and have your own King of Trios.
AEW could do it too. 16 teams? You’d have JetSpeed and Místico, The Rascalz, Death Riders, The Swirl with Jay Lethal, Dark Order, FTR with Ciampa, The Dogs, LFI, The Opps, Bang Bang Gang (if they can stay healthy), Shane Taylor Promotions, The Elite, The Conglomeration, The Demand, Dalton Castle and The Outrunners, and probably four combinations of the Don Callis Family if you wanted to. That even left out MXM TV and maybe a Hounds of Hell/Brodido combination. It also left out what made CHIKARA fun sometimes: really random batshit teams like Team WWF (One Man Gang and Demolition and later 1-2-3 Kidd, Aldo Montoya, Tatanka) and Team Pump (Scott Steiner, Petey Williams, and Jordynne Grace.)
You could run an event like this as an HBO MAX special and maybe leave the finals to the pay per view, or just run the whole thing in a single weekend.
This is the kind of vision I have for the Trios division. If you don’t want to go this far? Don’t have one.
