In my World’s End After 48 I talked about the two worlds in All Elite Wrestling. I feel like it’s time to really explain what I mean.
When All Elite Wrestling first started in 2019, it was a combination of Tony Khan’s money and resources with The Elite, who rode the motto of “Change The World” to not signing with one of the existing wrestling companies and instead going ground floor on something new.
The very fabric of The Elite was built upon trying to bring two worlds together. The independent/Japanese wrestling world of Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks with the WWE/American Territory world of Cody Rhodes. It made for good storytelling when they were all in the Bullet Club in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It became real when they decided to all go to All Elite Wrestling.
Second World 1: The CodyVerse
Once Tony Khan officially took over booking after the “Dark Order Incident” it led to a split between Cody Rhodes and The Elite. It was never really brought on television, but Cody rarely ever worked with his old comrades, to the point we coined the term Codyverse. The Codyverse was its own world inside the world of All Elite Wrestling. The rest of the world? That was The Elite.
AEW was able to handle this balance of two worlds because whatever conflict the men had it stayed behind closed doors. When you think back on it, it’s no surprise that Cody Rhodes would eventually leave to return to WWE. He locked himself into never fighting for the AEW Men’s World Championship, and at the time it felt like the belt was in good hands going from Kenny Omega to Hangman Adam Page.
Cody trapped himself tight in the Codyverse in those last months, working with everyone from Malakai Black to Andrade El Idolo to Sammy Guevara. He wasn’t working The Elite. He wasn’t working CM Punk. He wasn’t working Jon Moxley. He wasn’t working Bryan Danielson. He wasn’t working Adam Cole. He was in his own little world, and people would visit and leave, and eventually Cody would leave it.
The departure of Cody Rhodes should have helped bright the locker together under one world, but the accumulation of former WWE talent, everyone from the before mentioned Punk, Danielson, Cole, Andrade, Malakai, and soon Paul Wight, Mark Henry, and more created an imbalance in All Elite Wrestling. You now had a lot of people in the company who know well how things were done in one place. The independent spirit of AEW was now competing with “Former WWE” and slowly but surely it created another world.
Really, it was just an expanded Codyverse. I earlier mentioned Cody coming from the American Territory world but not really. He was a WWE product. He might have ran around WCW a few times while his father was at work, but his heart didn’t beat for WCW. It only beat for the Rhodes name, and that name could make anywhere a home. Cody’s mindset on booking, Cody’s mindset on promoting, everything Cody Rhodes was about in AEW? That was just the WWE ingredient he brought to the meal. That’s why he fits there so well. Him leaving just meant someone else with that same mindset could take up the mantle.
Second World 2: CM FTR
It would be CM Punk who began to build his own vision for what AEW should be, and his vision, unlike Cody’s, wasn’t a cold war fought behind the scenes. Punk went right to The Elite. He beat Hangman Adam Page for the AEW Men’s World Championship. He almost no showed the event because he was so mad at Page for recognizing the fight Punk was trying to start. Page absolutely brought it to light, and Punk was going to leverage that the way he has always leveraged his battles. His vision now had a reason to strike.
Punk in AEW meant the two worlds would be at war. I don’t have to rehash the entire CM Punk saga. Brawl Out, soft brand split between Collision and Dynamite, all of it. People were convinced that the real money was in these two sides putting the real life issues aside to have a worked program that everyone could pretend was real so everyone would buy pay per views to see Elite face CM FTR in a trios match. Because as we know, worked shoots are why WCW is still here today.
Anyway.
Wade Keller of PW Torch once talked about how CM Punk returning to Collision could spell a shift in the AEW locker room. It reminded him of when Eric Bischoff publicly fired Sean “Syxx” Waltman on WCW Television, and how it turned Scott Hall and Kevin Nash from enthusiastic participants in the New World Order storyline to two employees clocking in and out of work and not caring if their actions sabotaged the company. It created a complacency that the company never got out of.
Essentially, Tony Khan tried to keep everyone happy by not punishing CM Punk for Brawl Out, and then made it worse after firing Punk by also keeping Jack Perry off television for months after Punk attacked him in London, England. Firing Punk meant Punk could leave to the WWE and instead of trying to turn AEW into his ideal vision of WWE he could just play good soldier over there. AEW, on the other hand? Had to sit there with the blood still fresh and nobody happy anymore.
Tony Khan has never really embraced The Elite as the guys who wanted to stay and make things a better place since. Instead, he’s tried to find every way possible to downplay them in the company since 2022. He’s essentially punished them for trying to keep their world together. Kenny Omega should always be treated like one of the top pro wrestling stars of AEW. He showed up to World’s End not as a wrestler returning from injury but as an EVP. A suit.
I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about Maxwell Jacob Friedman. MJF was basically right in the middle of the Two Worlds. He was an AEW Original, brought in to be part of the Codyverse, and had the most prolific on air feud with CM Punk. His rise to the AEW Championship should have been something that brought the two sides together. Kenny Omega even lost to MJF on a random episode of Collision just to help legitimize MJF as champion. But the storylines built around MJF felt so foreign to what AEW used to be that MJF didn’t feel like an Original. He felt like a new thing that was even more polarizing than the two world’s. MJF didn’t fit in them. He still doesn’t.
Second World 3: Nega Elite
After MJF, fans wanted something that felt like AEW. They got a gold watch run from Samoa Joe. They then got Swerve Strickland, maybe a former wrestler in WWE but breathed the independent ethos of The Elite. Swerve didn’t feel part of the same world as the former WWE stars. That’s probably why it only lasted for a few months, and since he’s done nothing but lose to old rivals and lose to WWE trying to get a new lease on their career.
Tony had a championship program for the ages between Hangman and Swerve in the palm of his hands but was more interested in giving Bryan Danielson the hero’s exit he gave Sting. He made Danielson AEW Men’s World Champion at All In 2024, and then had Jon Moxley essentially murder him. Moxley talked about having to take the company over for a greater purpose, for the greater good. It feels instead like he’s just taking the reins for Cody and Punk.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe this is all supposed to feel wrong. Maybe Moxley is intentionally running his character in conflict with everything we once knew about him so we’re so sick of it, we beg AEW to give us back the AEW Original mentality. Because I don’t consider Moxley “WWE minded” but so many choices in the Death Riders are certainly smelling like WWE. Mox and Marina Shafir feels like Triple H and Chyna. The constant run-ins, the cheating, attacking people with windex and duct tape. The pre-taped videos.
It all feels like Jon Moxley choosing to be everything he hates so we appreciate everything from the world of The Elite the day Darby Allin defeats him. We will rally behind Darby and hope those days are over for good. If that’s the case? They’ve done a piss poor job of coming to it. They had something with Orange Cassidy and ruined it with the Christian Cage Instashot threats, having Moxley call out his own opponents for a four-way match, and ending World’s End with Death Riders being challenged by CM FTR. Oh sorry, I mean Rated FTR.
I can’t see how Jon Moxley in 2019 would support Jon Moxley in 2025. He’d hate that guys guts. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe Jon changed. Who knows.
When World’s Collide
Now we’re in 2025, and after multiple attempts to bring a “New Era” to AEW, every time it’s said it just leads to people believing in the company less and less. The last “New Era” was Adam Copeland debuting. The current one is Adam Copeland, now Cope, feuding with Jon Moxley for the AEW Men’s World Championship.
2025 has started with so much of AEW’s roster having to interact with wrestlers in their 50s and up. Death Riders are messing with the Rock and Roll Express. Jeff Jarrett is trying to challenge for the World Championship before he retires. Hangman Adam Page, just days after he definitively defeated Orange Cassidy and finally looked like a world beater again, got cheapshotted by Christopher Daniels of all people.
And then you have Cope, who could have built this up by saying, “I should be going after my TNT Championship but in the AEW jungle I want the biggest game and that’s you Jon” he instead calls Moxley “kid” because when he started wrestling Mox was just growing his first pubes. It’s just a reminder that Cope used to be Edge, and Edge was in WWE 25 years ago. It’s not about AEW. It’s never about AEW.
What about the other world? Well, we saw it in the Continental Classic. It was once again the best part of AEW. After all the main events it headlined in December, it still couldn’t headline World’s End. Then Kenny Omega makes his return to pro wrestling at Wrestle Dynasty and reminds everyone he’s not just the Best Bout Machine. He’s the most exciting pro wrestler alive.
When Kenny returns, he probably isn’t going to return to fight the other world. He’s going to return to solidify his world. It’s likely going to be for the Continental Championship. That belt can be for the world of Kenny Omega, Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland, Adam Page, Jay White, and others. The Men’s World Championship will be for Moxley, for Cope, for Jarrett, for MJF (maybe), and eventually for Darby Allin.
Terranigma: Resurrection of the World
If it was up to me? Kenny Omega would be returning to put an end to the reign of Jon Moxley.
Immediately. I’m talking on Dynamite first chance you get.
Darby can still challenge Jon Moxley at Y’All In, but it won’t be for the championship. Omega as a babyface champion is the best business decision AEW could make after Wrestle Dynasty. Pivot now. Don’t wait. Throw away everything not working.
But it’s not up to me. It’s up to Tony Khan, and Tony Khan has built AEW on this two world compromise. The path of least resistance. Giving everyone a little of what they want so nobody is truly satisfied. Moxley will get to tell his story. Cope will get his championship match. Jarrett will get his one last ride. Omega gets to return against Jack Perry and do the story they were about to do a year ago before feuding with Kazuchika Okada in the summer to sell Y’All In.
Tony supports this; he’s pushing these stories. AEW Collision on Saturday night is what Tony Khan felt right to show before everyone watched Wrestle Dynasty and saw his wrestlers in the Tokyo Dome give their absolute best.
I’ve already become resigned to the fact that Tony Khan will continue trying to please the two worlds. Undisputed Kingdom is proof of that for me. It doesn’t matter if it’s not working on television. He won’t pivot. He won’t hit the brakes. Because he’s trying to make these guys happy over making his product the best it can be and he’d rather run a bad storyline to completion over pivoting.
I understand it. I understand that sometimes the best way to handle pro wrestlers is to give them a little of what they want in hopes it’s enough to satisfy them. I understand how hard it feels when wrestlers you love act out to get out of their contracts, when guys like Jon Moxley sit at home because he hasn’t found a good reason to come back to work. I understand it’s easy to look at what you built on The Elite side and feel like hey you got what you could out of them and it’s time to try something else. Well actually that one I don’t.
I understand it, but I want Tony Khan to rise above it.
The Old World
After the Dark Order Incident, I wrote back in 2019 about the company not yet a year old and only on TV for four months:
“AEW was supposed to not just be an alternative to WWE but an alternative to what failed wrestling minds have thought pro wrestling is supposed to be on cable television for the past 20 years. This isn’t about preference. This is about not embarrassing your audience and not being careless with your talent. And in one post main event segment, AEW forgot why they are here in 2019. More importantly, they forgot why we’re here watching.“
It’s funny to read that, what I wrote in December of 2019, because it feels like I could have written that about 2025.
This isn’t a new issue. This isn’t something where you just fire a few people and it’ll all work out. This is day one. This was happening when The Elite were in charge of booking. This is something deeply ingrained with All Elite Wrestling.
Tony Khan and All Elite Wrestling will likely forever try to balance these two sides. I don’t think one is ever going to win out against the other completely. Every time one world takes control, the next world will slowly rise. The scales will continue to sway.
Maybe it’s some Faustian Bargain. Instead of the soul for knowledge, it’s a great in-ring wrestling product that consistently fails to meet your expectations creatively. It’s an alternative that is here to stay so people don’t have to choose WWE, but the definition for alternative will never be properly defined.
I have the same fear others do. That AEW spending so much time on older talent is going to leave the youth stuck in a holding pattern, and that youth will eventually leave. Tony is trying to get the last out of Christian Cage and Adam Copeland instead of going with Swerve Strickland and Adam Page at the top. He’s trying to keep Jon Moxley happy so he never has to see a Shield reunion at WrestleMania. He’s giving Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin a chance to do what WWE would never let them at the expense of every day one team.
But I also don’t respect anyone who would leave to WWE knowing that the whole fucking reason people needed AEW to be an alternative was because of the damage WWE did to the industry for decades. Damage the industry has never completely recovered from. AEW wouldn’t be trying to right wrongs if WWE didn’t create those wrongs in the first place. At the end of the day this alternative will never be worse than no alternative at all.
AEW trying to balance two world’s will forever be better than going back to the Old World. The Old World before AEW. I’ll continue to be critical on every AEW misstep, and I’ll continue to be critical of AEW focusing on wrestlers on their way out instead of the wrestlers in their prime. But I’m also aware that these two worlds still meant AEW got an extended TV deal. They still tour to thousands a night. They still provide the Continental Classic. They still provide a product that respects the sport of professional wrestling.
I’m never going back to the Old World. I’m going to instead look forward to Kenny Omega taking back his world.