AEW and WWE: Where They Succeed and Where They Can improve

Hello, My name is Joel and I am a new writer here at NoDQ. Anybody who follows me on Twitter(or X) knows I am very opinionated but most of that is largely because of how passionate I am about professional wrestling. It’s been my entertainment since I was 6 years old and right now is probably the healthiest the wrestling business has ever been. I watch as much wrestling as I can consume while still having a functioning personal life. WWE, AEW, TNA, NJPW, NOAH, Stardom, GCW, CMLL, AAA. Having two major companies that can pay talents a competitive salary is the best thing for the business.

I’m an admitted WWE guy. I’ve not been shy about that fact. However, that does not mean I can’t acknowledge when other companies do well or acknowledge when WWE does something wrong. AEW has been the most consistent product for most of the year. Does that mean I think WWE has been bad? Absolutely not. It just means that I believe AEW, when you combine their Television and Pay Per Views, has been the more consistent product. Do I think the gap is as big as some on social media would have you believe? I do not. AEW has done an exceptional job building the Hangman Adam Page story. Adam Page has been the main character of AEW since the beginning. He epitomizes what AEW is about and putting him against Jon Moxley at All In is the way to go. I’m not in love with the story around it. It feels rushed with some forced elements but Hangman is the right choice. They just have to stick the landing. In my opinion, anything other than All In ending with Hangman taking that World Title out of the briefcase is the wrong call.

COUNTER PROGRAMMING

A hot topic lately has been the subject of Counter Programming. I personally can’t bring myself to care about the issue. I see both sides of the coin. If you are a fan of both shows, you would likely want to watch both live. If you are a fan of AEW, you probably want WWE to just leave AEW alone and I get it. WWE once said they do not consider AEW competition. What a shock, they lied. That being said, I understand the business aspect of it. You want AEW treated like competition, WWE is treating them like competition. When WWE treates you like competition, as we’ve seen with ECW, WCW, JCP, etc, they don’t take their foot off the gas. Do I think running THREE events on All In weekend is a little overkill? Probably. Then again, they’re all in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia so I’m going to be in attendance. All In is still going to be a killer show and may even be the best show that weekend. I’m old enough to live through the counter programming of JCP. Ted Turner once called Eric Bischoff into his office and asked how they can compete with the WWF and Eric Bischoff flat out said put WCW on prime time against Monday Night Raw. The Monday Night Wars were born out of counter programming. AEW put Dynamite on Wednesday Nights and WWE decided to try kill them before they even got started and the Wednesday Night Wars were born out of Counter programming. If I was AEW, I’d fight back. Put a Pay Per View on the same weekend as the first two night SummerSlam. Let’s get really nuts. I think AEW will be fine. They’re not going anywhere. They have a good television deal, streaming on Max, their attendance is slowly improving. AEW Double or Nothing held its own last weekend against a Saturday Night’s Main Event that did 2 million viewers on NBC. So, while I understand the people who are upset by it, I can’t have the same issues because I just don’t think it is going to hurt anybody.

Ways to Improve the Products

Now while I generally enjoy both products, there are glaring holes that need to be improved on. AEW has been consistent this year in building the Hangman story. They’ve done a good job of pivoting from stories that were not working such as the Jeff Jarrett retirement tour. The Hurt Syndicate have been a breath of fresh air to the tag team division. I’ve enjoyed the continued evolution of Swerve Strickland. The matches are good to great. The Pay Per Views always deliver. By all accounts, AEW has been firing on all cylinders since at least February and, as long as they can stay the course, can have their most productive year since 2021. Even with that, there are things that AEW needs to improve on to truly surpass their success of 2019-2021.

IMPROVE THE WOMEN’S DIVISION

It’s probably a hot take but one of the most common takes I see on social media is how improved the AEW Women’s division is and compared to previous years, they are absolutely right. However, the Women’s division has a lot of work to do. It seems that unless you’re at the top of the division, the Mercedes and Toni’s of the world, there is not much time devoted to your development. Megan Bayne is a star in the making but it seems like we have been in a holding pattern with her for months where we still don’t know much about her or her motivations. Athena is still not on television. The Women’s division would get a tremendous boost from having Athena on television every week and yet she’s stuck in ROH working the same Billie Starks angle she’s been working for 2 years now. They had a money match with Athena vs Mercedes and they brought her to AEW television to blow off the match in the second round of the Owen and then sent her back to developmental.

The Mariah and Toni story was probably one of the best women’s stories told in the last 25 years. It elevated Mariah May to superstar level to where she is now likely to receive a huge payday from WWE. Other than that, stories in the women’s division have been few and far between. They had a chance with Willow and Kris Statlander but the “we’re friends, now we’re enemies, now we’re friends again” angle they’ve been playing since last year has run its course. Up until the last month, the entire booking of Willow since she lost to Mercedes at Double or Nothing last year has been baffling. Willow should’ve been Women’s Champion two years ago and all she has to show for it is a 45 day reign as TBS Champion just so they could get that Mercedes match. Hopefully now that she’s re-signed, she will be used more on her own and not as an extra in the Death Riders story. Once this is over, run with Willow.

Too many start and stop pushes. It seems like every few months, they try the Anna Jay experiment before getting bored and then you barely see her. Deonna Purrazzo came into AEW, had an intense feud with a not yet turned babyface with Toni Storm for the AEW Women’s Title, and then just vanished. She turned heel, formed a tag team with Taya Valkyrie called the Vendetta, had a decent feud with Thunder Rosa that was relegated to Collision, but the booking of Deonna over the last year is a perfect example of what I am referring to. Julia Hart, Queen Aminata, Statlander, Rosa, are other women who need to be doing more. There’s only so much you can do when you don’t have more than one match on Dynamite every week and on the rare occasions where they have two, the second is usually a squash match or a match under 5 minutes. AEW has a stacked Women’s division. Use it.

THE TAG TEAM DIVISION

I said earlier that the Hurt Syndicate was a breath of fresh air for the tag division. However, the booking of said tag division has been subpar at best. They gave Private Party the titles based on their performance in a loss to the Young Bucks last year and then they proceeded to give them one of the worst booked reigns of any champion in AEW history before they dropped the titles to Lashley and Shelton. You have the CRU, the Gunns, Dark Order, Death Riders, different variations of the Callis family, the Young Bucks, Private Party, FTR, the Hounds of Hell, the Kingdom, LFI, the Learning Tree, the Opps, Outrunners, MxM, Paragon, Top Flight. That’s not including primarily ROH teams. That looks like a pretty stacked tag team division. The problem is you barely see 90% of those teams on a regular basis. The Pay Per View matches of the Hurt Syndicate since winning the titles have left a lot to be desired. You have the talent to put on one hell of a division that could be the highlight of the show every week. Use it.

GET THAT BELT OFF JON MOXLEY

This is kind of the big one. The World Title reign of Jon Moxley has probably been the worst booked World Title reign in company history. Creative combined with lackluster matches have doomed this run. It’s been better over the last month but that hasn’t erased Seven months of mediocre booking and subpar wrestling. They have the chance to correct that with Hangman. The Moxley reign was obviously designed to catapult Darby Allin to the next level by having him be the one to end the reign of terror. Then he went to climb Mount Everest and the Hangman story really started to take off. I know Tony likes to see his stories through but I think this is a situation where a pivot is necessary. Darby will have his time. Just not now. Having Hangman lose at All In would be a creative fumble of epic proportions similar to Cody Rhodes losing to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39.

WWE is not Exempt

WWE is not exempt from criticism. I personally love the Jade Cargill and Naomi story. It has elevated both women. Naomi has done the best work of her career. The booking of Jey Uso since winning the World Heavyweight Title has been superb. I know many didn’t like his angle with Logan Paul but he’s been constantly booked like a guy who matters and is the top guy on Raw. The surprising push of Iyo Sky has been a delight to see. I don’t think many expected her to retain the Women’s Title at WrestleMania but she’s proven herself and you can tell she’s a woman that Triple H values. The new alliance between Paul Heyman, Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed has given Raw, which has been the most consistent WWE show pretty much every week, it’s top angle. The Smackdown Tag division might be the best tag division in the world at the moment. That said, there are issues that need to be resolved.

ESTABLISH CONTENDERS

Zelina Vega is the Women’s United States Champion. Before that, she hadn’t had a single win in months. Giving people title shots off losses has been an issue that has plagued this company since the Vince McMahon administration. It is not that hard to just build up your contenders. The Smackdown tag division has been great but DIY, MCMG, have both received title shots off of losses. One thing AEW has over WWE is wins and losses matter a little bit more. WWE as a top heavy roster where they have a lot of main event acts in both the men’s and women’s divisions. That does not extend to the mid card, primarily because of the rampant 50/50 booking that takes place with pretty much everybody except Jacob Fatu. You elevate more wrestlers, you elevate every title by having the people fighting for it having the momentum needed to do so.

CREATE MORE NON-TITLE WOMEN’S STORIES

WWE has done a better job with the Women’s division the last few months. Like I said, the Jade Cargill and Naomi story has elevated both women to the next level to the point where they had a non title Women’s match at WrestleMania. They’ve shown it can work. The main roster has 5 women’s titles. With the incoming talent to the main roster, you can’t just keep having feuds that only center around a title. You need to create more non-title stories and not just one woman beats another and then that woman gets her win back a few weeks later. I mean something like Bayley and Iyo, Jade and Naomi. Triple H’s regime has shown they can do it, they just have to put forth the effort it takes to do it. The Women’s division in WWE has the most talent of any women’s division I have ever seen. The way the capitalize on that is by creating interesting stories that don’t just involve one of the Women’s Titles.

GET THAT TITLE OFF OF JOHN CENA

Much like the AEW World Title with Jon Moxley, the thing I think is holding down WWE the most is the WWE Title situation with John Cena. I was as hyped as anybody when John turned heel. I was waiting for him to win the title at WrestleMania. However, the John Cena heel turn just has not worked and in order to salvage this retirement tour, Cena needs to lose that title back to Cody Rhodes and finish out the year as a babyface. The sooner it happens the better and I would do it at Saturday Night’s Main Event in Rhodes country of Atlanta, Georgia. The promos haven’t been good, the matches have been subpar, and the creative has lacked any kind of originality. If they want to get WWE moving in the right direction again, Cody Rhodes needs to once again save WWE.

So, there you have it. A little long winded for my tastes but I feel like if WWE and AEW improve on the things I mentioned, we will have two products that are not only hot financially but also firing on all cylinders creatively. I enjoy both shows but for them to get where they need to go, changes need to be made. We are half way through the year. I expect the second half to be even more explosive, exciting, and unpredictable as the first. Until next time.

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