MR. TITO: The Problem with AEW All In 2026 and its Current Champions or Pushed Free Agent Wrestlers

Last night, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) held its annual All In Pay Per View event at Wembley Stadium in London, England and in front of just over 44,000 (according to WrestleTix). Sure, that’s attendance is lower than the last AEW All In held at the same arena, but 44,000 is still impressive. Fact is that wrestling attendance is down, across the board, suggesting that maybe worldwide demand for pro wrestling is dipping or maybe the economies around the world are recessing.

If you enjoyed AEW All In 2026, be proud of it. I’m NOT here to belittle you for enjoying the show or parting your hard-earned money to either attend the show or watch it on Pay Per View. This is not a column here to criticize AEW on its workrate or style.

However, this column will describe why AEW is stunted in its growth and has a similar problem that plagues the WWE to limit its growth, too.

Ready for it? Let’s review AEW’s current champions following the All In 2026 event:

– AEW World Champion: Will Ospreay (free agent signed during late 2023)

– AEW International Champion: Okada (free agent signed during early 2024)

– AEW Continental Champion: Jox Moxley (free agent signed during mid 2019)

– AEW National Champion: Andrade (free agent signed during 2025, also previously signed during 2021)

– AEW TNT Champion: Darby Allin (AEW Original)

– AEW Tag Team Champions: Adam Copeland (2023 signing) and Christian (2021 signing)

– AEW Trios Champions: Swerve Strickland (2022 signing) & The New Level (aka New Day, 2026 signings)

– AEW Women’s Champion: Mercedes Moné (signed early 2024 as a free agent)

– AEW TBS Champion: Persephone (2025 signing from CMLL)

– AEW Women’s Tag Team Champions: The Brawling Birds (both working indy or international circuits prior to joining AEW, but more or less originals nationally with AEW)

So besides Darby Allin, AEW is a company that signs free agents and pushes them to the top? Do I have that correct?

In other words, no home grown talent gets pushed and then put over on AEW’s biggest show of the year.

To that extent, I’d argue the SAME problem exists with the WWE with the exception of maybe pushing a few of their homegrown talents close to their expiration dates (Roman Reigns, Randy Orton, John Cena, CM Punk technically, and Brock Lesnar).

Right now in the WWE, it’s not so much that they are pushing free agents to the top, but they aren’t moving on from their main eventers and completely disallowing any recent younger signings or developmental wrestlers to rise up. For example, Oba Femi… We thought Wrestlemania 42 was his big moment when he demolished Brock Lesnar, but then Lesnar attacked him and then defeated Oba in their next match. Sure, SummerSlam 2026 gave us good vibrations, but the fact is that WWE literally wasted 4 months on not pushing Oba to the top from Wrestlemania 42.

Bron Breakker has repeatedly been misused and denied entry into the top main event scene. Ditto for Jacob Fatu, whom Roman Reigns took care of several times. Solo Sikoa hasn’t been important to WWE’s plans since Roman took care of him to start 2025. Aside from the Women’s Division, what the NXT developmental system is bringing up isn’t as strong as what OVW or FCW once provided, but even then, once they do make the main roster, Creative seems to want to immediately cut them at the knees and remain veteran dependent.

WWE has grown since the pandemic because they pushed home grown talent to the top and luckily for them, they had multiple wrestlers ready to hit their prime years when they did it. Roman Reigns, Jey Uso, Sami Zayn, and I’d argue to an extent, Kevin Owens, waited patiently after the terrible 2010s when Vince McMahon micro-managed the WWE roster and then once Jey, Roman, and Sami were repackaged with the Bloodline and Kevin Owens was inserted into the mix, we had an explosion of growth through 2023 and Wrestlemania 39 that created tides that lifted all WWE boats that year.

And then WWE had the potential to put Roman Reigns over even further with him defeating The Rock in a match. Could have happened at Wrestlemania 40, but the better time to happen was at Wrestlemania 41. Rock got busy with movies and that opportunity to make Roman even bigger just disappeared. Now, he’s clinging on to the same playbook and WWE thinks that their fans will eat the same recycled storylines as before. Dominant Roman surrounded by the Bloodline, but this time, as a babyface group.

Meanwhile, younger talents can’t get over in the WWE.

WWE peaked in growth through 2024 and has been on the slow decline since 2025 because they are too veteran heavy. Roman Reigns, CM Punk, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Seth Rollins, and Cody Rhodes have formed a veteran wall that cannot be breached by developmental talent. Meanwhile, WWE’s top brass is trying to milk those veterans for everything they have and hence, why tired fans just won’t pay the insane prices that the TKO corporation wants to charge for WWE events.

AEW just doesn’t have a developmental system… For some of the wrestlers they have tried, they either fizzed out or they somehow got jobs to become WWE’s problem (hello Jade Cargill). Their promotion began by signing free agents from the independents, New Japan, or WWE. That’s fine for a base and introduction, as I’d argue that Jon Moxley and Chris Jericho contributed significantly to AEW during 2019-2021, but then AEW became entirely dependent on free agency. It was nice to have CM Punk back, but AEW didn’t create him and only benefitted from him walking away from the WWE 7 years ago. And then that blew up in their face not just at All Out 2022 or All In 2023, but due to their marketing boasting a “younger roster” while CM Punk in his 40s was not the same worker.

Following AEW All In 2023 and its fallout, that’s when Tony signed many free agents to big deals such as Okada, Ospreay, Mercedes, and Adam Copeland who, by the way, are each holding a title belt in some form for AEW right now.

The result of the late 2023 and early 2024 AEW shopping spree? TV viewership kept declining and attendance for AEW’s live shows, other than Pay Per Views, is deemed a success if it can break 4,000 people with lower ticket prices.

To AEW’s credit, they can put on fun and exciting Pay Per Views… Nobody, including me, denies that.

But I can attend many independent shows who put on tremendous shows, too, but they aren’t getting national attention. For pro wrestling, it’s easier to find great athletes than it is to find great showmen. With time, I’ve agreed that pro wrestling has some of the best athletes in the business today compared to previous years. They can pull off moves and keep the energy going much more than prior generations… However, prior generations of wrestlers did “more with less” and used charisma and psychology to carry the match without having to risk their bodies with high-impact moves. Their moves-per-minute were way down and that allowed them to literally work over 300 shows per year. If wrestlers today worked 300+ matches per year today, AEW’s healthcare bills would bankrupt the company based on the high tempo and high risk style AEW presents.

Here in 2026, it’s not hard to put on a great wrestling match at least in terms of athleticism. Without much innovation happening these days with new moves, wrestlers have blueprints on what will peak the interest of those who give out match ratings using the star system. Just string along “x” amount of moves, have many false finishes, and just keep the energy up and you’ll at least get 3 stars in a match. Increase the high risk moves, and 4 stars or more are coming your way.

The dirty secret for AEW, however, is that they are keeping the free agent signings on top while the rest of the wrestlers are just burning themselves out with this high-risk style. Then, AEW just finds more athletic bodies to keep cycling in and out of the roster to fill that high risk need. However, anyone working hard in AEW from underneath are NOT rewarded and hit a ceiling because Tony keeps preferring to push ex-WWE or ex-New Japan guys on top.

As I’ve said before, AEW has wasted money on Jim Ross. Not that signing him as an announcer wasn’t worth it, but that they never let Ross advise on building a developmental system. What Jim Ross did during the late 1990s through 2005 was remarkable and restocked the WWE roster for decades to come and that momentum kept going through FCW and NXT. While wrestlers at the WWE Performance Center are NOT trained as well as they were at OVW or FCW, the point remains is that WWE has the potential to debut the next homegrown star in the future. Lucky for AEW, WWE is currently pissing away any recent developmental call-ups.

AEW lacks a strong developmental system to present never-before-seen wrestlers on a national level to its fans. Fans like to invest in the process, cheering on someone who debuts and then climbs the ladder all of the way to the top. It’s a time investment to see a wrestler at their humble beginnings to become World Champion and those memories keep you around as a wrestling fan. Watching that process is intoxicating and keeps that wrestling addiction going.

Take John Cena, for example… We all saw his big “ruthless aggression” debut against Kurt Angle, but then we saw him struggle on the WWE roster for the rest of 2002. Then, on a random Halloween episode, he cuts a promo where he raps and suddenly, a new gimmick is born. From late 2002 through early 2005, we got to witness John Cena grow as a character and go from becoming United States Champion to World Champion by Wrestlemania 21. Then, Cena was a great World Champion which kept the rewards going. John Cena always delivered, even when good opponents during the early 2010s. However, Cena made you believe that Miz, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, and CM Punk were big superstars simply by working against John Cena who sold like a champion for them. Then, the 2025 retirement tour was a pure payoff and I think many Cena “haters” also jumped aboard, as they now fully realized how great Cena was back in the day.

WWE is botching their own process of debuting wrestlers and letting them naturally climb the ladder… AEW just doesn’t have such a process.

Instead, they shower those 2023-2024 free agent signings with love and put them over on their top show of the year. Looks like Tony Khan has to continually justify the high contracts that he’s paying each of those wrestlers.

AEW will NOT grow by signing free agents and then pushing them hard against any talent who have been there for a while.

Didn’t we just learn this lesson from Dark Side of Wrestling about Jeff Jarrett’s TNA tenure? TNA began going downhill during the late 2000s and early 2010s because of all of the veteran ex-WWE, WCW, and ECW wrestlers they signed and pushed over wrestlers deemed TNA originals or at least first-timers to the national spotlight. Those 2010s shows literally tried to push the same New World Order wrestlers (Hogan, Hall, and Nash) that WCW made famous together during 1996 as if 14-15 years doesn’t age or diminish any wrestlers.

Let’s go further… How did World Championship Wrestling (WCW) die again? You had Eric Bischoff mismanage the company and give out massive contracts to veteran wrestlers who were kept on top to justify those big contracts. Plus, Eric became a mark after he joined the NWO during November 1996 and went out-of-his-way to make that group strong throughout 1997, 1998, and 1999 even when the NWO gimmick was beyond its prime. Wrestlers like Paul Wight (Big Show) and Chris Jericho knew what was up and sought the WWE for greener pastures. By March 2001, WCW was dead and AOL/Time Warner had massive wrestler contracts to pay off.

You need a developmental system and then require proper planning to debut, build, and push new talent.

If you don’t have a developmental system and push fresh talent, there won’t be any “big” veterans to sign in a few years…

Let me make one last point…

Know what system has a developmental system and has been thriving for the past 10 years? WWE’s developmental system for FEMALES. Their talents are all homegrown or were journey wrestlers until joining WWE. Liv Morgan, now WWE Women’s Champion, was a Hooters waitress and they developed her into a massive star that nobody had before. WWE presented Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks (now Mercedes in AEW), Bayley, Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belaire, and many, many others to the public and got that division over because each star were NOT seen anywhere else before.

Rumor has it that AEW wants Bayley and Bayley wants to possibly join the promotion to join her real life friend, Mercedes… That’s fine, but Bayley is a late 30s wrestler who has accomplished so much already in the WWE. What could you gain that hasn’t been presented or accomplished before with that particular wrestler?

AEW just doesn’t make anything their own… They just borrow other people’s already created stuff.

They have NOTHING original to show for it.

Go ahead and call me an “AEW hater”. At no point, did I bash any performances from AEW All In 2026 or any of its roster.

My point is that AEW is too dependent on free agency and Tony is pushing the wrestlers that he chose to sign with million dollar contracts versus homegrown talents that the fans helped make into stars for Tony.

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