The Post’s Joseph Staszewski brings you around the world of professional wrestling every Tuesday in his weekly column, the Post Match Angle.
All Elite Wrestling’s roster construction is making its upcoming television deal that much more important.
The company currently has three hours of true weekly television between Dynamite and Rampage — not counting the quarterly “Battle of the Belts” shows — with around 125 in-ring talents signed, per their official roster page. And that’s not counting those also appearing regularly such as a Willow Nightengale, who isn’t officially “All Elite.”
AEW also has 15 titles that could appear on its programming if you count the Ring of Honor belts, all three of FTR’s tag team championships (but somehow not the AEW ones), and Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo’s Lucha Libre AAA mixed tag team championships. By comparison, WWE has around 97 in-ring talent signed to the main roster with five hours of television each week and 10 main-roster titles, including the 24/7 belt.
Something’s got to give eventually in AEW because the current structure doesn’t feel sustainable.
AEW’s roster looks set up to be able to support both its own brand and Ring Honor if and when ROH gets some form of weekly television back. (Sort of like when WCW had plans to make “Thunder” a WCW show and “Monday Nitro” the nWo show in the late ’90s.) And that may not happen until 2024 when AEW’s television-rights deal is up. That’s also working under the assumption ROH gets weekly TV worth writing home about, not stuck on a channel no one can find or a streaming service no one cares about.
The other way to make things better — but probably not totally fix things — would be for AEW itself to gain some more TV time, whether it be a second hour of Rampage with an improved time slot or a third show either on cable or an HBO Max-level streaming service.
If none of that happens, does AEW president Tony Khan start not renewing contracts, changing his creative, streamlining how much ROH content is on AEW shows or drop the brand altogether? The two can’t be married this closely forever, can they?
That’s because there have been plenty of issues with how AEW’s attempt to sell ROH to TV execs has trickled down to television time available to rest of the roster. It’s only been made worse by the occasional one-off matches with talent outside the company such as New Japan’s Tomohiro Ishii and Minoru Suzuki, AAA’s Aerostar & Samuray Del Sol and the Motor City Machine Guns from Impact. Yes, the matches are cool, but that’s precious TV time you could be using to tell stories or feature more of the talent you actually have under contract.
Even just last week, AEW world champion Jon Moxley faced Juice Robinson with zero build and Ring of Honor champion Chris Jericho did the same against Bandido. Both are talents any company would be lucky to have, but does AEW really need more wrestlers right now when the likes of Andrade, Darby Allin, Kip Sabian or Lance Archer could be doing so much more?
Three hours just isn’t enough television time to get the majority of AEW’s talent and combined championships on the screen in a meaningful way. (I’ve had a number of people ask me just how many titles AEW has.) What it’s led to is the TNT championship, which used to feel so prestigious, barely appearing on TV in a meaningful way since Wardlow won the belt in early July. Wednesday’s cold title defense against Brian Cage doesn’t exactly change that. In fact, Wardlow and ROH Television champion Samoa Joe are now a WarJoe tag team. So both their singles belts feel like they have been rendered meaningless while a feud between them would have been much better. Maybe we get there eventually, but still.
Also, TBS champion Jade Cargill is 37-0 and has the potential to be a breakout star for the company, but outside of a mishmash feud with Athena it feels like she hasn’t had a meaningful story or faced an opponent you’d think for a second has a chance to beat her. If this person is so dominant, why isn’t she your women’s world champion and then go tell some fun stories with great matches with the TBS championship?
It’s why AEW’s next television deal looms even more significant, beyond the big money it’s supposed to bring in. Because if Ring of Honor doesn’t become a legitimate second brand or AEW still has its three hours of TV time, then were all resources spent on reviving a ROH brand that has a limited amount of nostalgia value at best worth it? Does AEW then need to trim down its roster or eliminate the ROH titles altogether? Because while we are likely stuck with this current version a little while longer, it doesn’t feel sustainable without the next television deal giving it the resources to do so.
Opportunity Knocking
Daniel Cormier, who has expressed interest in the past in getting involved with WWE, will be the special referee for Seth Rollins and Matt Riddle’s Fight Pit match at Extreme Rules. Doing so, at least opens up speculation about whether Cormier — a former two-division UFC champion – will get to step in the ring with former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar.
Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio on Monday that he could see it potentially happening at WrestleMania 39. It’s easy to see Crown Jewel also being a possibility for it. But I don’t care where it happens. Get the match in the ring, WWE. Don’t let this window with Cormier front and center on your product pass and then have to bring him back for another reason to get it done.
Cormier, 43, and Lesnar, 45 have a past history with an encounter during UFC 226 that never turned into a fight in the octagon. The Beast has nothing to do right now and few viable opponents left. Get it done, WWE. Get it done.
Momentum misstep
Saraya didn’t put her best foot forward in her first AEW promo and didn’t clear up a whole lot about what exactly she is doing there other than she is trying to usher in some sort of revolution in the women’s division. Credit to her for going on Twitter and acknowledging that by saying she was clearly “rusty.”
But what is her role in AEW? Is she a quasi GM for the women’s division? An on-screen cheerleader? What we didn’t hear was if she is cleared to wrestle, so for now we have to assume it may be a little bit before we see her compete if that’s in the cards. Saraya also took flack for insinuating her ex-bosses in WWE didn’t listen to her. I took that as a reference to the end of her run when she was not used on TV and she has said in the past she had been pitching ideas. It all didn’t add much to the buzz she created at Grand Slam.
The 10 Count
I floated the idea last week that maybe, just maybe Sami Zayn was playing the Bloodline and Jey Uso’s challenging of the honorary Uce’s loyalty this week seems to at least open the door for that.
Seeing Daniel Garcia, who is much improved on the mic, finally tell off Chris Jericho was good to see in a fun segment that both embraced and bristled at “sport entertainment” (Luigi Primo is having a rough go of it.) But I left needing to see more as this wasn’t as big a blowup as expected and Garcia is already teaming with Bryan Danielson next week versus Jericho and Sammy Guevara.
Using Mustafa Ali as a never-give-up, gutsy babyface in a match with Bobby Lashley this week on Raw doesn’t look like much now, but gives WWE at least a foundation to work on in the future with him.
AEW is really throwing Wheeler Yuta in the deep end of the pool in this storyline with MJF, who clearly respects him. It’s up to Yuta to raise his promo game if he wants to reach the next level as AEW clearly hopes he does.
Apollo Crews may be giving Seth Rollins a run for his money as WWE’s “visionary.”
As a point of housekeeping, the WWE women’s championship has been defended just once since the tournament ended on Aug. 29. Maybe at Crown Jewel?
Shaun Ricker is too gifted a performer to be just a manager — which he also knocked out of park. Happy to see we are one big step close to losing Max Dupree and getting L. A. Knight back. Yeeaaah.
If there was a real most interesting man in the world, it was Antonio Inoki. From wrestling Hulk Hogan, humbling Muhammed Ali, pioneering MMA, and helping to free Japanese hostages in Iraq, Inoki was an absolute trailblazer in every way. We lost a legend last week.
If Bray Wyatt is the payoff to WWE’s “white rabbit” clues and does return Saturday at Extreme Rules, the Drew McIntyre-Karrion Kross match makes the most sense for him to return in. Doing at a pay-per-view makes more sense because it would entice viewers to tune into Raw.
I finally finished former WWE head writer Brian Gerwirtz’s book, “There’s Just One Problem…: True Tales from the Former, One-Time, 7th Most Powerful Person in WWE.” And while anyone who is a wrestling fan will love its humor, stories and honesty, I’d highly recommend it to non-wrestling fans who have always been curious about the business. It both explains and illustrates why it’s unlike anything else in entertainment. Lastly, I’ll never look at people eating pancakes the same way again after learning of the McMahon family’s habits.
Extra: Did MJF’s hilarious trolling of the rest of the NL East actually jinx the Mets?
Wrestler of the Week
Rush, All Elite Wrestling
While it felt like there was a lot treading water in wrestling this week, the former Ring of Honor champion got a rare chance to shine in a singles match on AEW television. He turned in a solid Rampage main event against the Dark Order’s Jon Silver and a confrontation with “Hangman” Adam Page afterward could set him up for an encounter with one of the bigger names in the company down the road.
Match to watch
Matt Riddle vs Seth Rollins, Fight Pit match (WWE Extreme Rules, Saturday, 8 p.m. Peacock)
This will be the first time Triple H will bring a match he used in NXT to the main roster. We have only seen the fight pit twice before, originally in a clash between Riddle and Timothy Thatcher in 2020 and then Thatcher and Ciampa in 2021. The ferocity of the Rollins and Riddle feud certainly makes it deserving and should be the payoff to it. Adding former UFC champion Daniel Cormier as the special referee adds a feeling of legitimacy and spectacle to it. Also, anytime Rollins is in a match for the first time, it’s fascinating to see how he will make it his own.