Mistakes AEW Wants You To Forget

It's human nature to make mistakes, but in professional wrestling, mistakes can be costly in both a metaphorical sense and in a literal one too.

For example, if a booker decides to make someone their top guy and the fans don't connect with that person, attendance might start dwindling, interest in the product might start to decrease, and both of those things will lead to the company itself making less money in the long-term. Making less money could then lead to talent leaving the company as they won't be getting paid as much as they would like, causing fans of those departees to follow them out of the door, and before you know it, that one mistake made the booker has led an entire company to the door of bankruptcy. That is obviously a very extreme example, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

With that said, it's only natural that companies will want their fans to completely forget about the mistakes they have made over the years, something that is very important for a company like All Elite Wrestling. Founded in 2019, AEW's entire existence has lived within the age of social media, where the attention span of the average viewer is a lot shorter, but their memories are a lot longer thanks to every piece of footage AEW has produced being easily accessible. The actual age of the company itself doesn't help either as all wrestling promotions will have mistakes in their formative years, but because AEW is a company that has essentially grown up in front of the entire world, the mistakes they have made along the way are a lot more obvious.

That is what we're here to talk about today. The problems that AEW have created for themselves over the past six years, and the mistakes they have made that people like Tony Khan would rather have you forget. So sit back, relax, fire up HBO MAX (or Triller if you live internationally), and join us on a journey through the short history of AEW, where we take a look at some of the mistakes they've made, and the ones they would want to erase from your memory.

On paper, this was a booking decision that could have worked wonders for AEW in its first few years, but in the grand scheme of things, it became the first domino to fall in a chain of events that would ultimately end with Cody Rhodes leaving the company he helped create to become one of the biggest draws in WWE's recent history.

When AEW first started, every member of The Elite who helped form the company had their specific role to play. Hangman Page was the man who would eventually become the "main character" of the promotion, and have it built entirely around whatever storyline he would be involved in. The Young Bucks mainly focused on bringing tag team wrestling to the forefront, trying to create a division that was not only strong enough to have the best match on any given card, but main event TV shows and pay-per-views. Kenny Omega was the former foreign ace of New Japan Pro Wrestling and was going to try and bring the vibe of NJPW's boom period to a North American audience.

As for Cody Rhodes, he was the face of the revolution. After all, he was the man who took Dave Meltzer up on his bet that no one outside of WWE could put more than 10,000 people in a building for a wrestling show in the late 2010s. Cody was the face of the company right down to the fact that he was the one doing the media calls before pay-per-views, so naturally fans thought that when he challenged Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship at Full Gear 2019, it was going to be his crowning moment. Then the stipulation of Cody never being allowed to challenge for the title if he lost was added, but veteran fans saw this as a trope that had been used and abused before, amplifying Cody's chances of winning...then he lost.

MJF threw in the towel at Full Gear on Cody's behalf, meaning that the "American Nightmare" wasn't able to challenge for the title of the company he helped create. Some people thought this would lead to some sort of redemption where the stipulation could be reversed, but AEW stook to their word, and Cody never challenged for the title again. Instead, he became a three-time AEW TNT Champion, a title that many people saw as a consolation prize for one of the company's EVPs.

Throw in months of storylines that weren't well received with the likes of Malakai Black, QT Marshall, and Anthony Ogogo, and Cody had accidentally pigeonholed himself as "The Gatekeeper" in his own company. Cody knew he was a World Championship-level talent, but couldn't do it in AEW, and that one booking decision became a major part of him leaving the company in early 2022. Seeing how well he has done in WWE since then, AEW would certainly like you to forget that it was their booking that helped him there.

If there's one thing that AEW have mastered over the years, it's making their pay-per-views feel like must-see events. Their original schedule of only having four marquee pay-per-views every year has more than doubled as of late, and while some fans will complain at the sheer length of some them, there is no denying that every AEW pay-per-view has at least one match or moment that has fans around the world talking. However, just because you get the fans talking, doesn't mean that they are talking about something good, and there's arguably no show in AEW history that has angered and annoyed people more than All Out 2020.

Taking place deep into the COVID-19 pandemic, a period of time that many people see as a high point for AEW, All Out 2020 is one of the shows that will always get a mention when it comes to the topic of the worst AEW pay-per-views of all time. It does have its bright spots, such as Kenny Omega and Hangman Page's feud officially starting when they lost the AEW Tag Team Championships to FTR, and solid enough matches that have largely been forgotten such as The Young Bucks vs. the Jurassic Express, Thunder Rosa vs. Hikaru Shida, and Jon Moxley vs. MJF.

Nevertheless, the "Mimosa Mayhem" match between Chris Jericho and Orange Cassidy, and the "Tooth and Nail" match between Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D and Big Swole weren't received well by the fans, but then there's this; the "Broken Rules" match between Sammy Guevara and Matt Hardy.

Despite a short runtime of just over six minutes, the match between Hardy and Guevara has become infamous for one spot in particular. Both men were fighting backstage on top of a scissor lift while two tables sat below waiting for Hardy, Guevara, or both men to crash through them. In the end, Guevara would spear Hardy off the lift and through the table, but with the tables being set up too close to the lift, they overshot the landing and Hardy hit the back of his head on the concrete floor. The match was stopped as it appeared as if Hardy had been knocked unconscious, but for some reason the match continued, and after taking a fall that could have killed him had it gone slightly different, Hardy would get up, carry on, and win the match after climbing a scaffold that Guevara would eventually be thrown off of.

This was the match that forced AEW to introduce new concussion and medical protocols, and while everyone walked away from the match relatively unscathed, letting Hardy continue the match made AEW look amateur, unsafe, and unable to take proper care of their wrestlers. Hardy himself has admitted that he told Dr. Michael Sampson that he was okay to continue, to which Sampson gave the green light, but the recklessness of it all left a sour taste in everyone's mouths, and overshadowed the rest of the show.

When you think of the best rivalries in AEW history, a few immediately spring to mind. Toni Storm and Mariah May's war over the AEW Women's World Championship. Swerve Strickland and Hangman Adam Page trying to murder each other at every opportunity. Page's redemption story that culminated in his feud with Kenny Omega. All of those stories are heralded as the best that AEW has had to offer in its six year history, but there's one thing that they all have in common; they all had a satisfying conclusion. After all, it's how you leave them that's often the most important part of a wrestling storyline.

Sadly, the same can't be said for what was meant to be the first truly epic story in AEW history; Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley. The end of the first AEW pay-per-view, Double or Nothing 2019, ended with Omega and Moxley brawling around Las Vegas. The main event of the first "AEW Dynamite" had Moxley deliver a Paradigm Shift to Omega through a glass table, and the two men had the company's first Lights Out Unsanctioned match before the end of 2019. Fast forward 12 months and the AEW World Championship was now involved, and the face/heel dynamic had reversed thanks to Omega aligning himself with Don Callis. Something had to give between Omega and Moxley, the main event scene wasn't big enough for the two of them, and they needed something truly spectacular to cap off their hellacious feud.

The Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match was heavily influenced by the matches Atsushi Onita produced in FMW back in the 1990s, and acted as the ultimate feud ender for Omega and Moxley. The match took place at the 2021 Revolution pay-per-view, a show that is remembered quite fondly for the most part, but you wouldn't know that due to the main event being one of the biggest failures in modern wrestling history.

After a match that many considered to be very good, while others put it a step below their Lights Out fight in 2019, Omega and The Elite celebrated the big win while Moxley laid motionless as the alarm sirens sounded, signalling that the ring was about to explode with Moxley being a sitting duck. Eddie Kingston, who had feuded with Moxley not long before this match, ran down to shield his friend in the same way Onita did for Terry Funk in 1993. Then the explosion happened, and oh dear.

Commonly referred to by many as "farty pyro," the explosion had as much ferociousness to it as a sparkler on the Fourth of July. It was the ultimate dud ending to a pay-per-view that had been well received beforehand. Jokes were made at AEW's expense for weeks, months, and even years afterwards and rightly so. It was pathetic, and as you can expect, it's never included in highlight reels or video packages celebrating AEW's past. What could have been an explosive ending turned became an embarrassing mess.

At the time of writing, Chris Jericho's name has been back in the headlines as it has been heavily rumored that "The Learning Tree" could be on his way back to WWE. His contract with AEW is set to expire at the end of the year after signing a three-year deal in 2022, and barring any injury time that could be added, Jericho will likely be one of the names floated around for a surprise Royal Rumble appearance in 2026. This begs the question of where did it all go so wrong for the inaugural AEW World Champion?

At the time that he signed his new deal, Jericho was in the middle of one of his best individual years for quite some time. He managed to have an entertaining feud with Eddie Kingston, which eventually morphed into the new Jericho Appreciation Society faction taking on Kingston and the Blackpool Combat Club. This then led to him becoming "The Ocho" as he captured the ROH World Championship, before dropping it back to Claudio Castagnoli at that year's Final Battle pay-per-view. Then the problems started to arise.

His persistent need to latch himself on to whoever the hottest or most exciting talent in the company became far too noticeable for people's liking. Ricky Starks, Adam Cole, virtually every member of The Don Callis Family, anyone who had a little bit of buzz around them in 2023, Jericho would be hovering near them ready to pounce with a six month program that would make him look just as strong as the younger talent who was meant to get the rub from the former Undisputed WWE Champion. However, the point of no return was the weekend of the Worlds End pay-per-view in December.

Jericho had gotten into an argument with CM Punk's attorney, Stephen P. New, on social media regarding non-disclosure agreements, with Jericho saying that he's never had to sign one relating to anything since joining AEW. "Haus of Wrestling's" Nick Hausmen would then get involved by claiming Jericho had actually made people in AEW sign NDA's due to how many supposed skeletons Jericho has in his closet. Hausmen would even go as far as to reference disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein as a comparison for Jericho's situation, a situation that was rumored to be the reason why former AEW star Kylie Rae left the company in 2019.

With all of this spreading across social media on the day of Worlds End, a show that Jericho not only appeared on but wrestled in what would be Sting's final match in the state of New York, he was booed out of the building, something that would become a regular occurrence in 2024 with his feuds with Hook and Mark Briscoe. Fans were already tired of Jericho by Worlds End 2023, but the talk of allegations were the final straw for many people, and it was a major mistake that AEW would like leave in the past.

Without question the biggest black eye that AEW has ever given itself, and the most frustrating thing about this whole ordeal is that it was so easily avoidable.

CM Punk's two year run can be split directly down the middle. At the time, his first full year between August 2021 and 2022 was the most fun he'd ever had in his career, something he even mentioned on Instagram, but his second year was one of the most controversial periods of time in recent wrestling history. It all started with a comment Hangman Page made in a promo where he said Punk talked a big game about workers rights, but had shown very little of that since he arrived in AEW, a reference to the rumor that Punk had gotten Colt Cabana fired from the company.

These words stayed with Punk through the summer of 2022 while he was injured, and when he returned just before All Out, it was clear that tensions were bubbling under the surface of the company. After All Out had finished, Punk, who probably knew he was going to be on the shelf again due to a torn triceps muscle, went on a verbal tirade at the post-show media scrum, burying Page, Cabana, The Elite, and anyone else who came to his mind. The Elite, Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks, decided to confront Punk about what he said, and before everything could be settled, "Brawl Out" was born, as the two parties got into a backstage brawl and were suspended for their actions.

Fast forward to the debut episode of "AEW Collision" in June 2023, a show that not only gave AEW two more hours of programming, but also gave the company a chance to split The Elite and Punk up so they didn't have to be in the same building given that things hadn't been smoothed over. However, Punk's next problem wouldn't be with The Elite. Instead, it would be with a friend of theirs, Jack Perry, who had already rubbed Punk the wrong way by wanting to use real glass in a segment that was designed to write him off TV. 

At AEW All In London 2023, Perry got his wish by using real glass in his match with Hook, something he showed to the camera before telling Punk to "go cry me a river." Punk heard about this, confronted Perry once he got backstage, and got into a fight with him, before yelling at Tony Khan who was just meters away from the confrontation. Right there was where "Brawl In" was born, an incident that got Punk fired from the company, and an incident that actually got shown on "AEW Dynamite" in one of the most bizarre moves in company history. AEW have spent the past two years trying to move on from the chaos that came with Punk, and given their recent successes, they'd like you to move on from it as well.