What Could Have Been: What If WWE's Jade Cargill Had Stayed In AEW?

Former longest-reigning AEW TBS Champion Jade Cargill is one of WWE's most buzz-worthy signings in recent memory. She made the jump from AEW to WWE in September 2023, and was the first signing under TKO Group Holdings. Her final match in AEW took place on September 15, and days later, on the 26th, it was revealed she had signed a multi-year deal with WWE and was pictured training at the Performance Center.

Since arriving in WWE, Cargill has made an impact on the main roster. She's held Women's Tag Team Championship gold alongside Bianca Belair and entered a notable feud with Naomi after the three women were thick as thieves and known as the "Big 3." She's also had two WrestleMania moments so far, including a victory over Naomi at WrestleMania 41, which she followed up by winning the 2025 Queen of the Ring tournament. After not being able to best WWE Women's Champion Tiffany Stratton at SummerSlam or in a slew of other matches for the title since August, however, Cargill finally turned heel on a recent episode of "WWE SmackDown" and is set to challenge for the title once again at Saturday Night's Main Event.

She may be making waves in WWE after being pushed as a big star ahead of her in-ring debut at the 2024 Royal Rumble, but Cargill wasn't doing too bad for herself in AEW prior to making the jump. She held the TBS Championship for 508 days, a record just recently broken by Mercedes Mone, and was 60-0 in the company before she was defeated by Kris Statlander for the gold at Double or Nothing 2023. Cargill could be set to capture the WWE Women's title very soon, but as we prepare for what is potentially her crowning moment, it's hard not to wonder what could have been if she had stayed in AEW.

If Cargill stayed in AEW and still took her first loss to Statlander at Double or Nothing, where would she have gone in the company? It's likely that after taking such a shocking loss, AEW would still have taken her off television for a few months to freshen her up following her impressive streak of victories. Cargill also could have taken that time to train somewhere to improve her in-ring skills, which fans have criticized and are arguably more important in AEW than WWE.

AEW could have given Statlander a four-month reign with the championship, only for her to be dethroned by Cargill upon her return in September, instead of her losing the gold to Julia Hart in a triple threat involving Skye Blue at Full Gear that year. If, like in the real timeline of Cargill's career, she failed to regain the title from Statlander, she could have moved on to challenge for the AEW Women's World Championship following Toni Storm and Mariah May's rivalry — though that would have had her floating around AEW's women's mid-card scene for quite some time.

Storm and May's storyline ran through the entirety of 2024 through March 2025, where it concluded in the brutal Hollywood Ending match. Following her TBS Championship loss, AEW would have had plenty of time to build Cargill up to be a threat to Storm's title, perhaps following her feuds with Athena and Mercedes Mone. During those matches, at All In and Forbidden Door, Cargill could have been a looming prescence over the "Timeless" one as she once again began stacking victories, though perhaps not to the extent of her 60-0 streak. She could even have been the one to dethrone Storm at All Out instead of Statlander, especially if the match was still a fatal four-way.

If AEW wanted to keep Cargill strong before having her win the AEW Women's World Championship she could have either never lost to Statlander in the first place, or regained the belt after her few months off television for some extra training. If Cargill never left the company, it seems likely that she would have quickly gone face-to-face with Mercedes Mone after "The CEO" signed with the company and officially debuted in March 2024.

If Cargill was holding the TBS Championship at the time of Mone's debut, she could have dropped the gold to Mone in a big way, well before Mone ever started her "belt collector" gimmick. The pair could have had a huge face-off, with Cargill as the heel and Mone a debuting babyface at "AEW Dynamite: Big Business" in Boston, which would have made for an excellent visual. Instead of Mone defeating Willow Nightingale for the TBS Championship during her first match in AEW at Double or Nothing 2024, she could have beaten Cargill, then defeated Cargill in a rematch to prove her dominance and gone on to crush Cargill's record-setting first reign as TBS Champion.

In between losing the title to Mone, which likely wouldn't have dropped Cargill's stock too much, she could have feuded with the likes of Queen Aminata, Alex Windsor, Harley Cameron, a returning Jamie Hayter, Mina Shirakawa, and more, before her eventual shot at the AEW Women's World Championship. With how many women in AEW who have to bide their time before getting a shot at the main women's gold, it wouldn't have felt strange for Cargill to have to work her way back up to the top.

It's difficult to say whether or not WWE would have been worse off without signing Cargill in 2023, but the company certainly would have missed out on the buzz in signing one of the hottest women who found some of the quickest success in its rival promotion. There's one notable storyline that could have suffered, however, and it was one of WWE's best in 2025.

Without Cargill becoming best friends and WWE Women's Tag Team Champions alongside Bianca Belair, who knows if Naomi would have ever had her excellent heel turn, leading to her capturing the Women's World Championship? Hopefully, it still would have happened for Naomi, but Cargill being there for Naomi to direct her fury and jealousy toward, leading to her laying out Cargill on the top of a car during a November 2024 episode of "SmackDown," worked very well in storyline. 

No Cargill in WWE doesn't necessarily mean that the company couldn't find a way to turn Naomi's character heel, but it might not have been as good of a story, especially when it came to Cargill's return and beatdown of Naomi with Belair looking on while locked in a pod, at Elimination Chamber. Naomi's betrayal of Cargill led to everything else, including a major WrestleMania moment for Cargill and the eventual title win for Naomi.

Cargill still has plenty she can accomplish in WWE, and she's worked her way to the top at a fairly steady pace since signing in 2023. While there will always be some "what ifs?" about "The Storm" and if she had chosen to stay in AEW, WWE fans are likely going to see her climb the ranks even higher, due to her presence and star power, over the next few years.