By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer
For some of us, the Monday before Thanksgiving typically means we should be worrying about seeing family, navigating weather, and developing a plan to successfully avoid the cranberry sauce later in the week. This year? This year is different, if only because the Monday before Thanksgiving also happens to be the Monday after one of AEW’s Original Four pay-per-views, Full Gear. Thankfully, that PPV came on a Saturday, which means we had time to think about the fallout from it for an entire day before the beginning of the week came around.
You know where this is going. It’s time for Overthink Monday – AEW Full Gear edition.
AEW’S TRUE MVPs
There are two stories in recent AEW lore that I like more than any of the others. The first is Will Ospreay, who reportedly asked for his match with Swerve Strickland at Forbidden Door earlier this year just so everybody could stop talking about the potential of those two meeting at All In. He took the loss, moved on, and put an end to silly speculation that could have blossomed into disappointment by the time All In came around based on how all pro wrestling fans feel like they deserve exactly what they want, when they want it, all of the time. Ospreay nipped the whole thing in the bud before anyone could start complaining that Ospreay vs. Swerve wasn’t happening at Wembley.
The other story came from Swerve, who talked on a podcast about how early in his AEW tenure, he had no problem doing whatever the company needed him to do. Does someone need him to go out and lose on television in less than 10 minutes? Not a problem. Was his spot always going to be in the middle of the card or a member of a makeshift tag-team that received only periodic booking love? Maybe, but it didn’t matter to him; he was just happy to contribute. In the Backstage News Era of pro wrestling, where it’s easy to have a reputation damaged by one or two rumors of not playing nice, Swerve felt like a breath of fresh air when he said what he said. He wasn’t going to stop working to get to where he wanted to get to. It eventually paid off.
I say all of this, why? Because while so much of the credit for AEW goes to people like Jon Moxley and the Young Bucks, I’m willing to buy into the notion that Swerve and Ospreay are the company’s current most valuable people. As such, can we establish this tiny rule: How about neither one of them takes another high profile loss for a little while?
Kudos to Swerve for putting over Bobby Lashley in his first AEW match on Saturday and while we’re at it, let’s give Ospreay his flowers for laying down for his buddy Kyle Fletcher, too. But, boy it seems like those two have been taking more losses than wins lately and after the run Swerve went on to win the world title – and the fanfare that accompanied Ospreay as he came into the company – it feels like we might be on the cusp of both guys losing the tiniest bit of momentum.
To which, I say: Don’t do it, Tony! Don’t do it!
Here’s hoping 2025 sees things turn around for both guys. Not that they are hurting – on any level, mind you – but both feel like they are two or three more high profile losses away from being defined down by the booking minds. History says they’ll successfully fight through it, no matter the outcome, but let’s not try to make things harder than they need to be … please?
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Probably, at least. If there’s one thing AEW knows how to do, it’s stir up thoughts and propositions and curiosities and hope before … well, before doing little to nothing to follow it up. Enter Christian Cage, Jay White, and Hangman Page all getting involved after the AEW World Championship match Saturday night. On face value, it felt like a welcome, intriguing wrinkle into the Riders Of Death Saga that will clearly dominate AEW programming over at least the next year. Cage teased cashing in his faux MITB briefcase, which, all things honest, I completely forgot he had in the first place, while White and Page brought their feud (that I guess isn’t over?) into the world title picture.
And all of that would be well and fine if AEW didn’t set these types of things up so often only to allow them to fade into the abyss without much explanation. Tony Khan suggested that the angle was set up to remind fans that a lot of people are coming for the world title, but shouldn’t that be implied anyway? And even if it’s not, aren’t we to believe Darby Allin is next up to be taken down by the Riders Of Death? Why muck up that water if you don’t really have significant plans in the works for the belt and the wrestlers who popped up towards the end of the show?
It’s almost like any hopeful, interesting development that AEW teases anymore has gone by the way of “Tony Khan Has A Big Announcement!” segments on Dynamite. People stopped caring once Khan would show up on our TV screens only to announce that, hey, next week, there will be a Dynamite, too! Or (and this one isn’t even a bad joke) to announce that there will be an announcement coming soon! This viewer has lost faith in pretty much all the fun things that AEW could potentially bring to the table – but that’s only because AEW went out of its way to help me lose that faith.
I’d love to think this means White, Page and Cage will develop some meaningful wrinkle when it comes to the world title picture; I will not hold my breath.
A DIMMING STAR
I really thought Mariah May was a can’t-miss prospect. The Stardom pedigree. Stunningly beautiful. Very good wrestler. Charisma for days. And to a large degree, when she first got to AEW, it worked. We all knew where the story was going between her and Toni Storm, but even so, May had one of the most memorable heel turns in the history of the company when she surprisingly attacked Storm on an episode of Dynamite. It was out of nowhere, yet fully expected, all at once – a brilliantly done betrayal.
But be it getting caught in the Toni Storm vortex (which even Toni Storm is having a tough time getting out of), or perhaps it being a lack of top-of-the-card women wrestlers in AEW, May’s Women’s World Championship run has been lackluster. Case in point: Instead of having a title defense on a PPV, we got a TV angle that even felt kind of random in execution. May turned on Mina Shirakawa because May is … mean? I guess? Maybe? The setup for the Toni Storm turn took months to set up and made all the sense in the world, but the desire to go after Mina? Where did that come from?
It’s all to say that May feels like a champion in need of a challenger. No, that’s not an indictment on Shirakawa, who is a very good wrestler; instead, it’s a comment on how cold the women’s division is in that company. Yes, you’re going to tell me about Mercedes Mone or Kris Statlander or a returning Willow Nightingale or Jamie Hayter … the list goes on. I’m not saying there isn’t great women talent in AEW; I’m just saying nobody feels like a draw right now. Hayter’s return has been lukewarm, Britt Baker is on a milk carton, and while Anna Jay is improving, she’s still a ways away from consistently breaking into the top of the card.
I know there’s something meaningful out there for May. I just hope the minds behind AEW know that, too.
BRIGHT LIGHTS
And you want to know what? You can sit MJF right next to May in that row of cooled down stars. Max’s excuse is he’s out chasing Hollywood, and you can’t blame him for that. But mailing in a month’s worth of video promos at a time, never physically showing up at television and not wrestling for weeks, in a surprise twist, actually does hurt your standing within a pro wrestling company. At one point, MJF wasn’t just the hottest thing in AEW; you could have made the case that he was the hottest thing in the industry.
That ain’t it these days. The Adam Cole program reached its expiration date a long time ago, and his one foot in/one foot out approach to AEW makes me wonder if everybody – including him – would benefit from him choosing to sit out until he could make a full-time comeback. There’s a lot to be said for the “how can I miss you if you won’t go away” logic that a lot of old-time pro wrestling minds subscribe to, and in Max’s case, we all know how much of a punch he packs when he returns, so why not just finish up the acting commitments and make a splash whenever he’s fully ready to do so?
I say that as a fan. Of all the young prospects AEW has, MJF has been at the top of the list when it comes to a promising future for the company. He’ll have to be the guy who leads them if he and the company stick around another five, ten years. Having this weird lull in profile feels damaging in both the short and long term. Happy Gilmore 2 is a hell of a role to land, so nobody can blame him for striking while the iron is hot. But even John Cena knows he can’t do both wrestling and acting at the same time. It might be wise for MJF to consider the same ethos.
HERE COMES THE BOOM
I went on record during last week’s Pro Wrestling Boom podcast that I had zero interest in A.J. vs. QT on the pre-show. I didn’t even know what The Costco Guys was to begin with and as far as I knew, Big Justice was Sid Justice’s grandson. But color me impressed with the match A.J. had with QT Marshall on Zero Hour. It was well put together and above all else, it was fun. Just mindless fun that could have been one trillion times worse than it was. Kudos to all involved – especially Marshall, who made everything from the walk up to the match to the actual match itself work as well as it did.
Now, if only some Love Is Blind contestants would be bold enough to step into a wrestling ring …
Be the first to comment