AEW: Missed Opportunities.

[The Natural]

Me and StuntmanCrowley were talking about missed AEW opportunities today in this week's AEW TV thread and we both thought it would make for an interesting discussion. I've created a topic for that reason as the TV thread will get locked while we can add to a still open one when the need arises. Here are mine from today:

More should have been done with the Dark Order since the late great Mr Brodie Lee passed away. John Silver should have been a AEW TNT Champion and John Silver/Alex Reynolds or Evil Uno/Stu Grayson the AEW World Tag Team Championship.

Hangman Adam Page/John Silver/Alex Reynolds should have been the first AEW World Trios Champions. Thank you to StuntmanCrowley for reminding me.

What say you?

[just drew]

Ricky Starks should've beaten MJF, at least for the Dynamite Diamond Ring. 

Santana and Ortiz should've been the first AEW Tag Team Champions. 

Ruby Soho should've won the first women's Owen Hart cup. Britt Baker didn't need it.

 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

Heel Cody Rhodes by a landslide, IMO - we were so ready.

[The Natural]

Bryan Danielson should have held the AEW World Championship sooner.

Eddie Kingston should have beat Miro for the AEW TNT Championship. We thought Eddie Kingston would beat Miro at AEW Grand Slam Dynamite 2021 but the match never even happened.

[The Natural]

The Acclaimed should have beat Swerve Strickland/Keith Lee for the AEW World Tag Team Championship at All Out 2022. Tony Khan should have called an audible.

House of Black should have held the AEW World Trios Championship longer surprisingly dropping it to The Acclaimed at AEW All In 2023. The Acclaimed should have dropped them sooner.

I don't like the AEW World Trios Championship, it's diluted the tag team division. Get rid.

Edited October 17 by The Natural

[Zakk_Sabbath]

2 minutes ago, The Natural said:

don't like the AEW World Trios Championship, it's diluted the tag team division. Get rid.

I was with you on every single letter of this until the last week or so, I'm kinda coming around for two reasons: 1) I'm enthralled with this nü-BCC story and I feel like they'll probably come in handy as a device there, and 2) I'm really excited by the idea of this Jake-led LFI getting a reign at some point. If not for those two things having literally just happened, I'd be with you entirely

[For Great Justice]

I mean, the current biggest drawing babyface in the world was a co-founder and EVP. This has to start there, right?

A few from my personal perspective:

- breaking up Best Friends. There’s a direct correlation between this and the whole vibe of the company changing (along with, arguably, the ratings). This was dumb. This is where a lot of joy, heart and character left the building.

- Wardlow. Not sure what the ceiling was, but whatever it was, this resulted in about 5% of maximum return. 

- Battle of the Belts. What’s even the point. 

[StuntmanCrowley]

The fact that the Best Friends weren't Tag or Trios champions is absolutely criminal.  To piggyback off of Just Drew saying Santana and Ortiz should've been tag champs, how much more memorable would that parking lot brawl have been with the tag belts on the line.  It's one of my favorite matches in AEW history and both teams should've been in title contention.

[StuntmanCrowley]

1 minute ago, For Great Justice said:

:

- breaking up Best Friends. There’s a direct correlation between this and the whole vibe of the company changing (along with, arguably, the ratings). This was dumb. This is where a lot of joy, heart and character left the building.

I've wondered how much of them breaking them up had to do with Chuck needing to fully retire

[Zakk_Sabbath]

50 minutes ago, For Great Justice said:

breaking up Best Friends. There’s a direct correlation between this and the whole vibe of the company changing (along with, arguably, the ratings). This was dumb. This is where a lot of joy, heart and character left the building.

FWIW, my pet theory is that we're gonna get a reunion  at some point during this hostile BCC takeover story, tying directly into your heart/soul thing (my only 'proof' is a gut feeling that they're saving 'Jane' for it) - I know poor Chuck had to retire because of the ankle, but I think you could do a whole lot worse than having him on the outside managing a trio of OC/Trent/Rocky. Circling back to my comment above, they'd make really nice Trios challengers.

ETA: This came up I think either in the TV thread or the monthly thread within the last day or so, but I do find it kinda weird they dropped Trent's angle with the Callis Family so abruptly, too - seems ripe for the retconning

Edit 2: Raz with a great point below too - that whole Stat/Stoke split seemed kinda outta nowhere, huh?

MANIFESTING.

Edited October 17 by Zakk_Sabbath

[StuntmanCrowley]

Tony Khan not immediately addressing the Punk/Elite blowup and leaving an incredible bit of business in the pantheon of "What Ifs"  I'm no Punk guy, but I was and still am beating down the door for a Punk/Omega match.  The mileage that could've been gotten out of that real life event is staggering with all of the threads.  I'm still bitter at Punk and the Bucks over it truthfully, but TK as much as I defend him failed miserably as a owner and leader in that issue.

[StuntmanCrowley]

Just now, Zakk_Sabbath said:

FWIW, my pet theory is that we're gonna get a reunion  at some point during this hostile BCC takeover story, tying directly into your heart/soul thing (my only 'proof' is a gut feeling that they're saving 'Jane' for it) - I know poor Chuck had to retire because of the ankle, but I think you could do a whole lot worse than having him on the outside managing a trio of OC/Trent/Rocky. Circling back to my comment above, they'd make really nice Trios challengers.

My living room might get a smidge dusty over the Best Friends standing tall 

[Raziel]

I mean, if we're just gonna reunite the Best Friends already, we kinda totally wasted Trent and Strat's heel turns.

Actually, I mean, with the no reason swap back, they actually did waste Stratlander's heel turn and it wasn't necessary.  

Edited October 17 by Raziel

[For Great Justice]

8 minutes ago, StuntmanCrowley said:

My living room might get a smidge dusty over the Best Friends standing tall 

Tack on Yuta coming home with a big ol hug and it’d be waterworks in the For Great Justice household 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

4 minutes ago, For Great Justice said:

Tack on Yuta coming home with a big ol hug and it’d be waterworks in the For Great Justice household 

Hard agree. Man, even if we don't get the reunion, your post here has me thinking that even a singles bout between OC and Mox (or any of the other guys, really) for Yuta's soul would be an f'n awesome, built-in story. Tony S made sure to refer to OC as "The man who trained him!" when Yuta was on him last night, too, so something along those lines may even already be in the works.

[Cobra Commander]

how much better is AEW these days if Adam Cole drank enough milk to not keep getting hurt constantly

or to put it a little nicer... how many Cole things just fell apart because of injuries and also the whole clusterfuck of a Devil angle, which they're trying to rehab now for some reason

[Zakk_Sabbath]

4 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

which they're trying to rehab now for some reason

I fully - and I mean, FULLY - blame that on Twitter users. I don't really engage much on there, but after WD, I noticed kind of a shocking amount of people saying "bUt CoLe wAs tHe hEeL" to the point where I guess evidently they felt it needed to be addressed on TV. It wasn't my cup of tea either, but with the benefit of hindsight, I'm willing to give a little grace on that one only because "mystery person" angles stink 9x out of 10 anyway, and the promotion as a whole was on fucking fire (and not in the 'white hot' sense either, I mean the 'this is fine'-dog sense). Hopefully they've got something up their sleeve that they feel its worth revisiting the devil stuff for.

[zendragon]

57 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Heel Cody Rhodes by a landslide, IMO - we were so ready.

In yet another Comic Book reference nobody got Cody has said that he was supposed to be like The Homelander a bad guy who thinks he's a good guy

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 minute ago, zendragon said:

In yet another Comic Book reference nobody got Cody has said that he was supposed to be like The Homelander a bad guy who thinks he's a good guy

Lol I refuse to accept that.. I already backed him on the "black dye job = 1993 Superman resurrection mullet" thing once, I learned my damn lesson!

[Just Adam Bay Bay]

It was mentioned in the weekly TV thread but not putting the belt on Swerve at Revolution. I wasn’t sad crazy about Joe’s run as some here, and I think Swerve deserved a little more time with the belt. That would be my top choice.

I’d also say not using Christian better in between his TNA title win over Kenny Omega and starting The Patriarchy. 

[YouHaveUntil5]

1 hour ago, Just Adam Bay Bay said:

It was mentioned in the weekly TV thread but not putting the belt on Swerve at Revolution. I wasn’t sad crazy about Joe’s run as some here, and I think Swerve deserved a little more time with the belt. That would be my top choice. 

Swerve was never going to win the belt at Revolution because it would have been overshadowed by Sting’s retirement match. That said, Swerve winning the title on Dynamite a couple weeks before Revolution and being the defending champion on a show that had some extra people tuned in for Sting’s last match (probably, I don’t know the numbers offhand) would have given his title reign a nice boost. 

[BobbyWhioux]

every now and then, when my brain is idling, I will randomly remember how bizarre it is that Inner Circle era Santana & Ortiz were never AEW Tag Team Champions.

It's like it'll be the great trick question 20 years from now on the Whoever Succeeds Dave Meltzer Show:  How many AEW Tag Title Reigns did Santana & Ortiz have?  Because nobody will believe it was zero.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

30 minutes ago, BobbyWhioux said:

How many AEW Tag Title Reigns did Santana & Ortiz have? 

If by some miracle I somehow ended up hosting or co-hosting said show, I'd open every week with this like it was "It's Wednesday/Friday, and you know what that means" lol. It really WAS difficult to believe with the info available at the time - but with that said: I literally only yesterday read that apparently Santana was dealing with "living a little too fast" and Ortiz moved out of NYC during the early part of COVID, so evidently that's where some of the rift came from, plus the awful timing with injuries (both their own and when Dash had that scary wrist slicing during the FTR feud) but they've since mended fences on a personal level. So yeah, not to turn this whole thread into Uncle Zakk's Feel-Good Daily's Place Reunion Extravaganza, but we may yet get it someday if Santana were to ever get another look and both men were willing to give it a shot.

I almost feel like I have to end with a missed opportunity now to keep on-topic, so here's one: how about the Santana/Ortiz "blow-off" match being on a day/time shifted Rampage? Maybe this is bias talking just because I'm a big fan of those guys (can you tell?) but that's a PPV match in my book

[Phantom Lord]

Bryan should have won the World title at Grand Slam when he and Moxley had that match for the vacant title.

I agree with the notion that Santana and Ortiz should have won the tag titles. They were so red hot back then.

 

[Overly Critical Man]

Not pulling the trigger on Jaime Hayter vs Britt Baker after teasing it for months. What the hell was up with that? Hayter’s entire title reign was instead wasted on a putrid feud with The Outcasts.