AEW: Missed Opportunities.

[JLowe]

Since @Octopusbrought it up, I really do wish AEW had found a way to poach Charlie Dempsey and thus keep William Regal around. 

[StuntmanCrowley]

Danhausen.

Dude had top tier merch sales, is incredible marketable, sold in-ring when needed but is someone who has transcended wrestling with his character and you can't find ANYTHING to do with?  I don't even know what, but something either in random interview skits, guest announcer spots, a weekly danhusen segment even on Rampage?  

[The Natural]

Losing the universally respected William Regal was a blow to AEW. Understandable he wanted to go back to WWE when his Son was starting out. Kudos to Tony Khan letting him do that.

[The Natural]

15 minutes ago, StuntmanCrowley said:

Danhausen.

Dude had top tier merch sales, is incredible marketable, sold in-ring when needed but is someone who has transcended wrestling with his character and you can't find ANYTHING to do with?  I don't even know what, but something either in random interview skits, guest announcer spots, a weekly danhusen segment even on Rampage?  

I agree fully. Only thing I can think of is that he's a CM Punk guy. Even then it doesn't as you are under utilizing someone for the reasons you've provided.

[SovietShooter]

There are a lot of rumors and such out there about Danhausen... without feeding into the gossip, clearly something happened that caused him to be banished to AEW purgatory next to Miro, Starks and the Lucha Bros.  I don't think TK or someone woke up one day and just said "fuck this guy". But, he went from being shoe-horned into angles on tv with the Best Friends, and all over AEW social media and such, to just being on the payroll but not being used at all. 

[twiztor]

not going to get into specific match results, but general themes:

On 10/17/2024 at 11:47 AM, The Natural said:

More should have been done with the Dark Order

biggest missed opportunity IMO. i know the Creepers/Puddies/whatever came off as embarassing in that one year-end Dynamite, but i would've liked to see them again. Even if they played it as some sort of "initiation" for potential members. That keeps the concept of them on the table for later too. Speaking of initiation, those recruitment videos hit just the right note between creepy cult and welcome environment. Then they just..... were never mentioned again. 

But the biggest sin is the fallout of the Hangman/Dark Order relationship. The redemption of Hangman, and reunion with the Young Bucks/Elite happened. and Dark Order was cast aside offscreen. It was like 6+ months later before they interacted again, and D.O. was completely right in questioning what happened to Hangman. But there still was never any payoff. For an angle that was arguably THE most engrossing during the entire COVID era/BTE bits, what a total letdown.

On 10/17/2024 at 12:00 PM, just drew said:

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

if not the first, definitely one of the first. Them and Best Friends (who also already got multiple mentions here) both deserved way more notoriety than they got here.

On 10/17/2024 at 12:20 PM, For Great Justice said:

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

1000% cosigned. For something that was so obviously an analogue to Clash of the Champions, this has always been a bust. i had a mini-rant in this weeks TV thread, so i won't rehash, but if this show isn't carried over into the new TV rights deal, then it is a justified mercy killing.

 

CM Punk. 
this is the biggest one, and has many branches that can be explored further. His return to pro wrestling was a huge moment. Him beating Hangman for the title was a mistake IMO (i was saying that at the time and i still stand by it). His injury/title trade with Moxley was badly executed (that "Rocky III" storyline that played out in the span of a single segment is baffling). the MJF feud never getting its conclusion is the supreme disappointment here. and, or course, the whole 'Brawl Out' scenario. So much was seemingly derailed due to that whole situation.

on a more personal preference note, we never got to see Samoa Joe vs. Powerhouse Hobbs in a singles. I'm not going to stop beating that drum until/unless the match happens.

3 hours ago, SovietShooter said:

Danhausen went from being shoe-horned into angles on tv with the Best Friends, and all over AEW social media and such, to just being on the payroll but not being used at all. 

well, there was a legit injury at one point (Revolution 2023), but we're well past that. Per cagematch, he seems to be pretty active on the indie scene for the last 6 months or so. Baffling that he hasn't even made an AEW/ROH appearance in so long. 

[AxB]

Apparently Danhausen is still one of AEW's top merch sellers to this day, despite him having been off TV for... what, over a year at this point? I mean, last year at Wembley I saw a ton of Danhausen shirts, and he'd not been on the show for a good while then (He had also never wrestled in the UK at that point; His UK debut was in Progress in like July or August 2024). This year, I saw far fewer of them, but not zero.

[Technico Support]

Obviously Punk is the biggest miss.  TK should have paid him half in cash, half in Zoloft.  The guy was gifted the title, anointed the top guy in the company, and he couldn't let some dumb comment slide.  It's fascinating.  To quote Harvey Keitel's character in From Dusk Til Dawn, "Are you such a fucking loser, you can't tell when you've won?"  I wish the Bucks could have cooled off instead of confronting him, and that Ace Steel was nowhere to be seen instead of being Punk's Brutus Beefcake.  Overall, things would have been so much better if everyone had been a little more grown up about everything or, at least, TK could have figured out a way to bring all sides together instead of the ridiculous, passive solution he came up with.  Sequestering Punk to Collision and booking PPVs where one of the warring groups would go on early, then go home before the other group arrived, was lame and unprofessional. 

Another related, weird miss is: what would have happened with Collision had the Punk stuff not happened?  Collision was supposed to just be a one hour show, but then when it was decided to make it The CM Punk Show, it was expanded.  What would have happened with a one hour Collision and how would that have affected the future of Rampage?

One more: Jade Cargill.  What if she lost the TBS title at some point and became more integrated into the women's division?  Would she have become a better wrestler?  Would we have gotten cooler stories?  Instead, she existed on an island separate from the whole division, wherein a talented wrestler would get into Jade's orbit for a program, Jade would cut the same promos as always, she'd win, then rinse, repeat.  That belt was just the Being Jade Cargill title until it was time for her to leave.

Edited October 21 by Technico Support

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

Why did they break up Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale? Why weren't they the inaugural Women's Tag Team Champions? Why oh why is nobody allowed to be a silly friend anymore?

[Zakk_Sabbath]

35 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

Why did they break up Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale? Why weren't they the inaugural Women's Tag Team Champions? Why oh why is nobody allowed to be a silly friend anymore?

I'll second this, though with the caveat that the resulting singles match between them was fucking tremendous and probably the best (or at least my favorite) of either's AEW catalogue. On a similar note, there was a period where Marina Shafir and Nyla Rose were really starting to gel as a team too, I thought they could've gone somewhere - and currently, the Deonna/Taya pairing is really grabbing my attention. Between ROH and AEW, you've got four women's singles belts, two sets of tag belts, and two sets of trios belts, but no women's Tag - make it make sense!!

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

One more: Jade Cargill.  What if she lost the TBS title at some point and became more integrated into the women's division?  Would she have become a better wrestler?  Would we have gotten cooler stories?  Instead, she existed on an island separate from the whole division, wherein a talented wrestler would get into Jade's orbit for a program, Jade would cut the same promos as always, she'd win, then rinse, repeat.  That belt was just the Being Jade Cargill title until it was time for her to leave.

Funny you say that, because I just saw earlier this morning that she tweeted something like "I miss just stepping on people and being That Bitch" - I thought there was a number of things one could kinda unpack from that in a (let's call it) subtextual way

[AxB]

When they introduced the TBS title, that should have been Women's Tag Belts. If they really wanted Jade Cargill to be an untouchable Champion, they could have put the World Championship on her just as easily... considering that she left for WWE, and has largely failed to set the world on fire over there, makes her whole title run look like an exercise in folly.

They could trying bringing Ivelisse back for one match, so she and Diamante could drop the Women's Tag Tea tournament medals to an actual team they're keeping around, but how many people even remember that now?

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I have an inversion on "eddie kingston should have beat miro," which is "miro should never have lost the tnt championship in the ring at all"

[Technico Support]

7 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Funny you say that, because I just saw earlier this morning that she tweeted something like "I miss just stepping on people and being That Bitch" - I thought there was a number of things one could kinda unpack from that in a (let's call it) subtextual way

I seem to recall that all her posts are in character, so she's probably setting up a heel run.  Honestly, WWE stopping the current project (tag her with Bianca so she can learn) to turn around and book her just like she was booked in AEW would be counterproductive to her growth.  That is, unless someone in WWE, after months of tagging, became convinced that "female Goldberg" is her ceiling and is just like, "fuck it, let's just do that." 

Also, related, Shaq never coming back for revenge is another miss.  He mysteriously disappeared from the ambulance and was never heard from again.

Edited October 21 by Technico Support

[Zakk_Sabbath]

18 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

I seem to recall that all her posts are in character, so she's probably setting up a heel run.  Honestly, WWE stopping the current project (tag her with Bianca so she can learn) to turn around and book her just like she was booked in AEW would be counterproductive to her growth.  That is, unless someone in WWE, after months of tagging, became convinced that "female Goldberg" is her ceiling and is just like, "fuck it, let's just do that." 

Also, related, Shaq never coming back for revenge is another miss.  He mysteriously disappeared from the ambulance and was never heard from again.

Ah my bad, I didn't realize that she's mostly in character and I don't watch the show so I had no clue what was currently going on with her (though I def agree that tagging her with someone was a savvy move, and your Goldberg caveat as well).

Re: Shaq, here's a corporate synergy combo miss: they just announced Inside The NBA is coming back this season a couple days ago, and I thought they should've had him break the news on AEW TV by having an ambulance back into the arena and him getting out

[Zakk_Sabbath]

30 minutes ago, Lamp, broken circa 1988 said:

I have an inversion on "eddie kingston should have beat miro," which is "miro should never have lost the tnt championship in the ring at all"

I can't explain it, but somehow I agree with both points. Duality of man, I guess.

[zendragon]

My big one is not really doing anything with The Dark Order especially John Silver post Mr. Brodie Lee passing. They where over where he could have been in a tag team or ever held a secondary belt 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

3 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I'll second this, though with the caveat that the resulting singles match between them was fucking tremendous and probably the best (or at least my favorite) of either's AEW catalogue. On a similar note, there was a period where Marina Shafir and Nyla Rose were really starting to gel as a team too, I thought they could've gone somewhere - and currently, the Deonna/Taya pairing is really grabbing my attention. Between ROH and AEW, you've got four women's singles belts, two sets of tag belts, and two sets of trios belts, but no women's Tag - make it make sense!!

I'm sure in a vacuum I'd like that match better, but I'm still pissed that they took away an act I really loved and that colors how I see that match. This was the second time this has happened with Stat too, because she lost something when she dropped being an alien. When Orange Cassidy lost it and yelled at her to get back in the ring during that time, it was perfect, exactly what both characters needed, so of course they got split up for reasons. Then they split up Stat and Willow who had awesome chemistry together! THEN THEY TOOK STOKELY AWAY TOO! Why is Kris Statlander not allowed to have friends?

[username]

5 hours ago, zendragon said:

My big one is not really doing anything with The Dark Order especially John Silver post Mr. Brodie Lee passing.

This is a particularly vexing one as Silver didn't ever need to be a TNT champ or anything, but he was a guy who was just sorta hanging around in the company who got himself over and the crowd was way into him and AEW went "eh, we'll do something with him eventually" so long that it all just sort of faded away and they just never really bothered. Like let's be 100% honest here... he kinda got Zack Ryder'd which while bad enough in WWE should never happen in AEW, that's exactly the reason people wanted an AEW in the first place.

[The Natural]

Airing the CM Punk/Jack Perry backstage confrontation from AEW All In 2023 on AEW Dynamite was a really dumb decision.

Edited October 22 by The Natural

[Casey]

11 hours ago, AxB said:

Apparently Danhausen is still one of AEW's top merch sellers to this day, despite him having been off TV for... what, over a year at this point? I mean, last year at Wembley I saw a ton of Danhausen shirts, and he'd not been on the show for a good while then (He had also never wrestled in the UK at that point; His UK debut was in Progress in like July or August 2024). This year, I saw far fewer of them, but not zero.

AEWShop just released a Danhausen themed subscription mystery box. Diamond Select put out a statue of him just this month, so now he’s among Punk, Sting, Jericho, Mox and Danielson to get one.

Don't wanna book him, but they’re more than okay with making money off of him. I hope he’s getting the bag from all these different things.

[zendragon]

Danhausen is a guy who should be used sparingly at best he's a comedy character, but him just disappearing is weird

[twiztor]

19 hours ago, AxB said:

They could trying bringing Ivelisse back for one match, so she and Diamante could drop the Women's Tag Team tournament medals to an actual team they're keeping around, but how many people even remember that now?

i know that i had completely forgotten about that and even had to look it up to remind myself. man, 2020 was a LONG time ago in some aspects.

Also, now that @Stef mentioned it, Statlander losing the alien part of her gimmick is a huge miss. I know that i lost interest when she lost that quirkiness. I was always waiting for them to do more with it. Instead, she just got presented as a fairly generic powerhouse with JR saying stupid shit and trying not to refer to her or her physique as "big".

[Technico Support]

I wish Danhausen had gotten the opportunity to try to grow like Orange Cassidy did.  OC should be commended for how he grew his character and changed his style while maintaining his gimmick.  I was about to write off Danhausen as a meme wrestler, a "and then the bell rung" guy, but that's not fair, considering how little ring time he got in AEW.  

[BobbyWhioux]

19 hours ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

I'm sure in a vacuum I'd like that match better, but I'm still pissed that they took away an act I really loved and that colors how I see that match. This was the second time this has happened with Stat too, because she lost something when she dropped being an alien. When Orange Cassidy lost it and yelled at her to get back in the ring during that time, it was perfect, exactly what both characters needed, so of course they got split up for reasons. Then they split up Stat and Willow who had awesome chemistry together! THEN THEY TOOK STOKELY AWAY TOO! Why is Kris Statlander not allowed to have friends?

Exactly why she lost something when she stopped being an alien, as this becomes a lot more poignant