One major criticism that has been leveled at AEW bookers is their misuse of Wardlow’s tremendous potential. After debuting as MJF’s henchman, the near 300-pounder organically developed a fan following, which resulted in the logical conclusion of a face turn punctuated with a PPV destruction of his former boss in June. He would go on to capture the TNT Championship a month later, but since then Wardlow’s career has seen a series of hit-and-miss moments.
He never got any momentum with the TNT title, losing it to Samoa Joe pointlessly only to regain the title from Joe at the next PPV. On the very next Dynamite, he would lose the belt to Powerhouse Hobbs before getting it back a month later. Fast forward two months and Luchasaurus would become the third man to beat Wardlow for the belt and the big man was not seen on TV for the next few months.
Return and What Should Be Next
Wardlow did return in October, but his squashing jobbers and leaving through the crowd seems to be a desperate attempt to reboot a character that has a grave risk of going stale. If Wardlow had been allowed to hang on to the TNT title after his first title win, his stock would be so higher now. In retrospect, title losses to Joe and Hobbs look ill-advised, considering that neither was allowed to do much with the belt.
An uninterrupted title run would have built up Wardlow’s dominance, but the start-stop nature of his run dented his aura. He is far from the TNT title as of now, with current Champion Christian Cage having bigger fish to fry.
Wardlow has to move on from destroying jobbers as it is a shtick that we have seen so often. He isn’t an unproven commodity now, and there isn’t anything mysterious about him. So a Goldberg-like squash fest isn’t the best step at this stage. It is time for Wardlow to definitively win a feud against an opponent of name value.
While Wardlow did hint that a feud with MJF is the ultimate goal, it doesn’t make sense to shotgun it. MJF is the most interesting AEW World Champion of all time, and while a Wardlow vs MJF program would have been perfect had Wardlow remained TNT Champion all this time, that isn’t the case now.
Another major problem is that while the crowd rooted for Wardlow during their previous PPV match, it seems likely that MJF will be the favorite this time and fans might not care enough about Wardlow to cheer or boo to the same extent as earlier.
AEW Creative would first need to make Wardlow either a solid face or heel and build on it, rather than letting him remain a tweener. A heel turn makes the most sense and Wardlow beating a name of credibility would help his cause rather than beating the likes of Ryan Nemeth.
There are a number of legends on the AEW roster who are crowd-pleasers and would not be hurt by a loss. Wardlow needs to destroy a few of them – names like Jeff Hardy and Dustin Rhodes come to mind.
After that, Wardlow needs to decisively win a feud against a main eventer. The logical choice is Bryan Danielson as he would be able to get a great match out of Wardlow and he has not shied away from putting others over. Beating Danielson and that too in a dominant fashion would be huge for Wardlow at this stage of his career.
After getting through Danielson, Wardlow should be winning a tournament that gives him an AEW World title shot, provided MJF is still the champion. It makes sense for him to beat MJF’s friend Adam Cole in the final of the tournament, possibly taking Cole out for a few weeks. This would justify MJF’s arrival on the scene and with their history, a great program for the AEW World Championship can kickstart.
Getting a PPV shot at the AEW World Championship would underline the complete recovery of Wardlow’s career and based on how the program goes, he could become a made man in the company.
Whether Wardlow should be the man to take the title off MJF is still debatable, but exposure in the main event scene would do great for him. He is a homegrown star for Tony Khan’s promotions and it will bode well to see AEW rely more on superstars like him rather than ex-WWE performers.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – AEW – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. As well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS. AEW Rampage airs on TNT at 10 PM EST every Friday night. AEW Collision airs Saturday at 8pm Eastern on TNT. More AEW content available on their YouTube.
