AEW has undergone significant changes over the past year, with some areas improving while others continue to face unresolved issues. As the company navigates its challenges, fans are left wondering if AEW is truly listening to their concerns. Despite the ups and downs, there\u2019s still hope for AEW to realign with its audience and deliver the product they expect.<\/p>\n
They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. It\u2019s a truism that fits perfectly into the cyclical nature of wrestling. Things repeat themselves.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a very human issue. Repeating our mistakes due to oversight. We get caught in traps and repeat cycles.<\/p>\n
Just see \u201cHangman\u201d Adam Page\u2019s current relapse into a sense of failure<\/a>. Businesses and wrestling promotions tend to make the same mistakes that seem glaring in hindsight.<\/p>\n The issue is that, even when you do your best, you don\u2019t notice you\u2019re slipping. Or you ignore some aspects and hyper-focus on others.<\/p>\n Across the last year between AEW Full Gear 2023 to 2024, a lot has changed. Here are 4 ways it\u2019s changed for the better<\/a>. Yet, despite some optimism, I can\u2019t ignore the unaddressed mistakes that have gone unchanged.<\/p>\n Not just in the build and watching Full Gear 2024. But over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had two invasions\/battles for AEW\u2019s heart and soul. Neither has been a quick fix or a reset to the longer-term issues. To date, neither has comprehensively addressed the big-picture issues.<\/p>\n On the one hand, AEW is utilizing its women\u2019s division more effectively than a year ago. On the other, women\u2019s wrestling on Dynamite remains marginalized. Regularly one match is often cut up with an ad break.<\/p>\n Women\u2019s segments are sometimes lumped together. At times, segments and matches just feel brief and functional.<\/p>\n Although there are multiple women\u2019s matches on Rampage and Collision, the booking of those shows is different. Bluntly, they are treated as secondary to Dynamite.<\/p>\n The other sticking point has been the self-fulfilling prophecy in every other half-realized women\u2019s revolution in AEW<\/a>. AEW only gives one or two top women at a time the spotlight and\/or time to develop into 3D characters. Sometimes, the championship almost gets used as a substitute for character growth.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a fate that defined Dr Britt Baker\u2019s reign. It\u2019s impacting the early part of Mariah May\u2019s.<\/p>\n In a reverse scenario of the post-babyface blues<\/a>, May the backstabber had so much potential stepping out of \u201cTimeless\u201d Toni Storm\u2019s shadows. Even to upstage her with a potentially just as interesting and contrasting personality.<\/p>\n Instead, her character has been a splicing of stereotypes. Femme fatale meets stuck-up brat with a flurry of sexualized verbiage. Her character work is strong but it\u2019s restricted.<\/p>\n May has not been given the time or creative care that the Timeless character received as part of her growth.<\/a> Instead, May seems caught in a holding pattern. Waiting for Storm to return.<\/p>\n What about the women outside of the title pictures? Including former champions. What character evolution or stable card positioning have former champions like Hikaru Shida and Nyla Rose had lately?<\/p>\n Jamie Hayter, after a hot return, has been normalized. Her character is reduced by a lack of agency because, interchangeably, she has to wait her turn.<\/p>\n Both four-ways at this year’s and last year\u2019s Full Gear for the AEW World Tag Team Championship were fun in different ways. Neither hid the thinness of the division.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that AEW lacks teams. The company has an array of interesting teams with clear characters with their own unique marketable distinctions.<\/p>\n You have the comedy acts from MxM Collection to The Outrunners and serious ass-kickers like The House of Black and LFI. Fun high-flyers from Top Flight to current tag champions, Private Party. The lack of care and attention and repetition have undercut them.<\/p>\n Without a clear hierarchy that means, even when tag teams do feud with each other, it feels meaningless. There is no progression because there is no structure. There hasn\u2019t been since the put-together tag team of Big Bill and Ricky Starks upset FTR.<\/p>\n As a combination, the team worked and made the most of their opportunity. But underneath them, none of the established teams were built up to take over.<\/p>\n This rot festered into The Young Buck\u2019s reign. FTR and The Acclaimed had likewise grown cold. Mechanically, their matches together and against others are solid, but heatless and heartless.<\/p>\n Add into the mix the use of the AEW Trios Championship which muddies the waters and confuses things. It further dilutes the idea that wins and losses matter.<\/p>\n Private Party\u2019s championship win might have been more of a triumphant underdog story if they hadn\u2019t lost a trios title shot with Kommander so soon before besting The Bucks. The House of Black might be the winningest trio but two-thirds of them lost in singles action to Adam Cole.<\/p>\n With no clear attempt to provide structure or create a dynamic ecosystem beneath the championships, both tag and trios divisions feel rudderless.<\/p>\n Not even the Devil, MJF himself, can convince the audience that this feud with Adam Cole needs a conclusion. Weekly retcons and attempts to square this round peg are failing what many felt was the worst feud of AEW last year. It feels like the weekly segments try to retcon a story that fans voted the worst storyline of 2023 in the Wrestling Observer.<\/p>\n The mental gymnastics needed to get your head around the face and heel dynamics would make Vince Russo say that\u2019s too much. Being stretched out until World\u2019s End to near-universal disinterest, like last year with Jay White\u2019s poor booking, AEW is handing critics a whip to beat them with. Not letting it go leads to the final and biggest issue.<\/p>\n Yet, it\u2019s only part of a wider issue that AEW has failed to address but only tried to divert attention from. Last year\u2019s Continental Classic was supposed to be about regaining fans\u2019 trust in and realigning AEW with the expectations fans had of a sports-centered product.<\/span><\/p>\n Similarly, the rankings<\/a> were brought back in and then abandoned again. It all feels like distraction tactics to gloss over that badly kept secret. <\/span>That the devil (sports entertainment) never left.<\/p>\n Over this year, AEW has still been dominated by sports entertainment. However, sometimes a balance and consensus can be made between fans and performers.<\/p>\n \u201cTimeless\u201d Toni Storm reached a fan-pleasing compromise, balancing the character within the in-ring demands of AEW\u2019s style. Other attempts have been alienating. See Chris Jericho and The Learning Tree.<\/p>\n The Elite\u2019s Corporate turn<\/a> might have been intended as a parody of sports entertainment and WWE tropes. However, the entire storyline fell victim to these trappings. Even the Death Rider storyline involves Attitude Era vehicular violence.<\/p>\n It begs the question.<\/p>\n AEW has lost fans this year. The ratings highlight an issue and, while the \u201cAEW under attack\u201d<\/a> narrative has truth, it\u2019s also been conveniently weaponized. By both sides.<\/p>\n AEW and some of its fans have used it to dismiss criticism. That doesn\u2019t mean the company\u2019s dying. The same prophets said the same about WWE in the 2010s despite their profitability.<\/p>\n Crowd reactions, or lack of reactions, at recent Dynamites, are starting to feel eerily like that dark period of WWE. It\u2019s too easy to just call fans fickle and spoilt. Frankly, that\u2019s exactly what WWE did and still repeats when some valid criticism is brought up.<\/p>\n No better place is this more embodied than with Chris Jericho who, in many ways, represents AEW principles more than anyone else<\/a>. Like the company, Jericho\u2019s character has changed on the surface. Seemingly acknowledging the concerns but not addressing the repeated frustration.<\/p>\n For those AEW fans who are lapsing or frustrated and want to love the product, they don\u2019t feel listened to. That’s valid. Yet, what’s also valid is that while AEW exists and keeps trying, there remains the chance to turn things around.<\/p>\n Start listening or find a compromise.<\/p>\n Header photo \u2013\u00a0AEW\u00a0\u2013 Stay tun<\/em>ed to the\u00a0Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AEW has undergone significant changes over the past year, with some areas improving while others continue to face unresolved issues. As the company navigates its challenges, fans are left wondering if AEW is truly listening to their concerns. Despite the ups and downs, there\u2019s still hope for AEW to realign with its audience and deliver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4960,"featured_media":128535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4677,2192],"tags":[84,4133,8808,107,8737,2546,5037],"class_list":["post-128501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aew","category-wrestling","tag-adam-cole","tag-aew","tag-aew-full-gear","tag-chris-jericho","tag-mariah-may","tag-mjf","tag-private-party"],"modified_by":"Chinyere Okafor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}AEW Women\u2019s Division’s Inequalities<\/h3>\n
Stagnation of the Tag Team and Trios Divisions<\/h3>\n
AEW Refuses to Let the Devil Die. And with It Sports Entertainment<\/h3>\n
Is AEW Still Listening?<\/h3>\n
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n