Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
2025 is almost upon us, and plenty of us will be making New Year’s resolutions to try to improve ourselves over the next 12 months. The same should apply to All Elite Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment, which could both stand to make some changes this year.
Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the WWE side of things, but my question for you today is “What resolutions should AEW have for 2025?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
I would love to see AEW decide to fully shit or get off the pot when it comes to it’s identity. No more skirting the line. Either it is the alternative to WWE that it claimed to be from the start where things are done differently, or it acknowledges it doesn’t want to be that anymore and stops trying to brand itself that way just to not seem like WWE-lite.
Restore the feeling? You shouldn’t need to have that as a slogan, and to end the year still not feeling like the AEW from it’s first two years. That screams either lesson not learned or that it was a hollow catchphrase to begin with. And when that happens, neither side of the incredibly stupid and entirely unnecessary “AEW vs WWE Wars” end up happy if you’re supporting AEW.
Think of it this way: if you want basically WWE but with that roster, then you don’t want to sit through the booking style of AEW with the heavy focus on lots of in-ring action, the no-selling series of maneuvers, and the lack of storytelling for most feuds. You want people to break up from tag teams and stables with grandiose fashion for a big storyline that spans multiple matches and such, not for them to just switch to a new faction like it’s New Japan and these managers are really dealing with contracts. And AEW isn’t doing all that well, so you end up reverting back to WWE as the good product and just wishing some of your favorites would be recruited to the Triple H regime.
But if you’re someone who isn’t a big fan of the WWE style, and you are tuning in to AEW because you want more focus on matches, less disqualifications, more outside talent and a more sports-oriented feel, then whenever AEW is doing it’s stories like MJF against Adam Cole, you’re checking out and saying this isn’t the AEW you signed up for.
Where was that return of the rankings system? That came back and disappeared in like a month. Whatever happened to Tony Khan being the boss who was going to make the wrestlers employees with health insurance, or wasn’t going to hold people back from leaving like he’s doing with Rey Fenix? Why did all the “I’m not going to be like Vince McMahon” talking points start to get adopted by TK instead? Once you’re on the same level, you can’t act higher than thou anymore.
I’d also like to see a concerted effort to improve the women’s division. This has long been an issue in AEW, arguably from the start in my opinion. There are some majorly talented women in the company, but I would say a good half to 2/3 aren’t actually as good as they’re made out to be. At the very least, they certainly aren’t over enough to make them stars with enough appeal, and when you take out the ones who don’t even appear regularly, it’s a very thin division without much future promise. Take out Willow Nightingale and like 4 others and there’s no one left. Hell, what is Athena still doing in ROH? This can’t be just the Toni Storm and Mercedes Mone show guest starring Britt Baker once in a while. WWE is slaughtering you on damn near all 3 rosters.
Keeping my list short to just three resolutions, my final one would be to cut people some slack and sort out an actual decent price for the content.
By that, I mean you can’t expect someone to sign up to HBO Max, pay between 10 to 21 bucks a month and then also spend a good chunk of money on top of that for the pay-per-views. No one will be happy spending 50 for an event before (already a steep price) and then spend more than that, even though they’re getting more. That means even a grand total of 51 bucks will upset them. You have to price your events where you’re at $20 maximum, so people feel like they’re getting a bargain spending 42 for the event and Max, rather than 50 for just AEW.
WWE has all of it’s shows on Peacock for free. You’re not going to look good if you’re the lesser known property charging 50+ for guys who aren’t as mainstream when WWE sells the A-listers for something like 15 bucks total. Don’t be greedy. You need more eyes on your product and the only way to do that is to make it cheaper and more easily accessible, not by trying to milk as much money as possible from the dedicated core base. That’s how you’re going to end up with more people watching it on streams illegally.
There are, of course, other more specific things I’d like for AEW to do in 2025, like not try a third botched attempt at a company takeover angle, or to bring back the Casino Battle Royale and Face of the Revolution ladder match, but we’ll leave my response at that for now.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
