AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[The King Of Swing]

Wait they actually signed Viva Van? She's pretty decent from what I've seen of her. Probably won't amount to much in AEW/ROH, though. 

Is Riho still injured? Back in Japan? Or just not being used? 

Honestly not sure if she's worth keeping around anymore.

[LaGoosh]

I assume at least half the people listed are on "per appearance" type deals. If all of those are under full contract it must be costing a fortune. I assume most of them won't be re-signed when their deals expire.

[Joe Blog]

38 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

100% keeping Toa Liona because he’s great.

 

 

6 hours ago, JLM said:

Stop cutting Toa Liona you bastards.

Common sense prevails. I was scratching my head at all you sods chopping him. 

[LaGoosh]

Toa Liona is great. Had a banger against Hangman in 2023. Bishop Kaun is a big nothing though sadly. They need to find another scary fatty to team with Toa.

[Joe Blog]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Toa Liona is great. Had a banger against Hangman in 2023. Bishop Kaun is a big nothing though sadly. They need to find another scary fatty to team with Toa.

 Comorato in his wildman gimmixk

[King Mal the Glorious]

I like Gates of Agony as a team and I don't think Toa has enough to stand out as a singles. If Swerve gets back to feuding with Hurt Syndicate after/as part of this run with Ricochet I'd like to see them back as his back up.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

My 'bye byes' from the AEW roster page on their site

Aaron Solo

Action Andretti 

Angelo Parker 

Anthony Ogogo

AR Fox

Ariya Daivari

Chris Jericho

Colt Cabana

Danhausen

Dutch

Griff Garrison

Johnny TV

Josh Woods

Keith Lee

Lee Johnson

Lee Moriarty

Lio Rush

Malakai Black

Matt Sydal

Michael Nakazawa

Miro (unless you put him in a team with Butcher)

Nick Wayne

Ortiz

Paul Wight

Peter Avalon

Preston Vance

Rey Fenix

Ricky Starks

Satnam Singh

Scorpio Sky

Serpentico 

Shawn Dean

Stokeley Hathaway

The Blade

Tony Nese

Vincent

Wardlow 

37 males

 

Abadon 

Britt Baker

Diamanté 

Kamile 

Keira Hogan

Leila Grey

Leyla Hirsh

Madison Rayne

Mercedes Martinez

Red Velvet

Saraya 

Taya Valkyerie

12 females

Jim Ross

 

50 in total off the books for me

Edits after checking Wiki

 

Carlie Bravo

Cole Karter 

Rocky Romero

 

Plus a bundle of others who are bit part roster fillers.

 

 

Edited January 21, 2025 by Tim Healys Chutney Spoon

[Gooner]

That's a big roster of wrestlers. Most I haven't seen in any capacity in years.

Does anyone know what is going on with Wardlow? I just assumed he was injured.

Edited January 21, 2025 by Gooner
.

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 minute ago, Gooner said:

 

Does anyone know what is going on with Wardlow? I just assumed he was injured.

He is

[TAFKA Jonny Vegas]

I feel like AEW has fallen off of a cliff and is in need of a major revamp and refresh of some kind. I think there are a hell of a lot of names that could/should be gone. Many are really stale and a much smaller roster with a focus on everything people are doing having greater meaning or relevance might really help.

 

I think a big problem is that a lot of the people there are friends of friends and/or do some form of backstage role, the important and neccessity of I really cannot be sure.

 

For me there's a massive WCW 2000 stink around the place at the moment.

 

My go list - 

 

Aaron Solo, Action Andretti, Adam Cole, Angelico, Anthony Ogogo, AR Fox, Ari Daivari, Bishop Kaun, The Blade, Boulder, Brandon Cutler, Brian Cage, Bronson, The Butcher, Chris Jericho, Christopher Daniels, Chuck Taylor, Cole Karter, Colt Cabana, Danhausen, Dutch, Griff Garrison, Jay Lethal, JD Drake, Johnny TV, Josh Woods, Keith Lee, Kip Sabian, Kyle O'Reilly, Lance Archer, Lee Johnson, Lee Moriarty, Lio Rush, Luther, Mark Davis, Matt Sydal, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, Miro, Nick Comoroto, Paul Wight, Sammy Guevara, Satnam Singh, Scorpio Sky, Serpentico, Shane Taylor, Shelton Benjamin, Toa Liona, Tony Nese, Trent Beretta, Vincent, Zak Knight.

 

There is a tonne of money tied up there and for me not a lot of value/entertainment anymore. Use the money and space to bring in some fresh faces. I also don't see the need to have long term jobbers under contract. Go back to when they had lots of local talents used for enhancement and also use that to see who connects with the audience to consider signing them instead.

Abadon, Billie Starkz, Diamante, Kamille, Leyla Hirsch, Madison Rayne, Nyla Rose, Penelope Ford, Riho, Tay Melo, Viva Van.

Alex Abrahantes, Jake Roberts, Mark Sterling, Sonjay Dutt.

Could all also go without being any significant loss in my opinion.

I'd also struggle to look at any of those names listed and envision them going to WWE and being a stand out or one AEW went on to hugely regret letting go.

 

[tiger_rick]

10 hours ago, Gooner said:

Does anyone know what is going on with Wardlow? I just assumed he was injured.

A lot of people are injured. As just a TV viewer, it baffles me that people disappear all the time without explanation but that Wikipedia roster article does mention everyone who is injured or on maternity/paternity and there are bleeding loads.

9 hours ago, TAFKA Jonny Vegas said:

I feel like AEW has fallen off of a cliff and is in need of a major revamp and refresh of some kind.

 

For me there's a massive WCW 2000 stink around the place at the moment.

I think those two things are an oxymoron. I have had some of the WCW 2000 feelings but I think that was a couple of years ago when the locker room was a mess and the leadership non-existent. I don't think it's there now. The stars, the work rate, the stories they are telling and the business metrics that matter are all a million times more positive than WCW 2000. They're not flawless, which I like, but they're not a complete mess.

WCW are the poster boys for major revamp and every one made them worse. AEW have been through several smaller refreshes of their TV shows and in all honesty, all of them have been worse than the original look of Dynamite and their PPVs. 

Their biggest issues are marketing the arena shows and consistency of characters and stories being presented as important on TV. And, as seems to be a consensus, they have about 50 people too many milling about doing fuck all.

Edit: Penelope Ford is incredible. You lads blind or summat?

Edited January 22, 2025 by tiger_rick

[Chris B]

I think there's a difference between "not as good as they could be" and "absolute disaster". The Mox story hasn't landed (although I dislike it less than most), and they're struggling to figure their way out of it and onto something else. Darby fucking off to Everest is actually potentially good timing if it forces them to change things up. But I enjoyed the Hobbs match and story recently, and they're generally good at keeping people in a position where they can be quickly reheated.

I'm not too worried about the roster because they're still trying to land a deal for ROH and most of them never turn up on TV anyway. Most of them are likely on the equivalent of zero hour contracts. To a certain extent, I think their problems are more around trying to get a longer story to stick rather than cleaning up the roster page on their website.

It feels like there's a bunch of stuff that is working, but they're lacking that overall feeling of direction or something specifically large that they're building up to. If we start to get a proper run with Swerve/Hangman/Omega/Ospreay/Okada up on top, that'll probably help a lot. I suspect that's the ongoing plan, but the road to getting there seems a bit rough.

[RedTwoster]

I imagine that AEW would benefit from a stronger creative lead - someone who could take some of the half-realised ideas and make them fully-formed.

I’ve said it before, but it’s not like the storylines they’ve run recently have been, at their core, bad. They’re good ideas, which have become bad - either because they didn’t have an end game in mind, or the end game wasn’t quite strong enough.

They’re the architects of their own downfall in terms of live crowds though - I don’t think for a second the falling attendance was inevitable. The Punk thing didn’t help, but by all accounts - for a while at least - their tapings were overly long, with more wrestling than most people could ever want to sit through. I’d imagine that would be pretty off-putting when it comes to going to a follow-up taping. There are other factors too - like their duff run in 22-23 coinciding with WWE getting good again, but they certainly didn’t help themselves.

Edited January 22, 2025 by RedTwoster

[DavidB6937]

They often prove that it doesn't actually take that much to heat someone up, or re-heat, but again it's often the inconsistency that causes the problems. And the more that happens, the bigger chance of the audience not buying into any attempt at a push because they'll assume it'll just fall away anyway. It's a dangerous approach because it doesn't allow people to have any faith in anything.

[Supremo]

If Mox has to remain Champion right now, I’m hoping he defends against Cope, Christian tries to cash in, Samoa Joe stops Christian, and then Samoa Joe and Moxley move into each other’s orbit.

Medieval Weapon Deathmatch.