How to Push AEW Wrestling to the Next Level

I love AEW Wrestling right now; they have great wrestlers, know how to tell a story, and they provide a great alternative to WWE. As with anything, there is room for improvement. Here are some ideas to push AEW to the next level.

Make the rankings matter:
AEW has been good about saying wrestlers and tag teams are the number one contender and referencing their rankings. Unfortunately, those rankings seem almost arbitrary until they are needed for a story. So they should use the rankings to set up tiers of wrestlers. Wrestlers ranked 1-10 are main card for heavyweight title. Those ranked 11-20 are mid-card for TNT Title. Tag Team contenders would be ranked 1-8 and only eligible for the tag division. The main women’s title would be 1-8 and the TBS Title would be for 9-16.

To keep things fresh, the wrestlers could be relegated to a different tier at certain intervals. Maybe start with a 6 month period where the bottom 3 in the top tier would drop to the mid-tier and the top 3 mid-tier would bump up to the top tier. Think European soccer. Do this would bring some interesting stories. The #8 wrestler would do whatever needed to get up that one spot. You could have a heel at #10 get dropped down to the mid-tier, where he feels his new competition is beneath him.

I’m still working out the exact details of making this work, but it’s definitely something AEW should look into.

Change Show Formats:
AEW currently runs Dynamite and Rampage on network TV with Dark and Dark Elevation on YouTube. It’s a good mix, but it could be better. Keep Dynamite and Rampage as is and focus on the top tier guys with the mid-tier guys mixed in the shows. If any change is made here, expand Rampage to 2 hours max.

Since most of top tier guys are on network, use Elevation to run your mid-card stories. Expand it to a 90-minute show and film it before Rampage. This gives you a good amount of matches for those who purchase Rampage tickets.

Turn Dark into your record builder show; right now, it’s pretty much an AEW wrestler vs an Indy wrestler with a match or 2 of AEW wrestlers facing off. You can keep this format because you are making the rankings mean something. People don’t have to watch it to know the feuds (as it is today), but you can at least reference the matches on the network shows as to how the wins came. You can continue to film this as it’s own show at Universal Studios.

If there is one thing AEW is lacking is time for their strong woman’s division. So, create a 3rd YouTube show for the women. Right now, you get maybe 2-3 womens matches per week. If you give them an hour show, that’s another 4-5. It can be filmed before or after Dynamite, depending on where they are filming it.

The last thing I’d do is more promos/vignettes for YouTube. You can either run a 30-45 minute show of clips, like what the Young Bucks have done with BTE, or just release little 2-3 minutes story clips on their YouTube channel. This can flesh out the stories a little more, but not cut into the match time of the big shows or require viewing of all of the different vlogs that the wrestlers put out. It’ll also allow AEW to hit social media in a way that WWE hasn’t really looked at yet.

Reinvent Ring of Honor:
When I hear Ring of Honor, I think Independent Wrestling; the place where young guys go to learn the ropes and gain experience. I think Tony Khan can use this image to his advantage. ROH can be used like NXT is used for the WWE; sign young guys and give them their show. Instead of running Brock Anderson and Lee Johnson in squash matches on Dynamite, give them programs in ROH where they can learn to work a match, how TV matches work, and work on cutting promos.

This will separate the 2 companies while keeping the relationship between the 2.

I keep thinking back to the early 2000s when ROH would build guys like C.M. Punk, Samoa Joe, and Bryan Danielson for them to move to the next level. This is AEW’s chance to build that for themselves.

Trios Title:
I think AEW has a good amount of titles already (although I would have preferred a women’s tag belt to the TBS Title), but there is one area that they could add one: a Trios Title. Having a 3-man tag title would allow more guys to get into action, and AEW has the roster to do it. I feel like a trios team would have to declare they are in the division, so they would be ineligible for single or tag titles; the purpose is to get more guys in action rather then doing something like allowing Adam Cole and ReDragon the ability to compete as a single and tag while also going for the trios belt.

Khan has hinted at creating a trios title, but wants to wait for Kenny Omega to return before doing that.

Faction Wars:
One complaint about AEW that is commons is they have too many factions: The Dark Order, The Undisputed Elite, The Pinnacle, The Jericho Appreciation Society, etc. The reason most commonly given on the factions is it gives more TV time to guys who aren’t wrestling. You could see 10 come to the ring with John Silver and Alex Reynolds and remember that he’s on the roster.

To put these factions to use, create a month long faction wars. Pick a month and have all of your shows focus on it. Each match is worth a point and the team with the most points wins the event. You could even have it come down to a pay per view final. This would allow some fresh storylines where factions are recruiting and trying to steal members. It would also introduce an interesting time to bring in a free agent or 2 so the factions can try to woo them in.

Faction Wars would also allow you to change matches up: 8-man tag matches, handicapped matches worth 2 points for the underdog, single match best of 5 pin falls where each pin is a point. There are endless possibilities.

I’m sure there are other things AEW could change to make wrestling even more entertaining, but this is all a good start.