AEW's World Title/Men's Main Event Scene Feels Hopeless After an All-Time Bad Dynasty Main Event

Throughout 95% of AEW's short history, it's not often that a Main Event Match and/or ensuing angle is met with immediate and universal negative reception, and we've now had two in less than a month. Jon Moxley, arguably the single most impactful signing in company history, remains AEW World Champion after defeating top babyface Swerve Strickland in a largely mediocre Main Event bout in Philadelphia, and the outlook on AEW's Men's Division couldn't be more bleak, ironically at a time where their Womens' Division is as good as it's ever been.

Moxley, despite a whole heap of tremendous work, both in terms of in-ring work and promo work from 2019 up until the early stages of 2024, with multiple World Championships runs as the "Ace" of the company, has been lamented for months now for being nowhere near his peak form, and the Death Riders angle, which at its beginning had promise with a good premise of elevating lesser used talent via trial by fire, now being the ninth or tenth most interesting thing going on AEW TV as things have since devolved into the classic "heel with heel faction wins via ref bump and interference lol" shtick, but with no entertaining or redeeming qualities to keep you hooked.

The sad part is that it felt like we had a light at the end of the tunnel with Swerve Strickland, arguably the best all-around men's performer in the world today, as the next challenger for the belt. He's been AEW's backbone for the better part of 18 months, and you'd think with all of the criticisms and the need to push things in a positive direction for the All In Stadium Show in Arlington, Texas, this is where they'd pull the trigger on Swerve again, right???? Right???

Yeah...awful. This take circulated online not too long after Dynasty went off the air and is worth repeating, but this was the ending of a show that was the catalyst for AEW's existence and breaking the WWE monopoly in the first place. All in one fell swoop, Booker/owner Tony Khan booked a finish to a 4.5-hour show that benefited absolutely no one, angred nearly everyone, had a dusty finish with no match restart despite another match just an hour prior restart under similar circumstances, completely wasted a Hangman Adam Page run-in days after a phenomenal cliffhanger segment to end Dynamite, all but told fans this angle with nuclear go-away heat is lasting until mid-July, and ensured that two of his top three babyfaces who had wrestling's best angle in 2024 are entering a nothing program with the Young Bucks. A masterful gambit.

"Killing the Business"

The Young Bucks, of course, are one of the better (or more controversial, depending on which ex-manager/booker podcast you listen to) tag teams in wrestling history, so why would I say that's a nothing feud for two of AEW's top three babyfaces? Simple: go back and watch several of their entrances from the spring of 2024 to the time they bailed. No one cared a single iota about them. Don't believe me?? Listen to one of their last entrances in their wildly mediocre Tag Team Title run at WrestleDream in the Tacoma Dome.

How about All Out in Chicago a month prior in September for your viewing pleasure?

It turns out that purposely working bad matches for an entire summer (their words, not mine, by the way) in a company whos tagline is "Where the Best Wrestle" and doing a laughably bad hostile takeover angle, including airing the footage of CM Punk and Jack Perry's 2023 All-In scuffle, isn't a great way to maintain or boost your popularity. Let's not play revisionist history here; Matt and Nick Jackson were awful for the vast majority of 2024. They did heaps of damage to AEW's tag team division, which only recently Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin have begun to clean up, and the product got better, not worse, with them completely out of the picture; The Charlotte Flair conundrum, which, given current events in WWE, is an apt comparison.

Let me ask you this: Was there ever a point with the Young Bucks off TV where you, the AEW fan, said, "Man, I sure miss the Bucks"? If the answer is no, then one, I'd agree, and two, I can't say I blame you. An even better question is this: Who is a hypothetical Young Bucks vs. Adam Page and Swerve Strickland match for? Because I can't think of anyone who'd unironically be looking forward to that at this point in time.

The Bucks have seemingly gone from no heat to go-away heat in one night, which is super impressive. And the payoff here is what? They were behind the creation of the Death Riders the entire time? Awesome!!! Two acts that fans are either indifferent to or turn the channel at the mere sight of for the price of one, and they're joining forces with a 1.25/5 Anarchy in the Arena Match on the horizon.

In the immortal (slightly paraphrased) words of Tony Schiavone, that'll put asses in seats!!! What's next? Jack Perry comes back and is the Wildcard in the Owen Hart Tournament??? (Full disclosure, that is 100% happening, and he'll come out to crickets.)

Reign Of Terror V3

While not at egregiously a level of Triple H in 2002-2004 or Jeff Jarrett a little after that time frame in TNA, we've certainly reached a sense of hopelessness in AEW's Men's Main Event scene with Moxley at the top. A scene that includes guys like Swerve, Hanger, Kyle Fletcher, MJF, Will Ospreay, and Jay White right up until he got hurt, which is an insane but true thing to say. The long speculated payoff for this run is that Moxley will drop the title to Darby Allin, who's been off TV since late December as he is now in the final preparations of climbing Mt. Everest. Yes, that is not a joke if you are not in the know. That trek could take anywhere from two-to-three months, which would mean he wouldn't even be back in time for All In, and not even factoring in that he would likely need time to knock off any ring rust before working high-level matches again.

If their plan is to now wait AFTER their big stadium show to make this switch, when fan sentiment has plummeted like the U.S. Stock Market overnight (that's a shoot, brother - HH), then I have serious concerns about Tony Khan's feel for being a booker. I don't even think the allure of a fifth chapter in the Kenny Omega-Kazuchika Okada rivalry would be enough to salvage things when the entire world would know by that point if Moxley is working an awful Josh Barnett style match and winning via a ref bump and Death Riders interference, which has been the case since World's End back in December. Should that opponent be Will Ospreay, they would be inviting just about anyone to hop off the train and never return.

Iffy booking is one thing, but working objectively horrible matches that move at .25 speed compared to everything else on the card because Mox wants to honor Senpai Barnett for some reason is unacceptable. I thought we got a glimmer of hope that Moxley was still locked in after that spiked bat spot back at the Omaha Dynamite vs. Adam Copeland, but the Josh Barnett brainwashing has yet to be broken, sadly, and I have doubts now that it never will. I don't know who in AEW needs to hear this, but you can be a heel and still be an entertaining in-ring guy. Just look at Ricochet.

For the record as well, Darby Allin is tremendous, one of the best TV wrestlers on the planet today, and could absolutely work as a world champion. Jon Moxley is also one of my all-time favorites and was arguably the best guy on the planet from late 2019 to the end of 2022, but I don't know how anyone involved in AEW's inner workings looks at what's happening right now and decides that the correct call is to maintain course with a World Champion who legitimately got outworked on a card that features the long ago washed Chris Jericho (who didn't even have the decency to lose clean to Bandido, because "we" have to keep CHRIS JERICHO strong in 2025), dropping the belt to a guy who'd be coming off a seven-plus month layoff, both figuratively and literally cold off of Mt. Everset. There hasn't been palpable anger like this among AEW fans, maybe ever after a PPV show, and Tony Khan can't let his pre and post-show presser comments about being open to fan feedback turn into lip service at this juncture. This can't last until All In.

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