Should AEW Have a Full Brand Extension?
An Opinion Article in Favor of Dynamite and Collision Having Two Independent Rosters.
All Elite Wrestling (AEW) has a sizable roster of professional wrestlers. This roster can be seen every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night live on either TNT or TBS. In addition, AEW President Tony Khan purchased Ring of Honor (ROH) Wrestling, and a weekly show is posted to Honor Club for subscribers to view every Thursday or anytime on demand.
With this many shows on the air and a sizable roster to go along with it, is it time to split the brands much like World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) did after acquiring Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW)? I argue that it is time for brand exclusivity.
This is strictly an opinion piece. Something as complex as a hard brand split comes with many challenges. This is a collection of thoughts on how to navigate the complexity of the situation.
Is It Time to Split the Brands? Why I Think the Answer is YES!
Attending Shows to See Certain Wrestlers
Creating brand exclusivity means you can only see a certain wrestler by attending or watching Dynamite or Collision. Let’s say for example FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler) are exclusive to Collision. If someone wants to see them compete, they must find a way to see Collision. They won’t get the chance to see them compete on Wednesday nights on Dynamite.
To build on this, let’s say a fan wants to see both FTR and The Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta), but the BCC is only on Dynamite. This makes both weekly shows more must-see for that fan.
The number of combinations of brand exclusivity that will make both shows a must-see for fans is nearly infinite. In addition, this will keep storylines exclusive to each show making them easier for fans to keep up with. With less competition for television time, storylines can be flushed out more and feel more in-depth for fans to enjoy.
Dark Matches
Even if a full roster split took place, there is still a sizable roster and only 120 minutes per show to fill (less when you enter advertisement breaks). If a fan purchased a ticket to see the Young Bucks and they only have a five-minute promo instead of a match, the fan might feel cheated. There is a potential fix for this.
WWE typically hosts dark matches after the live versions of their weekly television. This way if someone paid to attend live because they want to see AJ Styles, but he only has a promo segment the option to put him in a non-televised dark match is there. AEW has experimented with dark matches but in most cases, they weren’t truly dark matches. They were filmed for the AEW YouTube Channel and eventually, Collision and Ring of Honor television began being filmed before and/or after Dynamite/Rampage television tapings.
This brings up an interesting crossroads (no pun intended) of what can happen to those shows.
What About Rampage and Ring of Honor?
As someone who has attended a fair share of AEW television tapings and seen a variety of post-show taping styles executed by the promotion, I can give my perspective on this.
Taping Ring of Honor after a two-hour AEW television episode feels tiring on a live crowd. The matches tend to be shorter, but the taping itself can go two-plus hours after the conclusion of Dynamite/Collision. Much of the crowd leaves after the AEW taping and those that remain behind are often quiet and tired. This feeling amplifies the longer the ROH taping goes on. It isn’t fair to the wrestlers to be in front of a cold crowd like that. There are many ways this can be adjusted. Each has its pros and cons. Here is what I think a potential fix is.
For years ROH was the pinnacle of independent professional wrestling. Many wrestlers were noticed here and signed to WWE via Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) and later NXT on their way to the main roster. Many who succeeded in WWE made waves in Ring of Honor first. CM Punk, Seth Rollins Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Claudio Castagnoli/Cesaro are just a few of the names that became synonymous with ROH.
With ROH and Rampage feeling like afterthoughts I propose keeping ROH as a training ground for lesser-known independent wrestlers that AEW wants to have get some practice in before they head to Dynamite/Collision. Rampage can be used as a proving ground to test in front of a bigger live audience before fully committing them to Dynamite/Collision.
Does this sound familiar? It feels much like Heat/Velocity/FCW/NXT from WWE. In many ways it is. One adjustment to make it feel less like a WWE formula could be that while wrestlers are still in the ROH/Collision system they can still take dates on the independent scene. This way they get more weekly reps, and the independent scene doesn’t get depleted anytime someone gets some momentum behind them. AEW has shown flexibility in this department as some competitors that are on Dynamite/Collision are wrestling for smaller independent promotions as well.
To alleviate the live crowd fatigue ROH could be moved to a specific location that is away from mainline AEW tapings. This has been done by TNA Wrestling, FCW, NXT, and other independent promotions. This practice was more common when AEW first acquired ROH and was utilized by AEW for some YouTube tapings as well. Fans can still see the ROH roster, but it won’t have live fatigue currently being experienced.
On the Rampage side, live fatigue is still a factor but considering the taping is less than an hour when commercial time is taken into account, it feels much less tiring than ROH currently does. Instead of using traditional dark matches here, the up-and-coming ROH roster can have matches with Dynamite-exclusive AEW wrestlers (assuming it would still be filmed post-Dynamite) who didn’t compete on Dynamite that week.
Again, there are many ways the roster can be managed. This is just one opinion.
When do They Crossover?
Again, there are multiple ways this can be done. One option is to follow the WWE formula and have one night a year where the brands crossover to compete for bragging rights. A way to put a twist on this would be to crossover at the five main AEW pay-per-views (Revolution, Double or Nothing, All In, All Out, and Full Gear).
Instead of having titles specific to each brand, keep the titles as is and put extra pressure on the defending champion to not only keep the title for themselves but for the show as well. If they lose the title and it goes to the other show, when will they get a rematch? It adds an extra story element to each pay-per-view title match.
There are many pros and cons to having a specific show split. It comes with many questions that would need to be answered and presents a unique set of challenges. I feel if it is well thought out and executed both the wrestler and fans benefit.
Do you want a hard brand split in AEW? How would you go about it? Sound off in the comments.