*Originally released May 24, 2022*
10 Biggest Missed Opportunities In AEW So Far | partsFUNknown
Not everything AEW does turns to gold and here we look at the biggest missed opportunities the promotion has had so far. Which one keeps you up at night the most? Let us know in the comments!
00:00 - Start
00:53 - Honourary Mention
01:23 - 10
02:20 - 9
03:17 - 8
04:42 - 7
05:39 - 6
06:29 - 5
07:22 - 4
07:41 - 3
08:30 - 2
09:30 - 1
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10 Biggest Missed Opportunities In AEW So Far | partsFUNknown
Not everything AEW does turns to gold and here we look at the biggest missed opportunities the promotion has had so far. Which one keeps you up at night the most? Let us know in the comments!
00:00 - Start
00:53 - Honourary Mention
01:23 - 10
02:20 - 9
03:17 - 8
04:42 - 7
05:39 - 6
06:29 - 5
07:22 - 4
07:41 - 3
08:30 - 2
09:30 - 1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Listen, do you hear that? It's the sound of Oli Davis literally counting his Khan coin!
00:05 Yes, it's no secret that we do love a bit of AEW here at WrestleTalker Parts of Unknown,
00:09 but not everything Tony Khan has touched has turned into gold.
00:14 AEW has had its fair share of missed opportunities,
00:16 and to balance the cosmic scales, we're going to talk about them right now.
00:20 It's important to keep in mind that some of these can be rectified with some future booking,
00:24 but seeing as I've loaned Pete my only good crystal ball for some D&D thing,
00:28 the big nerd, we can only go off what's already happened. I'm a level 10 monk, by the way.
00:33 But if Tony Khan does remedy any of these, then future Luke will be happy to be wrong.
00:38 I am current day Luke Owen hailing from Parts of Unknown though,
00:41 and these are the 10 biggest missed opportunities in AEW so far.
00:45 Don't miss your opportunity to subscribe to Parts of Unknown right now! Go on,
00:50 press the button! Do it, you coward, do it! Honourable mention, the exploding barbed wire
00:55 deathmatch. This is a missed opportunity to create a moment that would have legit lived
00:59 in the annals of AEW and wrestling history. A moment that fans could talk off with reverence
01:05 to younger fans in years to come and say "oh, you should have been there to see the ring explode
01:10 while Jon Moxley was comforted by his best friend and former foe Eddie Kingston in such a beautiful
01:16 gorgeous moment" but what we actually had was *fart noises*
01:23 10. Not immediately giving Keith Lee a main event push
01:26 I mean, it's only Keith Lee, innit? The love for this man runs company-wide here and we will
01:31 continue to beat that drum all day and night. Keith Lee on top more, Keith Lee all the time.
01:36 Not many AEW debuts have rocketed to the top of the card immediately. Bryan Danielson and Adam
01:41 Cole coming in at the same time really wasn't shocked at the system and few have matched their
01:44 trajectory. It's much more common for a debut to be like Miro's, Andrade's, Jay Lethal's or in the
01:49 case of Keith Lee where they just make an impressive debut. Which in this case was Keith
01:53 Lee's wonderful display of wrestling perfection as he yeeted Isaiah Cassidy across the ring,
01:58 and then they settle into their spot in the mid card. Granted, Keith only did debut 3 months ago
02:03 and it looks like he may win the tag titles very soon so let's not hit the panic button so soon.
02:07 Oh sod it, let's press the panic button. It's Keith Lee! Put every belt on him! He's Keith Lee!
02:12 Um, I mean, I guess we should probably put Andrade Idlo in this position too as his AEW run so far
02:17 has been, uh, terrible? 9. No follow up to Shaquille O'Neal
02:22 There are few who would have guessed that NBA legend, constant meme generator and all-around
02:26 swell fellow Shaquille O'Neal would pull off such a good performance as he did when he teamed with
02:30 Jade Cargill on Dynamite. Celebrity matches are a bit hit and miss and yeah there's a lot of misses
02:36 but this one was stellar. Shaq wouldn't have been the worst giant in WWE by any stretch with
02:40 performance like this. Which makes it all the more disappointing that we never got a follow
02:44 up to his appearance. And they actually set up a cliffhanger and everything because Cody
02:48 Rhodes put Shaq through two tables and he needed to be taken away in an ambulance but
02:51 when they checked that ambulance, Shaq had vanished! Le shock! The wounded Shaq limped
02:56 off into the night and is yet to return to an AEW ring. I suppose in AEW canon, Shaq is just
03:01 out there somewhere in the woods, just a weird way to write off a character. Shaq did say that
03:06 he was going to return to AEW that summer but that never happened. Even if there isn't another
03:12 match I would like to know where Shaq went, it's a loose thread that I need to have tied up.
03:16 The Split of SCU being rushed and mostly off TV
03:20 To be clear, we could get some major advancements in the Chronicles of SoCal Uncensored in the
03:25 coming weeks with Scorpio Sky's potential rivalry with Frankie Gazarian but holy sh*t,
03:29 pretty much the moment SCU lost the tag titles to Kenny and Hangman they ceased to be important
03:33 whatsoever on AEW's main television programs. These were your first ever tag team champions,
03:38 you beat the Lucha Bros to give them this accolade when we all know it should have been Pentagon.
03:43 And this was felt most heavily in the group splits. One of wrestling's longest tenured
03:47 teams agrees that if they lose another match and don't win the tag team titles they will
03:51 split up forever. It sounds like a pretty awesome emotional story. Too bad in this case it wasn't on
03:57 f*cking TV. And I will not accept the argument of "just watch dark and dark television"
04:03 because the numbers don't lie and they spell disaster for your argument.
04:06 A small portion of AEW's audience watches all four AEW shows so it's unfair for TK
04:13 and you lot to expect 100% of his audience to be up to date with all the ins and outs of those
04:18 shows. Especially as there are very rarely recaps of Dark and Dark Elevation on Dynamite and Rampage.
04:23 Plus, a story of this magnitude should be playing out on AEW's biggest stage and Gazarian and
04:28 Christopher Daniels didn't get a win on TV during this winning streak until the week before their
04:32 final match with the Young Bucks. Great match in its own right but also disappointing in that
04:36 AEW did a TNA and immediately cut to the back rather than hold on the emotional crescendo.
04:41 Santana and Ortiz vs The Lucha Bros
04:45 Another one that can be fixed in future but in the present I'm an impatient man and I can't
04:49 believe that in three years of AEW we have not gone the follow up to one of the greatest
04:55 impact tag rivalries ever, LAX vs The Lucha Bros. When the Luchas won the tag team titles at All
05:02 Out 2021 they began having interactions with Santana and Ortiz that would lead one to believe
05:08 that would be an eventual match where Penta and Phoenix could feasibly drop the tag titles to
05:12 them. And then the match didn't happen and the Luchas instead lost the titles to Jurassic Express
05:17 and turned their attention to the House of Black which feels like it's been going on for two years
05:21 now. While Santana and Ortiz were just dragged back into some Chris Jericho nonsense against
05:26 America Top Team for a celebrity match. This is a match that simply must happen at a major AEW
05:31 stage and when nothing is guaranteed in wrestling you do not want to wait too long to book a match
05:37 this good. Because speaking of which...
05:39 #6 Cody vs Sting
05:41 There are quite a few Cody related things that could have made this way onto the list due to
05:45 his choice to live out his days as Diglett on Raw, like never getting a rematch with MJF comes to
05:50 mind despite mentioning it after Full Gear 2020. But that is something that could theoretically
05:55 happen if the cards fall in the right way when MJF's contract comes up in a couple years time.
05:59 So maybe that doesn't end up being a missed opportunity. Cody vs Sting though? That probably
06:03 ain't happening. When Sting sauntered through the snow onto Dynamite, one of the first people he
06:08 interacted with was Cody Rhodes, planting some sort of seed for a future Cody and Sting thing
06:12 down the line. Considering how much Cody loves Sting it would be hard to believe that there
06:16 wouldn't have been a plan in place at some point. But with Cody gone it seems pretty unrealistic
06:21 that Sting's renaissance run will last the days that Cody could hypothetically rejoin AEW.
06:25 So this one just leaves us wondering... what could have been?
06:28 5. A Ring of Honor Angle
06:31 On the March 2nd 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite, Tony Khan announced that he had purchased Ring
06:36 of Honor in one of history's most rambly announcements of all time. Just says here,
06:39 "Insert TK impression". I dunno what that could possibly be. PUCKIN' UP!
06:44 But then we all sort of just moved on for a bit. We got no major follow up to this outside of some
06:48 Ring of Honor titles being featured on AEW television which hasn't exactly lit the
06:51 wrestling world on fire. Granted, they did have to work with what they had. Sinclair released
06:56 everyone under Ring of Honor contract prior to the sale which certainly hurts the chances of
07:00 an Invasion Angle. Plus they had the New Japan Forbidden Door announcement just a month later.
07:03 Not only that, but Impact were already doing a Ring of Honor Invasion Angle with a lot of
07:07 the big name talent you would need to successfully do it in AEW. There are many factors at play with
07:11 Ring of Honor yet to secure a new TV deal but as far as the weekly AEW programming goes,
07:16 the acquisition of Ring of Honor hasn't been a plot point in the weekly development of the show.
07:21 And that's kind of a bummer.
07:22 4. Not booking Paul White vs. Marco Stunt
07:25 I mean, been the first thing I would have done. It's an easy layup.
07:28 Touchdown! Going back to my 10 most watched videos on WWE's YouTube channel,
07:32 go watch that as well please, the thumbnail for this match on YouTube would have been worth it
07:36 if nothing else. Plus, tall Paul is Marco's favourite wrestler ever so probably would have
07:40 meant a lot to him. 3. Belt Collector Kenny not facing the IWGP Champion
07:45 Well, this one is hardly AEW's fault but it does feel like a bit of a miss for the run,
07:50 doesn't it? When Kenny Omega announced his intentions to be the belt collector,
07:53 he already held gold in AEW and AAA with his eyes on Impact's top prize which he also soon won.
07:59 It felt like this was just the start of Kenny's ambition but the belt collection just stopped
08:04 there. Yeah, it's a solid collection no doubt but it felt like Kenny was an infinity stone or two
08:09 short of a full gauntlet. Given his history with the promotion and AEW's impending working
08:13 relationship with them, it seemed like the perfect finale to the belt collector storyline to have
08:18 Kenny wrestle IWGP World Champion and former golden lover Kota Ibushi but the old Pandorama
08:24 kept that one from ever being possible and Kenny's collection ended in Impact.
08:28 2. The Impact Deal Now, it is very important to state that if
08:34 you look at actual data behind Impact's viewership, it is clear that the deal with AEW helped them
08:40 quite a bit. Viewership and buy rates and all those super interesting numbers did increase
08:43 thanks to AEW but this was definitely not the start of an AEW Impact War rivalry storyline
08:50 that people envisioned it to be when Kenny Omega and Don Callis drove from Daly's Place
08:54 to the Pandemic Impact Zone. AEW sent a decent amount of stars to Impact ranging from Private
08:58 Party to Christian Cage and Frankie Kazarian but the Impact stars coming back the other way were
09:03 few and far between outside of regular appearances from the Good Brothers. I get not wanting to change
09:08 your booking direction to accommodate something to the scope of an invasion angle but it would
09:12 have been cool to see Rich Swann, Josh Alexander, Eddie Edwards or anyone else to mix it up with
09:16 Rey Fenix, Pac or Darby Allin but the biggest missed opportunity here is not utilising the
09:21 incredible women over in Impact to bolster your own women's division which is something
09:26 they were asking for and sigh speaking of.
09:30 1. Pretty much all of the women's division
09:34 The evidence is plentiful that AEW's women's wrestlers will put on some incredible performances
09:40 when given the chance. Whether it be the TBS Championship Tournament, the Owen Hart Cup,
09:44 Baker vs Rosa Lights Out, many of the AEW Women's World Championship matches, these matches are top
09:51 notch and every time one of them happens we all go "see they can do women's wrestling" but just
09:57 one week later we're back to the old standard of one match a week or all the women's segments
10:03 shoved into the same quarter like the total afterthought they are. Compare how much Bryan
10:07 Danielson and Adam Cole were featured on TV after their All Out debuts compared to Ruby Soho.
10:12 Compare how much TV exposure Samoa Joe, Dan Howes, Kyle O'Reilly and Jeff Hardy have had
10:17 since they've come in compared to Tony Storm. It simply isn't good enough. Why did Red Velvet
10:21 go from playing Peacemaker between Layla Hirsch and Chris Stanlander to joining her sworn enemy
10:26 Jade Cargill? That's a pretty drastic character shift that kind of thing needs to play out on TV.
10:30 Hikaru Ishida vs Serena Deev took nearly 8 months to finish their feud and were barely on TV for
10:36 any of it. There were two f***ing PPV cycles during that feud and they never f***ing once
10:40 featured on the f***ing cards. With WWE seemingly flip-flopping on how they feel about the
10:45 presentation of women's wrestling regularly, you'd think that AEW would take this opportunity to
10:48 establish itself as a brand, if not THE brand, that puts its women's division at the forefront.
10:55 And remember, they promised us the best women's division on the planet and they have failed in
11:01 that and really, it feels like they don't care that much. What a missed opportunity.
11:07 And that's our list! What do you think are AEW's biggest missed opportunities? Let me know in the
11:11 comments down below and while you're at it, click the other videos on screen to watch more PFK
11:15 lists. I've been Luke Owen, Jam That Jam.