Does AEW Have Too Many Championships?

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Are there too many AEW championships after the company introduced the new All-Atlantic title on this week’s edition of Dynamite?

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Show Notes

For more AEW discussion, you can follow me on Twitter @wrestleblake.

Transcript

Does AEW have too many championships? That is the question to discuss on today’s episode of Ali Elite Daily.

We teased it on Thursday’s episode when we were talking about our AEW Dynamite review. And one of the topics we discussed was the introduction of the new All Atlantic Championship. The tournament has already begun to crown the first-ever All Atlantic Champion, and it was PAC getting the win over Buddy Matthews in first round action.

The bigger focus is the discussion coming out of it. That is what sort of led to a bigger discussion on social media. I think that the question is probably one that a lot of people may just answer based on a number. But to me, my answer may not be what you would expect. I think it’s a matter of intent.

I don’t think it’s really a matter of number at this point in terms of quantity. I don’t think that is something that we should actually make this discussion about. Because you can have as many titles or little titles as you want.

But the fact is, what is the role of a championship? What does a championship mean?

To me, that’s way more important. That’s where I think you take this discussion. It’s not about the number, it’s about what is the intent. So if we look at AEW’s current championship situation, again, you’ve now added another title to the mix. And as I mentioned as well on Dynamite, you’re also factoring in that you have a team like FTR holding the ROH Tag Team Championship, and you have Ricky Starks who’s holding the FTW title.

I think that’s dependent on how you view those because you don’t really view those as titles that are in the regular rotation. You’ve got Adam Cole, who’s got basically the Owen Hart Cup title, although that’s a little bit different because we know that’s really only to be something that’s going to be defended once a year. Same with Britt Baker.

But if you really just focused on the main titles, if you go the quantity route, you can start to bring in those kinds of championships. The FTW one, the ROH titles, those kinds of things that we’ve seen on AEW television but aren’t necessarily going to be front and center. They’re not going to be the main focus of your storylines each and every week.

So let’s focus on what is there. And that is knowing that you have an AEW World Champion, you have the TNT Champion, you have the AEW World Tag Team Championship, you have the AEW Women’s World Champion, you have the TBS Campion, and now you do have the All Atlantic Championship.

That’s six titles for a pretty big roster, right? I mean, that’s not that many titles for what is a roster that is growing by the day at this point based on all the additions that the company has made over the past six months or so. It’s not a lot of titles when you really look at it that way. That’s if you take out the FTW title, ROH titles, those kinds of things.

But if we look at where each of these AEW titles is right now, I think that’s something you have to bring into this discussion.

And to me, the AEW World Championship is fine outside of the Interim AEW World Championship. I don’t really think you bring that into this discussion of the bigger picture of the state of AEW title situation because we know that is an interim scenario.

Eventually, there’s going to be one AEW World Champion again, and that’s going to either be CM Punk or whoever is the interim champion at the time that CM Punk returns. The AEW World Championship is fine. It’s been treated like the biggest thing since day one, and we understand that it’s your world championship. So no problem there, right?

The TNT Championship is where I think you can you can start to really bring in some concerns

Initially, it was one of those things where AEW introduces the TNT title, and a lot of people immediately are asking, ‘Okay, what’s going to set this apart?’ Right. For a while there, it was something that they were putting in these featured main event slots, and it felt like a big deal. It was almost equal at times to the AEW World Championship. I think that that is something that they were aiming for.

Whether it was Cody Rhodes, whether it was late Brodie Lee, they found ways to keep that sort of front and center and to keep it in that same conversation as your AEW World title.

Now, I think it’s much different because we have seen what has become of this title. You’ve had a lot of title changes. And I think that’s something that different people are going to have different opinions on that when it comes to what is the value of a title is in terms of the actual length of the title reign, right?

If you actually look at it, you’ve had some pretty long reigns there. Miro had 140 days as TNT champion. Darby Allin at 186 days as champion. But I think that can also be something that’s a little bit overvalued, because, again, you look at some of the others.

I mean, Brodie Lee only had it for 46 days, but that’s a little bit different because that was a strong title reign when you really look back on it. But beyond that, that’s where you’re kind of getting into this, especially most recently.

If you go back to Cody’s reign that started last Christmas, he had it for 32 days. Sammy Guevara had it for 42 days. After that, Scorpio Sky had it for 38 days. Sammy had it for 11 days. And now Scorpio has had it for 40-plus days. So it’s the bouncing around of the title that has been one reason why it has not felt as special.

And let’s be honest, this recent feud, it was just pretty much a mess at times. The storyline between Sammy Guevara and Scorpio Sky did no one any favors, and I think that also added to the devaluing of the belt. These two have traded the belt over the past four months, and they’ve each held the title twice. So that is something that doesn’t necessarily help.

I think that is kind of given this title a big hit in terms of just the way it is perceived now, and that’s why I think they are turning their attention to Wardlow. I mentioned that on the AEW Dynamite review on Thursday. I think it makes it a no-brainer that you go towards Wardlow pretty quickly, and maybe just try to hit reset on the TNT Championship.

But what is the intent of the TNT Championship? Initially, the intent was to make it feel it like a main event title, where it was the biggest thing outside of the AEW World Championship. Right now, it doesn’t feel that way.

That’s not an indictment of Scorpio Sky. It’s really more about the booking that we’ve seen over the past several months with this whole situation. I’m not the only one saying that. There are a lot of people who have had no idea how to react to this storyline between Sky and Guevara……

That’s something that I think you have to look at. Is this your Intercontinental Championship? It kind of seems that way. That’s fine, but it’s not really being booked like anything right now that people perceive as a highly valuable championship. But a change to Wardlow could change that…..

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