Jim Cornette on AEW's Biggest Mistakes In 2022 

Archer has been my biggest complaint. He could have even had a short run like Kane did. He lost alot of momentum and never had a shot at building his legitimacy properly. He kinda got Caged

One of their biggest mistakes is catering to the social media fanbase, mainly the twitter fanbase. You can't grow as a promotion just doing what twitter geeks tell you to do. The internet fanbase only makes up a small percentage of the overall wrestling fanbase globally. Every match is booked for the internet fans not actual wrestling fans. Also, another mistake is convincing your fanbase that you present a pro wrestling product yet you show everyone you're just another sports entertainment product

Why is it that when a wrestler becomes champion you see less of them on TV in AEW lately? When Omega, Darby and Cody were champion they were wrestling every week.

Tony Kahn is like a little kid with a giant toy box with a bunch of action figures. He plays with the ones he has until his daddy buys him a bunch of new ones

There are 3 major problems I find as a fan who actually enjoys the show most weeks. 1. Lack of consistent stories for major titles. Cole challenged page just because he wanted to be champion, only commentary mentioned their history making the feud seem like any other feud. The tag titles are randomly defended on rampage or dynamite in cold matches because they never build those matches up for us to care. Thunder Rosa has had 1 televised match since winning the title, battle of the belts retaining against Nyla Rose. The only consistent story for a title they tell in AEW is the TNT title and that story fucking sucks! I mean I like hangman but why do we never see the world champion of the promotion ever? Even during a pandemic Mox who lived across the country still defended the title once a month and was on tv as much as he could be. Even worked dark. 2. Not capitalizing on momentum of guys like Miro, Malakai Black, Eddie Kingston, Keith Lee, Ruby Soho, etc. if you’re gonna get such major reactions from them why aren’t they pushed properly? Miro I can excuse because he was filming tv shows and recovering from injury. But Black was over and instead of challenging for a title he has a faction and is feuding with Death Triangle after like 8 months. Kingston should be TNT champion by now, he beat Jericho clean why is he feuding with him still? Same goes for Keith Lee with the team Taz angle. Even if Ruby Soho wasn’t gonna beat Britt Baker or Jade why is she never on tv? 3. Lack of motivation for major characters. Why is Orange Cassidy lazy? Why is Danhausen weird and hiding under the ring every week cursing people? Why is the House of Black doing the shit they do? Think of the most developed characters in AEW and what they want. Punk wants to be champion after proving he still has it, Danielson, Regal and Mox want to bring violent and gritty wrestling back instead of comedy or flippy wrestling. Wheeler Yuta is a young wrestler who wants to follow a legend and 2 top stars to be a better professional wrestler, FTR want to leave a legacy as the best tag team of all time, The Hardy’s are having one last run in AEW, their last hurrah as a tag team before they finally hang it up, Jade wants to be a megastar and make a lot of money to prove she runs the womens division. Why are there so many guys and girls on the roster but don’t have a clear motivation or goal? Why should I care about them even if they’re a good wrestler?

In the book "The Death of WCW," they pointed out an episode of "WCW Nitro" in April or May 2000 where every match on the show had a stipulation attached, and I think about that every time I watch AEW. It feels like they attach stipulations to EVERYTHING, and it lessens the impact of what could be quality matches if you just let the wrestlers go out and do what they are capable of. Fans do not need every match to be contested under "Philly Street Fight Death Coffin Thumbtack Barbed Wire Electrified Cage Last Man Standing" rules.

Social media can really ruin a wrestler's career if used wrong. Sadly a lot of wrestlers use it wrong.

The saddest part about this is that the central issue-and solution-comes down to a single question. What does ANYBODY in AEW want, as far as their motives/ultimate goals go? It’s the bedrock of wrestling as a medium: whether a guy is a street-brawling badass or the son of a plumber, the momentum of the show hinges on us, as fans, knowing what that character wants on a weekly basis. AEW has 4,322 wrestlers and of that, we have consistent reminders that: *Punk wants the title. *Wardlow wants his freedom. *BC Club wants to show the world what violence really is. *FTR is determined to be the best tag team in history. Past that, I seriously can’t come up with a memorable, consistent motivator that’s directed feuds or angles for ANYBODY ELSE, aside from “I want that title this week” or “I have this title and am therefore going to defend it against someone.” You can’t pull for anyone’s success or failure if you can’t connect with them. Guys like Darby and Eddie are absolute mutants in that they can be plugged into any program and the audience is there for it, but for the remaining 94% of the roster, the fact is that you can sub in any wrestler for any other wrestler on most of the matches on ANY show, and it doesn’t remotely impact the narrative. You hire one booker who can address this most basic of issues, and you’ve got a legitimate chance at challenging the WWE. It costs nothing but admitting that you need help, and if Toybox Tony doesn’t pull his head out of his ass, this lack of coherent and consistent product is going to collapse in on itself. Which I don’t want to happen. But goddamn, is it hard to be optimistic as a wrestling fan, these days.

Tony Khan Consistently using ‘Major Announcements’ as a Booking Crutch?!…. 👀

I tried to get into AEW but there was nothing to bring me back week to week. I'm currently kind of over the fact it seems like a "major announcement" ploy... nevermind the women's division... or lack there of.... 🤷

There is a difference between long-term storytelling and a meandering storyline because no one knows where it is going or how to send it. AEW does much more of the latter than the former.

It's sad that when Khan thinks he's trying to be the next McMahon only to be the next Herb Abrams

Top 5 Problems: 5) Not developing motivations for their mid carders. They just have random matches or prolonged/fractured feuds for months on end with little development. 4) Stubborn refusal to showcase more than one womens division angle in the ring each week. 3) Having a lackluster womens division altogether. There are only 2 female stars in that whole company (which might be one of the reasons for #4). 2) Excessive use of performative/acrobatic/choreographed maneuvers. It is completely unnecessary. FTR, Jericho, Kingston, Punk, MJF, Wardlow, and many of their other wrestlers who are over with the crowd don't need this. It hurts the product when your undercard/midcard needs to do electric chair somersault destroyers as transition moves, just to make the crowd excited. 1) Relegating big name acquisitions immediately to the midcard. One of the best parts about the WCW/WWF rivalry were the debuts and defections. If every star that hops over (with a few exceptions like Danielson and Mox) is just tag teaming on Rampage a week later, it sucks all the excitement out of one of your biggest tools for attracting new eyeballs.

The number of seriously noticeable botches that keep happening, not little things (although they are frequent) but those major spots and suicide dives. I'm surprised no one has suffered a career ending injury yet and its already come close several times this year. Makes AEW look sloppy and unrehearsed with little regard for the safety of their wrestlers and its all for the sake of short lived "holy sh*t" chants from the crowd and RU-vid clips.

I agree with Jim. They literally have Moxley, Danielson AND Punk. And still struggled to maintain 1m viewers for their main show, on a Wednesday Night with little to no competition.

There's a longer list probably but I can give a couple of things to add: (1.) Former WWE stars coming assuming they'll get somewhere in AEW but only to regulated to Dark/Dark Elevation and to be in the same position that were in the WWE. (2.) Claiming to professionally athletic but making very piss poor botches and getting seriously injured just by doing those dumb spots.

AEW have simply plateaued and it will take something incredibly major for their interest to increase. Plus it didn't help when they make all these major announcements and they fall short of expectations.

I forgot they got Ruby Soho, ... I don't know why that one sticks out from all the debuts. I think its because it become like the NXT main roster call up.

Im starting more and more to fear that Tony will make AEW be like the Jacksonville Jaguars... a horrible thing

I think most of AEW's problems can be boiled down to trying to feed too many mouths and catering to the hardcore fanbase. Way too many factions with way too many unimportant wrestlers. There are a few performers that should be getting far more time and a lot of wrestlers that should be relegated to AEW Dark, the fans that want to see them will find them. TV should be for the talent that has more widespread appeal.

I always love how Brian comments that emails or reports are badly written when the reality is, he cannot fucking read 😂

"Wheel of stupidity, turn turn turn... tell us the lesson that we should learn..."

The biggest mistake of AEW : Who are the two top guys? Everytime in history every big promotion had two money drawing names, there can be multiple top guys but only two Superstars. Who are their Rock-Austin? Flair-Dusty? Hogan-Andre? Even recently Cena-Batista? Angle-Triple H? Eddie-Benoit? Lesnar-Roman?

I love that Brian and Jim can hear the deafening noise of trucks in the background but we don't

Nailed it with the comment “if you’re not telling them (the audience) in your two fucking hours, don’t expect them to know!” So true.

Speaking of blood, it seems like Adam Page is always should bleed in his title match before he gets the win. It reminds me of Van Damme movies where the he gets his win over opponent only after he gets beaten almost to death.

#1 definitely bothered me alot. Battle of the Belts sounds like a pseudo PPV and they were both dogshit. Not having the world title defended on that show is a joke. It was defended less than a week prior for both shows.

11:22 Jims reaction to aew story telling is priceless.🤣

The fact that evil uno and the dark order are still employed is the biggest mistake of all

The Khan family has a lot of money but they don’t have what it takes to be great in any of their endeavors

funny that during the segment on turning out the lights, youtube jumped straight to a commercial for me!!

You could write a whole Book on the mistakes AEW has made beginning from May 25th 2019 to now.

So what happens when the interim champion is sick? Will there be an interim interim champion?

The trajectory cant constantly be up, so I think its natural for some levelling off. Personally I think its time for Punk, Danielson, or MJF to make a run at the belt. Hangman coming back and winning it WAS great. But the feud with Cole and all the dumb death matches took the air out of the balloon.

Lio Rush should have made the roulette

My biggest complaint, no real Stardom/Standouts among the crowd everyone feels the same.

I’ll be honest but I absolutely loved AEW when it first started. I wasn’t watching wrestling at all and bam all of these new wrestlers (to me) were so fresh to see. Now it’s actually become worse than WWE because at least WWE knows how to make good heels and great babyfaces. Aew is just a mishmash of everything. Way too many tables and chair spots. Babyfaces that suck as champions. Too much Jericho and his terrible gimmick.

AEW gets a LOT of charity. WWE doesn't use talent for a long time and they're crucified for it. AEW doesn't use talent for a long time and it gets a special PC name "conveyer belt system." AEW is signing too much talent and ignoring everyone else. Tony is the kid who ignores his old toys when he gets new ones and he gets new ones all the time. WWE starts a storyline, stops it, and comes back to it later and they're raked over the coals. AEW starts a storyline, stops it, and comes back to it later and it's called "long term booking" and the internet crows about it.

That is great artwork from the Heckel. I listen to the full audio podcast. I could listen again on RU-vid when it's historical I guess, maybe 18 months or longer.

5 months later, we’ve come to find that this list didn’t even scratch the surface of AEW’s biggest mistakes.

What I have observed with AEW is that they are young; for all the praise they have received for great moments and quality matches, they deserve accountability for their f**k-ups. At some point in time, TK needs to start taking the criticism and learn from it. Plus, actually applying franchise players... because if Britt Baker and MJF are suppose to be the future, why are they being misrepresented? And the titles aren't being treated with the reverence it deserves.

As much as I appreciate Tony Khan, I really think it’s going to become public one day how extensive of a drug issue he has. No way that guy is using natural substances

The AEW fans have doubled-down on defending the notion that Tony Khan is only catering to the hardcores. "What's wrong with wanting to please your fan base?" they say. There's no way they think AEW can thrive this way. We've already seen that the ratings aren't sustainable this way either.

I'm still mildly befuddled as to the nature of everyone's surprise at this, considering the lack of background experience on the part of the owner.It takes personal time spent in this craft to have that inner instinct for what's necessary and what will and will not pay off.Gives me more respect for the giants of my time like Eddie Graham,Bill Watts,Paul Boesch,JerryJarrett who made the most with not as much as they have today even if it wasn't always easy.

Their continuous mishandling of the women's division continues to agitate me. You have GREAT female talent in Rosa, Shida, Deeb, Jamie, and now Toni, hidden gems like Anna Jay, a star like Britt, and you still cannot generate interest in their matches, or make any compelling storylines for them. Britt was losing steam towards the end, Rosa has been Champ for a few weeks, and they've already made her look like a goof, Shida and Deeb had an inconsistent, on-and-off feud, and the best female star they have is Jade, who SHOULD be the Women's World Champion, but instead holds a meaningless title where she beats jobbers. They should have the best women's wrestling in the world next to Stardom and WWE, but they're embarrassing.

That roulette has me dead 💀🤣🤣

Poor Tony he hasn't a clue what he doing.

That covers almost as much ground as Kenny Bolin

Dammit Jim I’m still listening to Cody’s Omnibus

I can't believe this is only 33 minutes. I would have assumed hours. Ha.

They have more factions and stables than late era WCW.

I wish we could hear what Brian is hearing. 'WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!' Lol

The biggest mistake was putting the title on Hangman. He was never a draw in NJPW so that should have been an indication he wouldn't draw in the US either.

The bigger question is when does Discovery dump them from the network.

I will say alot of times you don't see them might be due to scheduling conflicts which is why TK is cutting down on talent working elsewhere. Thunder Rosa is always having matches in other places.

Awesome Shoot Today Jim!!😎🐐🐐

I like how WWE does blood! They don’t! If somebody is bleeding it’s real! I loved LASHLEY vs McIntyre in Hell in a Cell! Lashleys shoulder and Drew’s back! Real stuff!

Cody even did the lights out for himself even😭not in 2022 tho lol

The lights out aged beautifully lmao

The real #1. Tony Kahn writes Dynamite.

What I heard, It felt like the same mistake from WCW all over again

AEW isn't bulletproof to criticism 💯 for those who hang on Tony's junk

Only 33 minutes? I thought this would be an omnibus

#8 Signing former WWE released stars and pushing them to the top over faithful AEW stars who get depushed and released

Damn I'm shocked it's only 33:51 long knowing Cornette and his opinion on AEW's booking philosophies 😆

The sad thing is when you bring up to these problems to an AEW fanboy, they always have some BS reason to try and tell you how you supposedly don’t understand wrestling when on reality it’s the other way around.

Every interview is interrupted. Every Babyface champion is booked horribly. They just show up on TV, get interrupted, then wrestle a match. it's very bland with people who aren't CM Punk or MJF.

AEW books their storylines like its a trilogy of movies. Ratings and Viewership continues to drop, people aren't going to remember every last detail that was done 3 years ago.

The main issue is that you have someone with no creative ability trying to be creative and using gimmick storytelling to cover for a total lack of story structure. And the reliance on viewers doing all their own research to figure out what is going on comes down to laziness. Next week they are having a match between Deonna Purrazo and Mercedes Martinez for the ROH Woman's Title with no build. And on top of that, Martinez has not even been on television, and when she was on AEW programs, she usually lost, and now they are hyping a match with her and someone a lot of people might not know.

Eddie Kingston need to be champion, TNT or World ASAP. Why? He can talk. Look WCW, Hall and Nash never wrestle week by week but they cut promos all the time and people CARED about this type of booking.

5:50 The way Jim describes reading a book with long breaks in between is actually how I read books. weird.

I'm definitely noticing that they are WWE'ing the show now and I have been with aew since before All In. The talent they have and never gets used. If they booked all their big stars right the show could maybe do 2 million viewers within a year

When AEW started, I was watching. Even bought their first PPV. But right now, I'm barely interested. The Wardlow MJF feud is the only thing I really care about. And I'm a huge Japanese wrestling fan but here's where I think they went wrong... they try to book like NJPW for a US audience. That, right there, does not work! Too many moving parts! What's the point of having 20 top stars? There's no way you can use them in a meaningful way. I could continue but I'll write an entire chapter lol.

Actually, Jim makes a good point here that flew over my head until now. People complaining about how no one bleeds in wrestling only made a modicum of sense to me until now. Maybe they don't bleed enough for what they do to be realistic, but blood is still common. But of course, if it's only in the money matches where blood is regularly split then the casual observer would immediately jump to that conclusion. Being a wrestling fan, I tended to jump to the big matches almost right away, maybe watching some of the build up first if it was available and I had the time to.

I miss Miro's "double-jointed wife" promos

I think Miro should join MJF as a new member of his faction replacing wardlow

I think you need a much bigger wheel ...... Just sayin' ......

I miss piledrivers in WWE. But whenever I watch AEW, there's too much of it. Someone is getting piledriven every time.

A complete list would take hours if not days.

The thing i didn't like about AEW is..they several times mocking WWE bad creative (of course) but, They don't realize if they're become 2000's WCW mix the UWF.

Tony must have been horrible as a kid with toys..collected a whole bunch..broke them..lost them..he treats his wrestlers like action figures

Fun Fact: In WWE's pg era we've seen blood more in main event matches or random mistakes (like Jax punching Becky in the face)...

What actually kills AEW is not being on a streaming service. A vast majority of ppl have multiple streaming services as opposed to cable tv service. If they want more viewers and expand fan base they need to be on a streaming service, about 3 years ago.

The best workers in AEW won’t put each other over . That’s why they don’t have many big time Matches and angles . A bunch of fucking marks led by CM PUNK and the young bucks

Lots of mistakes Tony Kahn made (Jim gotta remember) could have been fixed from the start if he took some kind of job with AEW when it first started. If he took a job with Russo in TNA he could have taken this one and been a consultant at the least. Even if he didn't like Omega or the Bucks

Interim champion sort of makes sense. The point of a television title belt is to defend it every week on television. The problem is that AEW already refused to commit to that, so what's another two weeks without a television title defense? If they had made that a sticking point, so and so didn't defend the belt like he should have but I will be a real television champion type of thing, then so be it, but they didn't even do that much. TNA dropped the ball with its TV title, everyone does, but they at least gave lip service to the stipulation. AEW suddenly caring about it out of the blue sky is just weird.

He really went from Stone Cold Steve Austin to Wheeler Yuta

Trouble with AEW's Women's roster is they have only a handful of credible talent. Nyla Rose is just big, she's actually pretty rough in the ring, so all she's really good for is jobbing to the stars and squashing jobbers. Ruby Soho, Toni Storm (who is new anyway), Shida and Statlander if you can even count her as credible are all face, the only credible heels are Brit and Sereena, Britt she's just feuded with and Sereena was and still is feuding with Shida. Who else is there? Martinez just did an angle with Rosa, Hayter is Britt's stooge, Jade isn't ready to be champ and isn't ready to lose her streak. I mean what you going to do, put the belt on Tai Conti who feels upper midcard or Anna Jay who isn't even that? The women's division is shallow, always has been and TK has failed to to see or resolve it. The booking is inconsistent although the names this guy brought up mostly suck. But it does seem random, like House Of Black vs Death Triangle is hot then cold, involves Pac then doesn't. Everything is like this, you can't follow any of the stories but they're on, then off, like Julia Hart, it's easy to forget why she even has an eye patch, we never she her and when we do they're trying to get back into this storyline we don't care about. Oh and Scorpio Sky had some amazing undefeated run we never saw because it was on the Z show. I guess AEW uses blood too much, but the bigger problem is the excessive violence. I was excited for Baker vs Thunder Rosa but the match was just a car crash, why are you using weapons in a steel cage, you already have a cage! Scorpio vs Sammy had barbed wire on ladders and it made no sense and added nothing to the bumps. I like a car crash style hardcore match but AEW turns every match into one. Page vs Cole had some decent spots but zero story, it was just another car crash in a company full of car crashes. I mean with Cody they couldn't keep him. He wanted Punk money, he wasn't delivering Punk quality. Things weren't exactly going well for Cody, you couldn't give him a pay rise after that run.

15:01 I need a supercut of Brian reading good 😁

I have another one too many matches on rampage it feels forced for a 1 hour show with commercials especially last night (4/29/2022)

'Shot of brandy' might be one of the most sociopathic things Jim has ever said.

Congratulations on keeping this video under an hour. Lord knows this can be a multipart video.

I criticised Malachi Black and the lights out gimmick. He called me a goofball and told me to not watch. Don’t worry, I don’t. And a lot of others don’t either.

Biggest mistake is featuring the same people every single god damn week.

Cant wait for the one for 2024!

AEW as a whole is a mistake

Hiring Danhausen, Cole and Lethal are on top of my list.

This makes me want to see Corny review or do a commentary for a full CZW show from the archive. He'd be foaming at the mouth.

Adam Pages lackluster at best championship run should be noteworthy on this list. He could be a believably good champion if they didn’t put him in such damn to fail Situations such as the Texas death match with Lance archer which had the stench of grisly death all over it. And the hot shot O mania feud with Adam Cole

The problem is that he does everything alone. Sure it is good to plan the stories with wrestlers but you need more people for that. Dark order is dead for instance. He needs help.