AEWThe AEW main event scene has been fairly well protected over the years, with only a handful of wrestlers retaining the top spots in the AEW World Championship picture. However, there have been others that have come and gone from time to time.
Of all these main event wrestlers, at times the AEW signing has let them down and damaged their position as one of the top talents. Of course, to say that these wrestlers are completely “wrecked” might be an exaggeration, but the following points are all valid and prove that certain wrestlers may not be as good as they used to be, which led to their event standing being lowered. major.
10 Adam Page: Lack of recent character development
During his time as an underdog babyface climbing the card to world title glory, the character of Adam Page was among the best handled in professional wrestling. The nuances of his character, the gradual change over time, and the number of personal battles he had to overcome made for tremendous television.
However, since winning the AEW World Title last year (and after losing it), Page’s character has been pretty bland. The character development of him was what made him so captivating, but this has slowed down a lot with AEW not putting any effort into the trick or personality of him, which has led to him becoming less popular over time.
9 Chris Jericho: Overloaded Fights
Chris Jericho remains one of the company’s most prominent fighters, but he’s dropped a lot of his main event time as a singles star in 2019 and 2020. Much of this stems from the fact that his fights end up being over the top.
50/50 booking, long drawn out feuds, and a repetitive nature to their storylines has led many fans to become bitter about their feuds at times. For example, his feuds with Eddie Kingston and MJF made everyone roll their eyes for how long they lasted.
When CM Punk went on his rant at the All Out 2022 media scrum, AEW President Tony Khan should have stepped in and put an end to things before they got out of hand. Unfortunately, Khan didn’t, which led to things escalating to the point where a fight ensued backstage.
Things with Punk have now gotten incredibly awkward, with reports from the likes of Andrew Zarian on Wrestling Observer Radio indicating that AEW is going to have to have a soft-branded division to cater to Punk and those who don’t like him. Although this wasn’t necessarily AEW’s fault with Punk ruining some of the goodwill for him as a main event, Khan could have done more to prevent it.
7 Cody Rhodes: World Title Stipulation
Cody Rhodes was arguably the most hyped babyface in AEW when the company started, but one foolish decision sent his career downhill. Rhodes lost a match to Chris Jericho at Full Gear 2019 with the stipulation that if he lost, he would never challenge for the AEW World Championship again.
This loss and stipulation derailed Rhodes greatly, as he had to force mid-card feuds and get caught up in the TNT title picture from then on. The lack of progression on the card ruined his position as a main event talent.
6 Kenny Omega: Interference in world title matches
Kenny Omega is someone who is able to continually overcome bad bookings due to the fact that he is simply Kenny Omega. However, even during his AEW world title reign, a questionable booking messed things up a bit.
Many of his title matches, even the PPV ones, were mired in interference from Good Brothers, and after a while it was getting very exhausting and annoying to watch, which had a poor effect on his title reign at general. event as a whole.
5 Eddie Kingston: constant losses
Eddie Kingston has found himself on the main event scene on more than one occasion in a variety of fights, but each and every time he is on the losing end of a big match or brawl.
The more he lost, the less he felt like a serious threat to the main event scene and the world title. At this point, it looks like Kingston will never get his hands on a grand prize despite being one of the most consistently outclassed fighters on the roster.
4 Christian Cage: Becoming a mentor instead of a fighter
Christian Cage came to AEW with a lot of hype, and even found himself thrust into the main event scene when he faced Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship. Cage put in a great performance, but instead of keeping momentum from him, AEW made Cage go down on the card.
Cage became a mentor to Jurassic Express, fighting infrequently. Of course, it was nice to see him spotlight others on the show, but AEW should have made more of his time in the main event scene.
3 Adam Page (Again): Poor world title reign
AEW botched Adam Page’s main event momentum in more ways than one, and another example came with his overall AEW World Championship reign. Page was never introduced as the number one guy, taking a backseat to the likes of MJF and CM Punk.
Page had some fantastic matches, but instead of being presented as a wrestling champion, his defenses were too spread out and it affected his momentum. By the time he lost the gold, fans had seen enough of his checkered career with the jackpot.
2 Chris Jericho (again): Goofy Babyface Run
Much like Adam Page, AEW has made some mistakes with Chris Jericho as the main star, and another example came with his babyface twist. What perhaps could have been a great new start for Jericho and a renewed title quest, his time as a babyface was horrible.
A terrible feud with Dan Lambert, coupled with some terrible sexist and homophobic “humor,” made fans not care what Jericho was up to.
1 Adam Cole: Edgeless as a heel
Although Adam Cole has been injected with life since his return to the promotion with a babyface twist, his time in AEW before his injury was going downhill as the main event baddie.
In NXT, Cole as a rude had a lot of advantage and something that made him stand out, but in AEW it seemed that his promotions were quite repetitive, and he lost that advantage that made him a force to be reckoned with in the black and gold brand.