Who suffered the most from the influx of ex WWE talent?

[SirLucas]

Is there anybody who you feel could have been a bigger star in AEW? Yet, due to a large influx of WWE talent getting signed, this person's push was derailed or just lost in the shuffle. In other words, someone who you feel could have a played a more prominent role to the brand, but sadly remained stagnant or marginalized due to increased roster depth. 

[Denny Zen is Cooking™]

I mean, honestly? Brian Cage. Now, granted, he didn't do himself any favors with his (and his wife's) antics on social media and whatnot, but he was a firmly established upper midcarder in the "pandemic" era AEW, and once the influx of WWE talent came in, he fell all the way down to midcard level on the secondary brand.

[SirLucas]

Aug 4, 2022 13:39:18 GMT -5 Denny Zen is Cooking™ said:

I mean, honestly? Brian Cage. Now, granted, he didn't do himself any favors with his (and his wife's) antics on social media and whatnot, but he was a firmly established upper midcarder in the "pandemic" era AEW, and once the influx of WWE talent came in, he fell all the way down to midcard level on the secondary brand.

Speaking of Brian Cage, I heard from someone who was working one of the tables at the last Rob Feinstein Icons convention in Philly. I believe it was March or April of this year. But this person who was there all day told me Brian Cage had a notably empty autograph line. Of course Bret was there along the Hardy Boys, and those lines stayed packed most of the day. But does that say anything when a current AEW star like Cage is having to play Lonely Virgil at signings? 

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Aug 4, 2022 13:45:08 GMT -5 SirLucas said:

Aug 4, 2022 13:39:18 GMT -5 Denny Zen is Cooking™ said:

I mean, honestly? Brian Cage. Now, granted, he didn't do himself any favors with his (and his wife's) antics on social media and whatnot, but he was a firmly established upper midcarder in the "pandemic" era AEW, and once the influx of WWE talent came in, he fell all the way down to midcard level on the secondary brand.

Speaking of Brian Cage, I heard from someone who was working one of the tables at the last Rob Feinstein Icons convention in Philly. I believe it was March or April of this year. But this person who was there all day told me Brian Cage had a notably empty autograph line. Of course Bret was there along the Hardy Boys, and those lines stayed packed most of the day. But does that say anything when a current AEW star like Cage is have to play Lonely Virgil as signings? 

Cage is at the weirdest level for wrestling fandom. When AEW would put up every Dark match as its own video, I would keep track of their first-weekend views in the weekly Dark thread, and it was really noticeable that Brian Cage was a quantifiable draw on that measure...but the numbers were like, 80,000 extra views per week if Brian Cage were in the match. If that's the total number of people who will go out of their way to see Brian Cage even if it's a nothing squash, that's small potatoes, but it's also really noticeable that he would get that when arguably more well-known wrestlers and more competitive matches would not.

So like, there exists a group of people who will watch anything Brian Cage does, seemingly, but they're not a big enough group to move the needle on the scale he probably needs to stay relevant.

[Burst]

Social media antics nonwithstanding, Cage is 100% one of those guys whose impressiveness depends on who he's around, especially since his gimmick has never really deviated all that far from "I have really big muscles and am reasonably agile for someone with really big muscles and I am an INTENSE WOLVERINE (no not that one)".

Like, I think the most impressive he's looked is when he's around a predominantly smaller roster, which you could definitely make the argument for his time in Lucha Underground and to a lesser extent pandemic-era AEW. Once you start getting other big guys that are equally if not more agile and bring a lot more to the table other than INTENSE, he starts looking a lot more like a tub of Great Value vanilla ice cream covered in creatine and protein powder.

[Denny Zen is Cooking™]

Aug 4, 2022 13:54:46 GMT -5 Burst said:

Social media antics nonwithstanding, Cage is 100% one of those guys whose impressiveness depends on who he's around, especially since his gimmick has never really deviated all that far from "I have really big muscles and am reasonably agile for someone with really big muscles and I am an INTENSE WOLVERINE (no not that one)".

Like, I think the most impressive he's looked is when he's around a predominantly smaller roster, which you could definitely make the argument for his time in Lucha Underground and to a lesser extent pandemic-era AEW. Once you start getting other big guys that are equally if not more agile and bring a lot more to the table other than INTENSE, he starts looking a lot more like a tub of Great Value vanilla ice cream covered in creatine and protein powder.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly why I chose him. I think most "AEW guys" have actually benefited from having new talent to have fresh matchups with. But, in Cage's case, he was AEW's resident "strong guy," and became increasingly duplicative as guys like Miro, Keith Lee, Buddy Matthews, etc... came in. 

It's pretty nuts that, in two years, he has gone from Casino Ladder Match winner, FTW champion, PPV match against Sting, to being a secondary guy in a faction that appears to exclusively exist on the AEW YouTube shows and ROH-branded programming.  

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Almost everybody: ex-WWE people make up a huge proportion of the top third of the roster, and (counting Punk) they hold both the top championships and the tag team championships in both AEW and ROH (and the women's championship in ROH). Obviously the women's championship is held by an AEW original, but Deeb, Conti, Storm, Soho, and Athena sure get a lot of screen time.

I think the only people who haven't suffered are rare cases like Wardlow and MJF, booker favorites like Baker, and the rookies explicitly boosted up by ex-WWE people, like Yuta. Even the Elite has suffered, because we have to watch this fiftieth iteration of "who in the Elite are my real friends?" storyline now.

[SirLucas]

Time will also tell for Powerhouse Hobbs and his recent heel turn. For the longest time, Hobbs was just the generic muscle guy, a background player. But now that may change.

[simplydurhamcalling]

I feel like Darby Allin was presented at a higher level this time last year.

[markymark]

Aug 4, 2022 14:30:35 GMT -5 simplydurhamcalling said:

I feel like Darby Allin was presented at a higher level this time last year.

Idk why I believe ever since that time he mocked Cora only for her to roast him his booking got worse.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Aug 4, 2022 14:35:20 GMT -5 markymark said:

Aug 4, 2022 14:30:35 GMT -5 simplydurhamcalling said:

I feel like Darby Allin was presented at a higher level this time last year.

Idk why I believe ever since that time he mocked Cora only for her to roast him his booking got worse.

If her roasting him actually moved the needle on Khan caring about the allegations she brought up...well...I can't say that's the least just thing that has happened in this promotion.

[champchumpchange]

All of Dark Order

Best Friends (minus OC, who might get a title eventually)

Murder Jabron' Lance Archer

[Triangle Lancer]

Aug 4, 2022 14:41:22 GMT -5 champchumpchange said:

All of Dark Order

Best Friends (minus OC, who might get a title eventually)

Murder Jabron' Lance Archer

Ding, ding and...ding.

Re: Best Friends, I went to that (IMO decent) Thanksgiving Eve 2019 Dynamite in Chicago and the Best Friends beat the Lucha Brothers; I thought this was going to be the catalyst that sends them upward. You can even see me in the red shirt jump and applaud in joy.

Nope.

[Deleted]

Aug 4, 2022 14:09:47 GMT -5 carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) said:

Almost everybody: ex-WWE people make up a huge proportion of the top third of the roster, and (counting Punk) they hold both the top championships and the tag team championships in both AEW and ROH (and the women's championship in ROH). Obviously the women's championship is held by an AEW original, but Deeb, Conti, Storm, Soho, and Athena sure get a lot of screen time.

I think the only people who haven't suffered are rare cases like Wardlow and MJF, booker favorites like Baker, and the rookies explicitly boosted up by ex-WWE people, like Yuta. Even the Elite has suffered, because we have to watch this fiftieth iteration of "who in the Elite are my real friends?" storyline now.

I wouldn't really consider Deeb an "ex-WWE talent" tbh. She had a run as a lackey for Punk 13 years ago, a run which included one single televised match, then got fired. Then she came back after a six year absence, had either two or three matches in the Mae Young Classic and from then on was exclusively a trainer. Mercedes either for that matter - out of a 22-year career, two of those years were spent in WWE.

I agree with you otherwise though.

[kidkamikaze10]

Dark Order, Best Friends, and I guess Brian Cage, but he also did that himself.

[Rudy Gobert Fadeaway]

I think Lance Archer is the big one. Dude just kinda shows up when they're in need of a big dude and goes back in to his cave afterwards. 

Also I wanna say Private Party but I feel like I already heard about them declining before the talent influx. It's kinda nuts to remember that they got 4 Pillars type booking rly early on.

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Aug 4, 2022 14:52:04 GMT -5 @tacticalsneakman said:

Aug 4, 2022 14:09:47 GMT -5 carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) said:

Almost everybody: ex-WWE people make up a huge proportion of the top third of the roster, and (counting Punk) they hold both the top championships and the tag team championships in both AEW and ROH (and the women's championship in ROH). Obviously the women's championship is held by an AEW original, but Deeb, Conti, Storm, Soho, and Athena sure get a lot of screen time.

I think the only people who haven't suffered are rare cases like Wardlow and MJF, booker favorites like Baker, and the rookies explicitly boosted up by ex-WWE people, like Yuta. Even the Elite has suffered, because we have to watch this fiftieth iteration of "who in the Elite are my real friends?" storyline now.

I wouldn't really consider Deeb an "ex-WWE talent" tbh. She had a run as a lackey for Punk 13 years ago, a run which included one single televised match, then got fired. Then she came back after a six year absence, had either two or three matches in the Mae Young Classic and from then on was exclusively a trainer. Mercedes either for that matter - out of a 22-year career, two of those years were spent in WWE.

I agree with you otherwise though.

I'm just counting people who joined AEW immediately after leaving the WWE. And Punk, because he wrestled nowhere in-between.

If we exclude people with extensive indie careers outside the WWE, that changes things drastically. Swerve in Their Glory no longer counts, for instance.

[Dub H]

Aug 4, 2022 14:14:15 GMT -5 SirLucas said:

Time will also tell for Powerhouse Hobbs and his recent heel turn. For the longest time, Hobbs was just the generic muscle guy, a background player. But now that may change.

Tbf Hobbs was very much not ready for a long time.

[Bo Rida]

It's difficult to say as other factors play into many of them. I think Best Friends would have beat the Bucks for the titles if not for injury and they haven't recaptured their momentum since. Archer, Starks and many more have had injuries too.

Soho and Storm are probably helping some (mostly Statlander and Hayter) long term by taking the big match losses.

The jobber tag teams are somehow losing time to Pilman and Griff more than WWE guys which remains baffling.

The dark order and particularly Silver is the worst case, he's over and has his buddy as champion and still disappears for weeks on end. Think he could rival OC as a kids favourite.

Talking of OC he and Darby are the others but they're difficult to book as the world title picture is to crowded for them so they have to lose to keep them out the top of the rankings. I don't think they should be losing to KOR and Lethal but at the same time I get it. Can't argue against Danielson and Punk ahead of them.
Really ATT and Sammy stinking up the tnt picture is more of an issue than WWE in OCs case, he could have had a run with that belt.

[kingoftheindies]

I dont think Cage was hurt by the WWE guys. I think he was hurt by Eardlow getting insanely over while guys like Archer, Luchasaurus, and Hobbs were used more.

Darby and OC are in that spot where you can basically use them to help get people over and they won't lose their overseas. Dabry in fact has kind of become more of a special attraction.

I mean maybe Ethan Page who they were bringing in as a singles guy then shifted him to MOTY because of over crowdedness.