Who wins the Wednesday Night Wars: 6 cases for AEW

6. The roster is already stacked

WWE, it has to be said, have some legitimate stars on their roster. Roman Reigns is as big a name as wrestling can realistically make these days, Randy Orton is a walking mainstream meme thanks to the “outta nowhere” RKO taking off, and in John Cena they have a legitimate mainstream breakthrough, although if you can realistically count He Who Cannot Be Seen as “a member of the WWE roster” any more is a different debate entirely.

The main problem for the established promotion is that WWE, at last estimation, employ roughly twenty four thousand, seven hundred and nineteen full time wrestlers. It’s absurd. For example, were you aware that both Primo and Epico Colón are still employed full-time? How about Sin Cara? Or maybe Alicia Fox? No? Mansoor? Exactly.

There’s simply too many, and outside of the “upper tier” of superstars (Reigns, Orton, Rollins, Styles etc), what they seem to have is an exceedingly overpacked midcard of people who could become main event players… If the company would push them. Which they won’t, because they’d rather push Reigns, Orton, Rollins, Styles etc. It never really ends. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the current All Elite Wrestling roster.

In Chris Jericho, they have an almost 30-year industry veteran who brings mainstream recognition way above anyone who is on the WWE roster full time. Cody Rhodes’ name recognition and industry impact has already been discussed a while back in this very article. Kenny Omega is widely acknowledged as one of the best wrestlers in the world, and of all time. The Young Bucks are, as discussed earlier, phenomenal businessmen and merchandise selling machines, but are also mentioned in every single discussion of “best tag team on the planet” you’ll ever get into.

Even outside of the ‘franchise players’ mentioned above, All Elite are doing outstandingly well. In PAC and MJF, they have two of the best and most easily despised heels in wrestling today. Try to name a WWE heel who gets even close to the level of heat that MJF gets on a routine basis. It’s not doable, because WWE’s idea of “heat” is Baron Corbin, who isn’t getting booed because of his heel work, but because people are just bored of him being on their screens and in their shows.

The AEW Women’s division tells a similarly dominant story, even this early on; their first ever Women’s Championship match will be between Nyla Rose (who is an absolute monster and much better in-ring than she usually gets credit for) and Riho (who plays the plucky underdog outstandingly). But that isn’t where it ends; unlike WWE, the All Elite Women’s division seems able to contain feuds that aren’t solely based around a title belt, as shown by Bea Priestley and Britt Baker’s built-up brawl on the outside during the Battle Royale at All Out.

All Elite are doing outstandingly well in their early days as a promotion. They aren’t perfect by any means, and mistakes have been made and will be made again, but they stand a real chance of beating WWE in the upcoming Wednesday Night Wars. As wrestling fans, we can all at least bank on competition breeding better products all around, and for that alone, here’s to you, All Elite Wrestling.