AEW: Five bold predictions for 2020

4. The introduction of a mid-card title

As a long-time fan of the WWE’s Intercontinental title and how it would establish the superstar holding it as both the company workhorse and as a potential World Champion, it was inevitable that I would place this item on my list.

All matches mean something in AEW.

We’ve heard this on All Elite broadcasts time and time again as the promotion places a particularly heavy focus on a wrestler’s win/loss record and divisional ranking.

A mid-card title allows them to build up new stars–and their barren win/loss records–which will in turn provide the crowd with very satisfying moments if one of these mid-card champions eventually makes a successful run at the world title.

While I agree you don’t want to have too many titles it is possible to not have enough titles–and not have enough meaningful matches in the process.

With the aforementioned pay-per-views happening once every quarter, a title tournament could add some much-needed hype heading into ‘Revolution’.

3. Riho will lose her title in January

Riho hasn’t wrestled on an AEW show for quite some time and is set to defend her Women’s Title on Jan. 1st against Nyla Rose, Britt Baker, and Hikaru Shida in a four-way match on the New Year’s edition of Dynamite.

While I would love to see Riho face-off against Hikaru Shida again, this time with the actual title at stake, it just seems like they can book that as a number one contender match on the go-home edition of Dynamite before ‘Revolution’ and either create a redemption angle for Riho or put Hikaru over.

If she can somehow succeed at defeating three of the women who have been vying for her championship since she won it on the very first episode of Dynamite, she’ll have Kris Statlander waiting to decimate her on Jan. 8.

While AEW have a propensity for pushing young stars like Darby Allin, Private Party, and Jungle Boy, there’s just something about Statlander that can’t really be described with words and leads me to believe she’ll be holding the strap sooner rather than later regardless if she defeats Riho in January or another wrestler later on this year.