Without Dark, AEW wouldn’t have a Women’s Division at all
At AEW Dynamite: St. Patrick Day’s Slam, one match changed the game for their entire Women’s Division.
Thunder Rosa and Dr. Britt Baker DMD faced off in an Unsanctioned Lights Out Women’s Division match, a long way of saying it was essentially a hardcore match. It was the culmination of months of storytelling and build-up, not to mention an early candidate for Match of the Year.
As great as that bout was, it only served to highlight the lack of focus AEW has on what could easily be an exceptional Women’s Division. And without AEW Dark, this company would not have a Women’s Division to speak of.
Fans want a strong Women’s Division
It wasn’t that long ago that wrestling fans got tired of WWE disrespecting their Women’s Division and took to social media to express their concerns. There was an actual, tangible result to these efforts as things changed in the WWE.
Women’s matches became integral parts of the overall product. The fan base grew, as did the roster of female wrestlers and the number of belts they had to compete for. Women’s Division matches are now pay-per-view main events, which they always could have been.
The talent was always there as were supporters behind the scenes. But it took fans voicing what they wanted to see online to get the ball rolling. Once WWE officials like Vince McMahon started taking that seriously, Women’s wrestling in WWE got a lot more serious, too.
Several years after that, AEW launched in an attempt to be another option to WWE’s domination of the American wrestling market. And in many ways, they have been successful, but their Women’s Division has continued to be weak from a booking standpoint.
AEW’s Women’s Division isn’t everything it could be
Not to be too blunt, but any inconsistencies with the Women’s Division in AEW belong backstage just like they did in WWE. AEW has many incredible female wrestlers on their roster who have put on show-stealing matches when given the opportunity to get in the ring and go.
The problem is finding those opportunities. AEW Dynamite is the flagship show of the company. It’s where their biggest talents compete and most of the ongoing storylines are built. But their Women’s Division normally only gets one match per week. That’s not much to build on.
Just as they did with WWE, fans have been more than happy to point out their dissatisfaction on social media. They have been clear in that they want the Women’s Division to be prominent in AEW, which has been somewhat slow to change their booking strategy.
St. Patrick’s Day Slam was a rare anomaly in that regard. In addition to the epic lights-out match, Jade Cargill utterly squashed Dani Jordyn, then got in Red Velvet’s face at ringside. It wasn’t a huge match but it at least added to the storyline between these two women.
The problem is that no one can build Women’s Division on an average of one match per week on the flagship show. Even with two matches, it’s tough. There isn’t time to highlight more than a handful of wrestlers, and build storylines around them. Fortunately, there’s YouTube.
AEW Dark comes to the rescue
Shortly after AEW Dynamite launched, so did the YouTube show AEW Dark. What started as a place to air a couple of dark matches each week has gained a life of its own. It regularly has 14 to 15 matches spread over an average of two hours each week.
It has provided a place for a more diverse range of talent to compete, especially the AEW Women’s Division. There are often five or six matches featuring a variety of female talent. AEW Dark has played a huge role in building new female recruits like Red Velvet and Leyla Hirsch.
That will only be amplified on AEW Elevation, the new YouTube show which so far just looks like another episode of Dark. There’s nothing specifically wrong with that, of course. But Elevation will give AEW even more time to push their female talents to the forefront of the company.
The only issue is that there are generally very few promos on either YouTube show. It’s 95% wrestling. That’s awesome but it’s extremely difficult to build storylines and characters without regular promos, interviews, and backstage segments.
One thing that AEW could do to help would be to introduce Women’s Tag Team Championships. It would get more female competitors on the screen and lead to more storylines for them to work with. Plus, seeing Britt Baker and Rebel hold those titles would be amazing.
The incredible Lights Out Match between Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa was borderline perfect. It was the result of rare good, long-term booking by AEW in their Women’s Division. It goes to show that their female competitors are ready to change the game if given the chance.