Has Lance Archer been lost in the shuffle?

AEW is certainly on fire as of late; especially with the many stars coming over in droves. Wrestlers like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Adam Cole have definitely taken quite a bit of attention, to say the least, and the question many are asking though, is with so much attention on recent signings, have stars like Lance Archer been lost in the shuffle?

AEW’s place in the annals of professional wrestling history

AEW started in 2019 and is still considered a young company in an industry that dates way back to the early to mid-twentieth century.

But they have come a long way in just that short amount of time and are even presenting the biggest form of competition for the likes of WWE, which has been around in some form or another since 1953 in its first form as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation under Jess McMahon (Vince’s grandfather). That was until 1963 when it was rebranded into the WWWF by Vincent J. McMahon (Vince’s father) and Toots Mondt.

The NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) started even before all of that in 1948. The rest is of course history, as the old cliché undoubtedly goes.

There certainly is a heck of a lot more to that story though, but for our point today, I’ll leave the wrestling history alone for now.

As can be seen in recent months, and as we have reported as well, the momentum that AEW has achieved in just this short amount of time is really unprecedented. Even WCW took a long time to get that momentum going that finally defeated WWE in the ratings for a short time.

But perhaps this quick momentum is precisely where the potential problems may lie for AEW. The wheel is now turning much too fast for the development of wrestlers already on that roster perhaps.

Lance’s history in the business is storied for sure

It would be extremely hard, to sum up, the accolades and achievements this man has earned in a business he started way back in the year 2000. That would take a book, dear readers and although I’m definitely up to writing it (just contact me on Twitter, Lance…I’m available), I’ll have to just deliver to you, dear readers, the main points.

So the list of promotions is definitely long but a few of his stops have been major. They include American Made Wrestling, NWA, NJPW (where he has quite the reputation and accolades), TNA, and even WWE.

It was probably in New Japan where he garnered the most amount of buzz for himself. It was there and in NWA that he tagged with Harry Smith, son of the legendary British Bulldog; the two winning the tag championships many times over.

His stint with WWE, where he wrestled as Vance Archer didn’t garner much, but he did well in TNA, wrestling for the promotion from 2004 to 2009.

He would return to the indie circuit and to NJPW to great acclaim after his WWE run (he wrestled in FCW—developmental—and in ECW before it was taken off the air, with other minor appearances, sadly).

And it was of course in 2020 that he signed a multi-year deal with AEW, and one that has gotten him championships to brag about and a working relationship with Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

In recent history, he battled Jon Moxley for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship, and in an epic Texas Deathmatch of all things (a rematch for the two from an earlier point in their respective careers), and he would win the title, losing it Hiroshi Tanahashi at NJPW Resurgence.

Of losing to Tanahashi, Lance has said:

"“…I was representing as the US Champion, and I was wrestling (Hiroshi) Tanahashi, who was always one of my favorite opponents…I’ve always had that respect, regardless of what side of the ring we were on, or what the situation was, be it G1, Tag Leagues or whatever. For him to come to America and challenge me, for me to face Tanahashi in that ring, it definitely felt like old times again, and that was a really good feeling…”via: njpw1972.com"

And no…we haven’t been seeing him much on AEW TV, but thanks to the “Forbidden Door,” we have been seeing him at NJPW, he has recently joined up with the Suzuki-gun stable, he partners up with the legendary Minoru Suzuki.

As has been reported by njpw1972.com, we’re set to see him at the Curtis Culwell Center on September 26th for Autumn Attack with his old friend, Minoru Suzuki in tow and who knows what kind of new forms of the havoc these two can bring.

But despite that good news, it has been disheartening not to see as much of this talented 44-year-old as we would have liked in AEW.

Perhaps this was what Rampage was designed for but he’s still absent. I remember thinking a few weeks back: “Hey we haven’t seen Lance in a while,” so when I saw the topic come up posted by my editors here at Daily DDT, I jumped at the chance to talk about this.

I love AEW and feel that they are solely responsible for the shift the professional wrestling industry has taken for the positive in recent months, but I’d like to see some of the guys that were holding the bag before these legends came over.

Now an epic match or rather matches to see would definitely be “The Murderhawk Monster” Lance Archer himself facing the likes of Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson or even CM Punk.

Heck…maybe even Bray Wyatt himself! Now those matches are definitely worth crossing your fingers for folks.