AEW’s utilization of the women’s division by the numbers

Women’s wrestling is professional wrestling. It’s important for fans of All Elite Wrestling to continue to push the company to improve its booking of the women’s division. Nearly three years since the organization’s inception there are still justifiable complaints about how the organization leverages this talented portion of the roster. While perception is the reality for most, diving into the numbers gives a fuller picture of how women are leveraged within AEW content.

In 2022 AEW has a full slate of weekly content. This includes two television shows, Dynamite and Rampage, which typically equal 3 hours each week, and their two shows on YouTube, Dark, and Dark Elevation. Fans want to see more women’s matches and segments play out on Dynamite and Rampage, the two shows that are central to long-term angles and superstar billing.

On the other side of the coin are the two YouTube broadcasts. While some will push them off as “less important,” they do serve a central function of helping talent develop their craft through reps which is a vital aspect of training. The proportion of women’s matches on these shows is visibly higher than on Dynamite and Rampage, but how much higher?

For the purposes of this piece, 2022 match data is broken down into the following two sections. Television content (Dynamite, Rampage, Battle of the Belts) and YouTube content (Dark and Dark Elevation). Using those two parameters the following is found.

• 150 matches on television, with 34 featuring women. (23 percent)
• 272 matches on YouTube, with 95 featuring women. (35 percent)
• 422 matches total, with 129 featuring women competing. (31 percent)

PPV is an additional layer to the equation. With AEW PPVs going back to their first in 2019 with Double or Nothing, 133 matches have occurred on PPV. Of those, 29 (22 percent) featured women. Just 17 (13 percent of the total) were on the main card.

Diving a bit deeper into the data shows some interesting trends.

In 32 televised shows this year, only two have featured more than one match with women involved. Over on YouTube that is rarely the case. With 31 documented recordings this year, every card but 4 have featured at least two women’s matches. There are some tapings where half of the card is women’s matches, such as the March 30 taping of Elevation episode 57.

According to the AEW website, the roster is 19.4 percent women and 80.6 percent men. These numbers do not directly equate to television time because it does not account for the vast number of unsigned talent AEW leverages such as Kiera Hogan and Skye Blue, neither of whom are listed on the website but appear frequently across all platforms. The best way to look at the data is the sheer number of matches and how often a segment of talent is featured.

The challenge with statistics is that the story being told can be inferred in several different ways. Should AEW find a way to better leverage more of their women’s roster on Dynamite and Rampage? Yes. Are they giving women an ample number of reps on Dark and Dark Elevation? Yes.

At the end of the day, all this content is scripted and the minds behind AEW could make the adjustments needed to give fans what they want to see. The data is just one piece of the equation, and AEW does need to find a way to utilize more of its talented women’s roster if it is going to continue to grow.