AEW Worlds Finish was held in Orlando, FL on Saturday. The present not solely featured the semi-finals and the finals of the 2024 Continental Traditional, but in addition a four-way match for the AEW World Title which had been billed as a battle for the soul of the promotion.
As at all times, there have been loads of literal winners and losers, as seen on the outcomes web page, however now it is time to dig into who got here out of Saturday really trying like a “winner” and who regarded like a “loser.” The present’s place on the finish of the calendar yr additionally implies that for a lot of, it was a final probability to cement the yr as “good” or “dangerous.” Some of us, like Mercedes Mone, got here out of the present trying nice, and a few like Jon Moxley, barely escaped with their dignity intact.
With out additional ado, let’s break down the winners and losers from final evening’s present.
Winner: The AEW Girls’s Division
I am undecided the AEW TBS Championship match between Mercedes Mone and Kris Statlander fairly labored for me as a lot because it did for a lot of others, however it’s unattainable to observe the AEW ladies’s division proper now and never suppose that the corporate has lastly carved out a spot for them. Mercedes Mone has wrestled two of the longest AEW ladies’s matches this yr, and to be blunt, that is the one manner anybody goes to take this division as critically as the boys’s.
Typically pressured to feed off crumbs from the desk when it got here to matches, AEW ladies’s matches are beginning to really feel extra like full meals. Add within the Tijuana Road Battle (extra on that later) and there does appear to be a concerted try and carry the AEW ladies’s division onto the identical stage. The corporate continues to be removed from the likes of “WWE NXT” in showcasing feminine expertise, however the try has been famous.
Narratively, the ladies’s division has been a little bit of a large number, with tales usually lacking connective tissue and motivations usually rushed, however the matches themselves have been stable and substantial. Ought to this proceed into the brand new yr, 2025 may very well be very brilliant for the ladies’s division.
Loser: Thunder Rosa
Within the early days of AEW, anytime a title wanted a tomato can to buff up the champion’s stats, Lance Archer would normally seem and lose some form of plunderous gimmick match. He was a stable foil to the champions, however there are solely so many Texas Deathmatches that one can lose earlier than folks cease believing within the expertise, even one as massive and nasty as Lance Archer.
Thunder Rosa is now in the same house within the ladies’s division. An incredible competitor, a former champion, it appears Rosa’s job today is to lose hardcore matches. Her match with Mariah Might on Saturday was not a lot completely different from her St. Patrick’s Day Bash towards Britt Baker, although with extra localized gimmicks and much much less blood. Rosa even misplaced a No Disqualification match to Deonna Purrazzo again in June. This was additionally her second loss to an AEW Girls’s World Champion in a single calendar yr. It seems like AEW goes for amount versus high quality in terms of Rosa as a title contender.
Rosa has been a solidly dominant star on packages like “Collision” and “Rampage” (RIP), however so has Archer.
Winner: The Continental Championship
The AEW Continental Championship feels just like the red-headed stepchild of the AEW titles. It is two holders, Eddie Kingston and Kazuchika Okada, each really feel like holding the title has been one thing to do whereas they look ahead to room in the primary occasion scene to open up. Outdoors of Okada’s win over Kingston, there hasn’t been a lot “to-do” made concerning the Continental Championship outdoors of match season. This modified dramatically on Saturday.
The return of former AEW World Champion Kenny Omega set the 2024 Continental Traditional Winner on a collision course with the AEW EVP, probably at All In in July based mostly on the variety of occasions the digicam lower to that banner. Omega and Okada are chargeable for a number of the most-lauded matches of the twenty first century and a promotion like AEW has at all times felt like a primetime showcase for feuds from the impartial scene and overseas.
The truth that Omega vs. Okada might be occurring for the Continental Championship is large for the belt and the division. Whereas each males are far previous the prime they have been in for his or her late-2010s classics, they’re nonetheless great opponents in a rivalry that also holds cache with followers to at the present time. The match, and Omega’s involvement within the division, might do for the title what Jon Moxley did for the AEW Worldwide Championship.
Loser: Anybody who did not work for Vince McMahon
After months of Jon Moxley claiming he intends to destroy AEW, snuffing out any attainable hero from Darby Allin to Bryan Danielson to Orange Cassidy. Fortunately, a savior has arrived. He is 51 years outdated and by October he’ll have been within the firm for 2 years (many months of which noticed him absent with damage). That is proper. The savior of AEW is a WWE Corridor of Famer, who many individuals nonetheless name by his WWE identify as a result of it is what he is been recognized for 20-g**d***-years.
Edge, sorry, Adam Copeland, arrived on Saturday to do what seemingly each younger AEW star cannot finish Jon Moxley’s rein of terror. Even when Copeland loses the eventual match with Moxley, it simply implies that we’re spending extra time, sitting round and ready for somebody to turn into a star.
It simply rings hole to me, having Moxley’s most important motivation be “This firm must step up” just for nobody to have the ability to step up and Copeland coming in to do what the youngsters could not. It seems like the corporate is killing time. Between Copeland subsequent in line for a world title shot, and Christian Cage hovering across the perimeter of the primary occasion with a ridiculous Cash In The Financial institution gimmick, it actually seems like we’re about to see a continuation of their hit-and-miss feud however on a much bigger stage, and all of it simply feels slightly an excessive amount of like WCW. Former WWE guys like Copeland, FTR, Castagnoli, Moxley, and Cage are blocking the entrances to the primary occasion for the Allins, the Hobbses, and the Starkses of this world, regardless of what number of Rah-Rah “AEW Good” promos that Copeland cuts. Even the Ospreays and Omegas really feel slightly sidelined to Worldwide and Continental divisions till all these WWE guys get damage.
