He’s got a point you know: Dax Harwood, one half of the current ROH, AAA and IWGP tag team champions, FTR, gets on a mic (at a NJPW show) and reminds AEW owner Tony Khan that they still work for him, and that they should be booked, brother
The takeaway I get from this story is that Tony Khan literally has no ability to book a wrestler beyond the thrill of the chase. FTR is one of numerous examples in AEW’s short history, where talent is in pursuit of some form of greatness, be it a feud, one championship, or multiple championships, and eventually they achieve it, but then absolutely dick or butt happens with them after the payoff, and it’s a matter of time before they’re basically on Dark: Elevation, or like in the case of FTR, forced to rely on other promotions to actually get any screen time.
If the way Tony Khan books AEW is any indication, any person who has the courage to become involved with TK, I feel bad for them, because he will undoubtedly wine and dine, woo and pursue for a year, and have probably the biggest rager of a wedding ceremony there possibly could be – but then he will absolutely and completely forget about his spouse in a week.
Hangman Adam Page’s pursuit of the AEW world championship was a fantastic ride, but once he actually made it to the top of the mountain and dethroned Kenny Omega, TK literally had no idea on the planet what to do with him, eventually feeding him to CM Punk, unceremoniously at that. Wardlow’s journey to be freed from under MJF’s employ was one that was pretty decent and allowed Wardlow to really show his in-ring talents, but after he squashed MJF, TK has no idea what to do with him either, other than having him squash Scorpio Sky and taking the TNT title from him, barely after he had won it, and now Wardlow is completely directionless, picking random fights of the week, solely because he has the network blet.
The All-Atlantic championship had more qualifying and tournament matches to crown its first holder, than the title has actually had television time with PAC, whose duties are split, because he’s also a third of the Trios champions, whom hasn’t seemed to have had any screen time in their own right since winning the supposedly coveted championship.
I mean, with 15-17 championships currently circulating within the company and only three hours of network television time a week, it’s no surprise that they’re having a hard time getting all these supposed commodities some screen time, but at this point it’s more humorous than anything at how goofy the booking of AEW is, in spite of all of the actual talent they really do have on their roster of like 150.
And it really doesn’t matter how good or accomplished the talent is; Hangman was a world champion and FTR literally is holding three tag team championships at the same time. Once TK has booked the thrill of the chase narrative out of a guy(s), he simply has no idea what to do once it’s over, and unfortunately the default reaction appears to be neglect.
At least let FTR win the AEW tag blets again, and be quadruple champions before they’re eventually booked to start dropping the titles back to their respective home promotions, because it would be pretty baller to see two guys lugging around eight blets.
