AEW Creative has decisions and mistakes to learn from in order to let their new women’s champions build momentum. For them and their division.
At Full Gear, a witch and an unhinged scarlet bagged the promotion’s two top prizes in their division. Two character-based wrestlers, Toni Storm and Julia Hart, beat two of the best, most consistent wrestlers of this year. That may sound disparaging depending on your current feelings about AEW’s in flux identity.
Think of one or two adjectives, to sum up the wrestling style and personalities of former champions, Hikaru Shida and Kris Statlander. Are they as unique as the ones you can think of for Storm and Hart? Shida and Statlander have good to great matches consistently. They are loved by fans.
Yet two things may make their reigns less significant in retrospect. First, beyond good wrestlers, have their characters changed or developed? Second, what were their defining moments, feuds, and storylines?
Already, Storm and Hart have defined characters. However, they are not unique. Previous women’s champions, Britt Baker and Jade Cargill had strong personalities and catchphrases that propelled them to the gold. Yet creatively, mistakes were made that hampered them and the women’s division.
The Elephant in the Women’s Locker-room
AEW’s women’s division cannot be discussed without acknowledging the context. Female wrestlers get less time to wrestle and talk on programming than their male counterparts. AEW’s weekly TV shows have not featured more than one woman’s match per show. This limited time impacts individual wrestlers’ capacity to grow as characters and in-ring performers.
Take Anna Jay. At twenty-five and four years into her career, she has had less than one hundred matches. Jay has shown promise in-ring. With the Jericho Appreciation Society, Jay has developed a stronger heel persona. Yet with infrequent ring time, her wrestling skills are not as consistently strong. An issue that impacted the championship reigns of Baker and Cargill.
Character Work Outdid In-Ring Work
Both Baker and Cargill’s reigns relied at first on their character work to compensate for their wrestling.
Baker, like Storm, found success by differentiating herself from the rest of the locker room with her character work. Slowly she developed rapport with Tony Schiavone. Baker gained a follower in Rebel and later a heater in Jamie Hayter. Storm patiently built her character using vignettes and interviews before adding Luther as a butler. With both, fans engaged and got behind them.
Hart, like the first TBS Champion, Jade Cargill is young and still developing. Differently, Cargill’s eye-catching aesthetic and her unique debut, her charisma, and dominant power moves protected her limited experience.
Yet the problem for both was repetition. In-ring AEW kept the formula the same beyond its expiry date. Creative over-relied on what worked. Cargill’s squashes became one-dimensional. Baker’s matches became formulaic. The same interference finish everyone (but the ref) saw coming. Additionally, some of Baker’s matches suffered from miscommunications, botches, and mistiming.
At Everyone’s Expense
Out of the ring, neither woman’s character developed further. Both were bragging champions who went through the same motions with each challenger and feud. Worse, Baker’s challengers were made to look foolish for not bringing backup to neutralize interference. With Cargill, the lack of upper-level challengers created an impression of skills, yet indirectly made those not challenging her cowardly.
Yet this inadvertent glass ceiling persists. Recently, Willow Nightingale went from losing an open challenge to Statlander to shortly afterward challenging Shida for the women’s championship. It raises questions. First, how did she earn another championship match so quickly after failing to win? The fact it’s a great match means nothing in a promotion that guarantees these each week.
How did she earn it? It highlights a lack of logic and when she lost, now to both champions, how as a young up-and-comer, is she stronger?
Combining Both Elements
Unlike Baker and Cargill, Storm and Hart have been learning to connect the dots between their in-ring work with their gimmicks. Alongside Shida and Statlander, they have both been two of the most consistent female wrestlers in AEW this year.
Toni Storm has frequently delivered strong showcase matches. What she is still developing, and getting over slowly, is a move-set fit that fits her deluded character. Likewise, Julia Hart has been one of the most improved wrestlers of the year who keeps adding new wrinkles to her arsenal, like her impressive moonsault. Over time both champions and AEW must ensure these aspects keep evolving and changing over time.
Risk of too much entertainment
There is already the risk their characters become too detached from logic with nonsense. The Toni Storm Acceptance Speech segment used dated Oscars references and got “what?” chants. Julia Hart, the youngest ever AEW champion at only 22 years old, likewise has had her character’s credibility tested. Was or was not Sky Blue corrupted by the mist?
This ties to a wider that impacted Baker as the face of the women’s division, which also AEW experiences with its men. When a character engages the fans, they have been at points pushed that character to the point of being overexposed. Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho (5 ways to re-GOAT Chris Jericho), and most recently, MJF. Over-reliance on a handful of talents damages both their and the promotion’s auras.
What’s My Motivation?
What is also needed is time to build challengers. Allow them time to also become strong characters with memorable moments and feuds. Think, for example, Thunder Rosa, who being the archenemy and binary opposite to Brit Baker helped define the latter’s championship reign.
Characters need motivation for fans to invest in. Baker had her conspiracy. Jade was proving she was the baddest bitch. On November 8th’s Dynamite, Storm showed envy because Shida “stole” her title and championship record, causing her descent to madness. This interview helped not only the match and championship feel important. It allowed Shida in contrast to show her character as the non-sense ass-kicker.
Champions need motivation and a reason to want to keep their belt. Challengers need a reason to want to take it.
Take Kris Statlander. Her character and motivations as TBS champion were inconsistent. Her tights said she was more than a woman, while she also called herself momma while she squatted interviewers. Workhorse champion is not a personality trait. Yet the pieces of the whole character are there.
Given the next PPV, World’s End is in Statlander’s hometown, if she were to be the challenger for Hart again or progress to face Storm, wouldn’t it be better if knew who she was and what she was fighting for?
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