AEW has been around for more than three years. Whether Dynamite is appointment viewing for you every week, or you think the promotion is an outlaw carnie mud show, there's no denying one thing. Its arrival has breathed new life into the wrestling business. Hey, if you don't like AEW, fair enough. It certainly isn't for everyone. Trust me when I tell you though, whatever wrestling you do like right now, it has been made better by AEW. Whether it's WWE upping its game because there's a bigger number two in town than there has been for more than two decades or companies like Impact and GCW thriving as wrestling enjoys a renaissance. As for those of you who don't like any wrestling right now, well, I've got news for you. You're probably not a wrestling fan.
Different Than, Not Better Than
As Eric Bischoff has famously said on multiple occasions, the key to running a successful number two is to be different than, not better than. AEW has been doing that in a number of ways. You'll rarely see a DQ, countout, or rollup finish on Dynamite whereas you'll probably see all three of them on a single show in WWE. It also does a terrific job of long-term storytelling, something that felt like a pillar of a bygone era just a few years ago.
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The biggest way AEW continues to try and be different is its attempt to make wins and losses actually matter. Tony Khan and the company's EVPs explained right from the off that AEW would have rankings, and that those rankings would determine who would qualify for title shots. A wild but exciting notion, and while it works some of the time, there have been far more occasions when AEW's ranking system simply hasn't made a lick of sense. A tool that can add legitimacy to the product every now and again, but for the most part, it's a roadblock that is awkwardly brushed out of the way so Khan can book the matches that actually make storyline sense.
Another thing AEW does differently from WWE that works in its favor is limiting itself to just four PPVs per year. Unfortunately, that doesn't go hand in hand with its ranking system. The number one contender at the top of the rankings will, or at least should, be someone who has racked up quite the winning streak. A big star who probably shouldn't be getting their title shot until the next PPV rolls around. Sometimes that show is three months away. That leaves a lot of water to tread, and a long time for a champion to go without a defense.
That can't be the case of course, and Jade Cargill might be the best example of that right now. At the time of typing this, Cargill's last five matches have been for her TBS Title. However, none of her challengers are currently among AEW's top five highest-ranked female stars. That's partly due to Cargill handing them a loss and knocking them down the pecking order, as was the case for Tay Conti. However, the likes of AQA, Anna Jay, and The Bunny were nowhere near the top five. They faced Cargill because she needs wins and needs to defend her title, exposing one of the ways in which AEW's ranking system begins to fall apart.
Show Your Working
AEW also hasn't done a great job of explaining how exactly the rankings work. You'd assume it would be as simple as the more wins you rack up, the higher up the ladder you climb, but that's not the case. Right now Powerhouse Hobbs sits in fifth in the men's rankings with eight victories, a place below Adam Cole who only has five. Hobbs has lost one more match than Cole since the turn of the year, but I feel like an 8-2 record warrants a higher place in the rankings than 5-1. Every now and again someone in the know will throw out that the quality of the opponents beaten also plays a part, implying there is some complex formula used to determine who ranks where. I would say let's see it, but my guess is such a formula doesn't actually exist.
Sometimes AEW will throw out a way for someone to leapfrog the rankings. Perhaps via a tournament or one of its Casino Battle Royals or ladder matches. On the one hand, that's fair enough. Those methods of deciding title contenders are as engrained in wrestling as heel turns and putting people through the Spanish announce table. However, it's yet another item on what has become a long list of stuff that will have fans questioning if you can just win one match to get a title shot, what's the point of the rankings?
The whole concept is a nice idea. Like many other fans, I was intrigued when AEW announced its decision to include rankings and make wins and losses matter. I would say execution leaves a lot to be desired, but in reality, I'm not sure a legitimate ranking system can work in a wrestling promotion with aspirations the size of AEW. You have to be ready to end a rivalry at the drop of a hat because someone slipped down the league table. Or be prepared for third and fourth to battle over and over again as they trade wins back and forth. As someone who experienced Essa Rios and Scotty 2 Hotty battling for eternity on the PS1's SmackDown 2 because they were always ranked one and two in the Light Heavyweight rankings, that system just isn't sustainable at the highest level.
