Between round 2019 and 2022, WWE noticed plenty of wrestlers both get launched from the corporate or else request their launch, as many weren’t pleased with the promotion. Poor reserving, a messy backstage surroundings, and the expansion in alternate options for each followers and wrestlers led to an exodus – and AEW got here selecting up the items.
Over the early years of AEW, the likes of Jon Moxley, Toni Storm, Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson, Keith Lee, Swerve Strickland, Ruby Soho, Sting, and extra notable names left WWE and headed for a brand new residence below Tony Khan. The extent of star energy that got here AEW’s approach gave the promotion an enormous increase. We could be on the verge of seeing historical past repeat itself, and right here’s why.
WWE Has Made Many Unfavorable Strikes Just lately
AEW Is Very A lot Changing into The ‘Good Guys’ Once more
WWE has been harm by unhealthy reserving, releases, and elevated costs.
AEW feels catered to the wrestling viewers whereas WWE has turn out to be a soulless, company large.
WWE wrestlers may wish to go away for AEW the place there may be extra inclusion and freedom.
The botched John Cena retirement tour, widespread names like R-Reality being launched, returning to Las Vegas for WrestleMania, the incorporation of celebrities, much less wrestling, extra sponsors, and excessive ticket costs are simply a number of the ongoing issues in WWE in 2025. WWE continues to be promoting out arenas and making some huge cash, however finally followers will turn out to be sick and bored with the declining product, the insane costs, and path of the corporate – and so will the wrestlers. With WWE changing into this soulless, company large, AEW is starting to as soon as once more seem like the promotion catered to the viewers.
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With WWE’s present path questionable, with political-leaning feedback, controversial ‘roasts’, and an absence of acknowledgement of issues like Black Historical past and Satisfaction Month, there will likely be these in WWE who imagine that the corporate is now not for them, and it might in truth be morally questionable for choose wrestlers. AEW, however, has developed a extra inclusive and free area, with extra inventive freedom and different perks that these in WWE gained’t see – taking extra exterior dates and tasks, utilizing their very own identify, and extra. Cash talks for sure wrestlers amidst contract negotiations, however this will likely now not be sufficient for WWE proper now, particularly seeing as AEW is on a inventive growth presently, and getting again to their finest when it comes to the standard of PPVs and TV. AEW feels just like the cooler place to be, and this might immediate a mass exodus from WWE but once more.
The Girls’s Division In WWE Is Sad
May WWE’s High Feminine Stars Depart For AEW?
Triple H’s weakest division has arguably been the ladies.
WWE has taken so many steps again in relation to ladies’s wrestling.
AEW has solely been getting higher with their ladies’s division.
There have been some rumblings not too long ago, comparable to studies from Fightful Choose, which have instructed that the ladies’s division in WWE hasn’t been significantly pleased with the way in which they’ve been booked. This sense may find yourself spreading amongst tag groups, important eventers, and midcarders too. On the flip aspect, AEW’s ladies’s division has been firing on a number of cylinders in 2025, and this can little question start to draw increasingly wrestlers from WWE – much more established names. WWE has been in a position to make use of their latest momentum and massive contracts to retain wrestlers, however this was earlier than the drop in fan notion, and now the wheel will start to show within the different path – and the ladies’s division might be on the coronary heart of it.
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The entire “ladies’s revolution” prompted a pleasant increase for the division within the late 2010s, however particularly below the Triple H period, the ladies’s division has felt very secondary, storylines haven’t been as attention-grabbing, and PLE important occasions have been nearly nonexistent. The tag workforce division has been a multitude, the USA Title image is poorly dealt with, and few names are actually standing out proper now as key gamers.
Whereas it was the lads’s division that noticed an enormous inflow of stars for AEW a couple of years again, it may effectively be the ladies as a substitute this time. The likes of Bayley, Natalya, Alexa Bliss, Charlotte Aptitude, Kairi Sane, and others haven’t precisely been having one of the best of instances in WWE in latest months and years, in order that they might be among the many names searching for pastures new. If an exodus of massive feminine stars did occur, then AEW might be the place to go for ladies’s wrestling, giving them an enormous promoting level that WWE has been struggling to maintain up with.
Issues Really feel Like They Did Between 2019 And 2021 For WWE And AEW
Historical past Is Repeating Itself In Professional Wrestling
AEW is driving an enormous wave of momentum.
Followers are once more sad with WWE’s path.
Some large names like AJ Kinds and Drew McIntyre may go away WWE for AEW.
It isn’t fairly there simply but, however the ambiance within the skilled wrestling world is starting to shift again to the way it was between 2019 and 2021, the place followers had been sad with WWE and loving the truth that AEW was selling a product centered extra on in-ring work and offering some for followers. WWE wrestlers will see that the grass is likely to be greener on the opposite aspect, and even some large names may wish to go away the corporate – the likes of AJ Kinds, Sheamus, Karrion Kross, and Carmelo Hayes might be amongst these sad with their present trajectory, to not point out names larger up the cardboard like Drew McIntyre and Sami Zayn.
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I am Sure That Now Is The Excellent Time For An AEW Girls’s Tag Workforce Division
AEW’s Girls’s Tag Workforce division has been spectacular for a very long time. The time is now for Tony Khan to create belts for them to battle over.
After all, there will likely be many joyful to remain in WWE with job safety, however there may be additionally no assure that each long-term WWE identify is protected, significantly after the exits of the likes of R-Reality and Carlito. If AEW can get their arms on two or three large names within the subsequent 12 months or two, they could have the ability to entice extra followers as soon as once more, propelling them larger up the ladder and to a place the place they really feel just like the definitive competitors for WWE. It gained’t be lengthy till the CM Punk debacle is effectively prior to now and AEW’s inventive woes of 2023 and 2024 are a distant reminiscence. When issues actually settle and as WWE’s momentum lessens, a mass exodus may actually occur but once more.
