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As a young wrestling company, AEW needs all the star power it can get to stay afloat in an effectively monopolized business. This star power can come from big stars jumping ship from WWE to AEW (Bryan Danielson, Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, etc.) or it can be generated within AEW through the creation of homegrown megastars.
Jade Cargill, Ricky Starks, the Lucha Brothers, and Wardlow are likely the stars with the most potential to reach the stratosphere and draw new fans to the AEW product. However, in the last few weeks, AEW has squandered Wardlow’s momentum. This has caused his megastar potential to take a big hit. Though there’s hope for AEW to turn things around, it’s important to understand how we got here.
The MJF Drama Ruined Wardlow's Momentum
For the first few years of Wardlow’s AEW career, he worked as the beefcake bodyguard of MJF. A face turn was teased a few times from 2020 to early 2022, to the point where it seemed inevitable that Wardlow would turn on MJF. The day finally came at Revolution 2022, where Wardlow helped CM Punk defeat MJF.
That moment was the launching point for a feud between MJF and Wardlow, wherein Wardlow sought to free himself from the contract he’d signed with MJF. The feud culminated at Double or Nothing. Wardlow had a shot to face MJF in a singles match and become an independent competitor in AEW. Unfortunately, MJF took all the wind out of Wardlow’s sails and made the night all about himself. A backstage tantrum and a threat to walk out on the company completely shifted fans’ focus from Wardlow to the heel of the feud. What should’ve been Wardlow’s crowning moment became a sloppy squash match that left Wardlow as a complete afterthought.
Wardlow’s TNT Title Reign Suffered From A Lack Of Credible Challengers
Now a babyface, Wardlow went on to defeat Scorpio Sky for the TNT Championship. While this sounds great on paper, the victory didn’t mean much in context. Scorpio Sky’s feud with Sammy Guevara devalued the TNT Championship to the pointless where it felt worthless. It was more so the centerpiece to tedious TV segments rather than the iconic title held by Miro, Cody Rhodes, and the late great Brodie Lee.
Nevertheless, this was the TNT Championship that Wardlow inherited. While his victory did give the title an immediate boost, it was up to AEW to rebuild the title’s prestige fully by giving Wardlow a stellar title reign. Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
Wardlow’s title reign started out alright. His first challenger was fan-favorite Orange Cassidy. The two have complementary styles that made for a fun match-up. After defeating Cassidy, Wardlow went on to face a cartoonish rogue’s gallery of wrestlers that no wrestling fan takes seriously in the year 2022: Matt Taven, Jay Lethal, Ari Daivari, Tony Nese, and Brian Cage.
These low-stake matches killed any intrigue fans might’ve developed in Wardlow. We never saw Wardlow truly develop as a champion.
Having Samoa Joe Beat Wardlow For The TNT Championship Was A Bad Move
About halfway through Wardlow’s title reign, AEW had him join forces with ROH Television Champion Samoa Joe. Together, the two of them beat up more low-level heels like The Factory. In the background, Powerhouse Hobbs began to present himself as Wardlow’s next challenger. This would’ve been the perfect feud for the TNT Champion; Hobbs is a powerful heel who’s climbing through the AEW ranks. The feud would’ve been a great investment for both parties, had AEW given it time to play out.
Instead, AEW had Samoa Joe turn heel and insert himself into the feud. The scheduled title match between Hobbs and Wardlow became a three-way dance at Full Gear. Samoa Joe won the title, putting an end to Wardlow’s first AEW title reign.
On December 28th, Wardlow got another shot at Samoa Joe and the chance to regain his TNT Championship. He lost as a result of a referee stoppage. Samoa Joe then cut Wardlow’s hair while the former champ was incapacitated.
This brutal match-up seemed like the beginning of Wardlow’s path to redemption. However, on the January 4th episode of Dynamite, Darby Allin defeated Samoa Joe for the TNT Championship, cutting off that storyline before it could get off the ground.
AEW Needs To Build Wardlow Back Up To The Megastar He Was Becoming
It’s possible that Wardlow will go after Joe’s ROH Television Championship. This would be an incredible downgrade. ROH never got the TV deal Tony Khan hoped for, making it effectively an equivalent to AEW Dark. Wardlow could also go after Darby Allin for the TNT Championship, but another babyface vs babyface TNT feud could be just as dreadful as the Guevara/Sky feud was.
Is there still time for Wardlow to get back on track? Of course. However, his path to stardom in AEW has been full of faults from the very start, and AEW has some serious course corrections to do if they want Wardlow to be as big of a star as he could be.