Features

© STARDOM

Tam Nakano – Special Guy

Tim Hunter explores his fandom of Tam Nakano ahead of Stardom’s “All Star Queendom” show on April 27th.

It was around 18/06/2021. I was at home, the entire week off work. Alone and depressed, I was probably not the only one around that time just looking for something to grab onto, just anything to sink my teeth in. I heard whispers about this insanely good women’s match out of Japan, from the Stardom promotion. I knew of Stardom.

It was just a year earlier that the Hana Kimura tragedy happened. I followed it very closely, unaware of who Hana even was when the thread about her alarming social media posts first hit my timeline. But by the time I made myself familiar with her, the news of her passing hit. I’m certainly not the only one who was struck by this story like a freight train. I watched the Hana memorial show and that was just too much for me. I had never seen anything as emotional before in my life, be it wrestling or any other medium. I’d never bawled my eyes out watching a wrestling show before like that.

© STARDOM

It is probably why I kept my distance from Stardom for the time being. I couldn’t handle even thinking about the incident, the memorial, it was all too much. But as I was in my little depression hole again, a year later, I decided to give the promotion another try. After all, this was supposed to be one of the best matches of the year in any promotion.

So I signed up to their streaming service and put it on.

To say this was a revelation would be an understatement. Syuri and Utami Hayashishita had one of the most hard hitting, emotionally charged, and perfectly executed wrestling matches I had ever seen before in my life. Nothing since the great Okada matches with Omega or Shibata had gripped me like this did. It was perfection. The fact that they went to TWO draws in one match didn’t hinder my opinion of the match whatsoever. In fact, it enhanced the experience for me. It just felt so real, more than anything in wrestling usually does. I mean, what other wrestling company builds to a main event on a PPV like this with these stakes, the challenger dedicating the match to her recently passed mother and decides that it will end in not one, but two draws? And the entire wrestling community celebrated them for it, rightfully. You have to have some balls to do that and it certainly worked out.

I was hooked.

© STARDOM

One thing that Stardom did better than any other wrestling promotion I had watched to this point was the presentation. These two women, one entering the arena looking like a stunning warrior wearing a thick robe embroidered with beautiful patches and insignias all over, carrying a massive flag proudly representing her faction Queen’s Quest, a rose in her hand completing the majestic entrance – the other looking like a red angel of doom, her cowl pulled low onto her face, her robe overflowing with feathers, they looked otherworldly. You hear the term “larger than life” often when people discuss the quality of pro wrestlers. THIS was larger than life. No pumped up muscles, no drone shots and forced crowd reactions. In fact: there was no crowd reaction at all. It was pandemic era Japan. And yet these two had more aura than any crazy LED production could ever create artificially.

I was stunned by this match. I NEEDED more.

After this, I watched my first Tam Nakano match on recommendation. And…what the hell was this? Some dancing cutesy girl claiming to be the most kawaii in the cosmos? Nah. Next! Give me the brave warriors and the fallen angel aesthetic. I listen to metal and stuff. That’s my stuff, right? RIGHT? There was something about her, though…the way she would change her entire demeanor once the bell rang. The determination in her eyes. The intensity in her strikes. The detail she put into her in-ring storytelling. I didn’t know anything about this Natsupoi person that she was up against at the time, but the way these two told their story had me hooked very quickly, even more than the Utami vs Syuri match hooked me. Fuck, Syuri dedicated the match to her mother, how can I be even more invested in THIS? I don’t even know anything about THIS?

© STARDOM

But there I was. Syuri and Utami helped me dig myself out of the hole I was in, but it was Tam Nakano who helped me float above it.

Wrestling matches had rarely affected me emotionally before like Tam’s did. Before I started watching Stardom, I could count the wrestling matches that really took me by the heart and shook me to the core on one hand, but now it happens with almost any big Tam Nakano match. She has something that no other wrestler has that I have watched before. She is not the most athletic. Her moves don’t look the most crisp. She’s not the strongest. She botches here and there. It’s something else, it’s an intangible quality that makes her undeniable. Even her biggest haters have had to eventually come around to at least acknowledge that whatever she does, it just WORKS. It is the switch that she can flip from kawaii idol to “I’m gonna kill you” murder psycho. It’s the way she has completely figured out in-ring storytelling. It’s the way she cuts promos where you need no subtitles at all and you know exactly what she is conveying. It’s her physical charisma, it’s the line she deliberately dances on being heelish and overbearing on her stablemates and underlings and being the brightest shining babyface the world has ever seen when it is called upon her.

Now, here we are. Through all the turmoil Stardom has been going through over the last years, Tam has crystallised herself as the star of the promotion. Utami is long gone, Syuri having taken on a midcard role after a fantastic title reign throughout 2022. Tam is now one of the most popular wrestlers in Japan entirely, if you believe magazine polls. She is leading the promotion to heights they have never seen before, with record attendances month after month.
Then the announcement.

3/3/2025, Kamitani vs Nakano. Loser leaves Stardom.

Of course she was gonna put Kamitani over. She brought Kamitani into wrestling, she has done nothing but put Kamitani over her entire career. Kamitani is HER baby. And Kamitani has developed into a draw herself, there’s no question about it. As much as the press conferences leading up to their initial title match on 12/29/2024 may have exposed Kamitani for how far below Tam she still was in promo and character work, since then Kamitani has risen like a Phenex, far beyond any expectations, and there’s no doubt anymore that she is ready to carry the torch.

© STARDOM

Coming out of the 3/3 match, a battered and destroyed Tam Nakano, losing, was granted one last chance. Putting her career on the line in one last match in Yokohama Arena on 4/27/2025, you have to imagine that this will be her final dance.

Just weeks ago she was talking about her intentions to bring the promotion to even greater heights, her dream of a Tokyo Dome show. It all stops abruptly. The Tam Road has its end in sight. Just like that. It is almost certain that Tam is going to be putting Saya over one last time. She has aged beyond the formerly mandated joshi retirement age by over a decade, and she has set up the young Saya Kamitani like nobody has ever been set up before. Anything but a Tam Nakano retirement would not make any sense.

And I, in a faraway country, will be plunging back down into my little hole of depression – without hope that a special guy could ever make me float again like Tam Nakano did.

By Tim Hunter

© All Elite Wrestling

What We See In Ourselves And Others

How AEW Revolution’s ‘Hangman vs MJF’ forced both characters to see themselves clearly.
By: Micah

Max stares. He wails. For the Long Islander, who prides himself on being above everyone and everything, he is deep within it now, and on live TV, he is melting down. Before him is Hangman Adam Page, the man who is a symbol of everything he is not. Max knows he is better than Hangman, and to prove it, Max piledrove him into a chair on the outside.

And it wasn’t enough.

Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Hangman Adam Page are two of AEW’s original characters. Since the beginning, it was clear both would be a big part of AEW’s future. Hangman was a member of The Elite, the unproven one who declared a dream to be champion. MJF was a blue-chip prospect taken under the wing of co-founding father Cody Rhodes.

Excalibur has called them foundational pieces and he’s not wrong. Both have been champion. Both have had major storylines wrapped around them. Both have been quoted and posted and talked about across the fandom. They’re originals in the company, instrumental in its success, and both are bedrock elements of AEW’s flavor of wrestling.

Beyond that, they’re archetypes in fiction. One, a reluctant cowboy, trying to live a good life in a cruel world. The other, a scheming manipulator, willing to make the world worse to get what they desire.

© All Elite Wrestling

MJF is a character misshapen by his own insecurity. He insists he is better than everyone. He says he’s a generational talent. He undoubtedly is. He is incredible on the microphone. He can have a classic Iron Man match as easily as he can belt a musical number. He is often can’t-miss TV.

Yet the character, by his own admission, fears rejection. He gets jealous of attention, having grown rageful at the crowd’s adulation towards Daniel Garcia, Will Ospreay, and now Hangman. He is so talented, and he is so good, but deep inside it is never enough. Driven by fear and insecurity to be the best, all while his internal voices tear him apart. You get the sense, despite every gift he has, that the character feels like he is missing something important that he can’t quite name.

As champion, MJF tried letting down his guard. He tried to be the heroes he’d watched growing up, tried to have the virtues he’d seen in his peers. For a moment, he was beloved by the fans. He was enough for them, and maybe even himself, until he wasn’t.

© All Elite Wrestling

In contrast, Hangman is a heroic character with faults. He sometimes succeeds, he sometimes fails, but no matter his missteps and failures, the fans stand behind him. They hold him up. They chant his motto. Even when he turns his back to them, they are always waiting for him to come home.

Hangman Adam Page has been called the protagonist of AEW. For Hangman diehards, it is their truth. For others, it is a cheeky way to mock them. But for the characters of Hangman Adam Page and Maxwell Jacob Friedman, heading into their Revolution 2025 encounter, it was the blade hanging over both of their heads.

Despite what he may now profess, the character of Maxwell Jacob Friedman spent his championship reign trying to be the hero. He reveled in the approval of the fans. He experimented with making friends and suicide dives. He would even run in to save the day. He talked up the company and the locker room. When the character returned from injury, he even had the promotion tattooed on his leg.

What MJF sought was to be the protagonist of AEW. He wanted, and for a time achieved, being the hero he had so often seen in others. His mannerisms were always stilted, his timing always a little off. He wasn’t comfortable in this skin, but he wanted to be. It didn’t come naturally, so he did what he always does: he faked it and hoped to God that he made it.

But the character never settled into the role. He always seemed a little disingenuous. There was always a hint that he wasn’t comfortable. As a viewer, it made you feel like he might, at any moment, turn back into the shitheel he once was.

From a narrative perspective, I think the jury is out on how successful he was at becoming the Protagonist. He was unquestionably a hero. He was a standard bearer and he fought like hell. The people were behind him. He even set a positive example and demonstrated leadership qualities.

© All Elite Wrestling

But his friendships fell apart. The dives for the audience ended up injuring him, especially an ill-advised one on an already collapsed table. The character of MJF pushed on, and pushed through, heroic qualities to be sure, but he never found that special thing inside to make everything fully ‘click’.

A book could be written about the myriad character arcs of Hangman Adam Page. An optimistic upstart looking to change the world. An anxious dejected millennial cowboy who withdrew from his friends and found quiet in the bottom of a bottle. A hero who found new friendship that gave him the strength to fight in spite of his insecurities. He became a champion, and he fought to defend AEW’s soul.

In the year prior to the MJF match, Hangman was on a downward arc of his own. Swerve Strickland had come for his spot, broke into his home, despoiled his family’s sense of safety, and sought to take everything he had built. Hangman faced Swerve in his own specialty match, the Texas Deathmatch, and fought for everything he believed in. He lost.

© All Elite Wrestling

December 6th, 2023, more than a year before their Revolution match, you can see the dynamic of the characters foreshadowed. After Hangman was shattered figuratively (and literally) with a cinder block by Swerve, MJF interrupted Page’s interview. MJF came in cocky with a chip on his shoulder. Something about Hangman had him eager for a fight.

The cracks in MJF’s heroic façade were starting to show. He was more caustic. His wit sharper. The edge was returning (which was a relief for a vocal section of AEW fans who found him lacking the magic he once had).

We can debate ‘Authorial Intent’ versus ‘What’s On The Page’ all day, but in this interchange, which at the time felt so electric, we already see the beginning of their story. Hangman (hair tied in a knot, speaking calmly, with respect) admits he lost to Swerve. He is beaten, but he is still defiant. He, in defeat, is still heroic.

MJF is anything but. He is catty. He pokes at Hangman’s loss. He makes jokes about STDs. In a fit of paranoia, he accuses Hangman of hiding behind a mask and attacking him weeks prior.

In contrast to how Hangman was graceful in loss, MJF is petty and uncomfortable, even at the height of his victories. At that time, Maxwell was the longest reigning AEW champ, cheered by the fans, on top of the world, and the character still seems insecure about his position.

Over the following year, both characters faced hardships. MJF lost his championship. His friend turned on him, as did the fans. Hangman failed to stop Swerve from becoming champion. In response, Hangman turns on his friends and fans. Both of them are now alone, doing their best to be villains, running from failures and vulnerabilities they don’t want to face.

© All Elite Wrestling

With Hangman, he is facing the fact that people like Swerve (and MJF) keep winning. They get away with it. And while Hangman called Max a manipulator and claimed he’ll be alone until he’s dead with only cats to console him, Hangman is also facing the truth that Max’s reign is twice as long as his. He’s facing the fact that Swerve has beaten him in his own match. And Hangman’s confronting that, for all his positive qualities, he continues to come up short.

The character of Hangman Page feels he has no choice. The good man that he currently is cannot protect his family. The good man he wants to be cannot succeed in this uncaring world. He decides he will sacrifice whatever it takes, even his pride and his decency, to never fail his family again.

(Note that, this is without getting into all the families he failed to protect before. He couldn’t keep The Elite from falling apart. He couldn’t keep it together with the Dark Order. He couldn’t protect his Championship and his AEW family from CM Punk. And now, Swerve has entered his home and threatened his actual infant child.)

Much like when MJF did his best to fake it till he made it, Hangman does his best to fake being the villain he feels he needs to be. He uses the “bad guy” tunnel. He cheats. He lets his anger loose. He becomes unhinged and focused on vengeance against anyone he sees as a threat to his family.

© All Elite Wrestling

When he finally beats Swerve, when he burns down Swerve’s childhood home, when he becomes that monster that can defeat monsters, he finally crosses that line. The crowd screamed at the sight of him that night. He flinched, but did not relent. It came to a head when his mentor Christopher Daniels tried to force him to his senses. In a rage, Hangman ends the man’s career.

Hangman is no longer faking anything. He is the monster. And it appears to make him sick.

Leading up to their match, MJF and Hangman revealed truths the other tried to hide. MJF called out Hangman, saying he didn’t have the stomach for this. Hangman called out MJF for cheating his way to everything he had.

And though the characters were talking to each other, you got the sense they were also talking to themselves. MJF told Hangman he was a faker and a pretender. He asked Hangman “after everything you’ve done, do YOU love you?” Yet it was MJF who struggled to accept himself, even at the height of his reign?

While Hangman excoriates MJF for the bad deeds in place of earning his victories, wasn’t it Hangman who became everything he hated out of a fear he wasn’t enough to protect the things he loved?

In each other, they find a mirror of their own insecurities, and it drives them to the point of breaking.

© All Elite Wrestling

At Revolution, they finally face off. The match starts with Hangman’s music. From the beginning, the mind games have started. This isn’t Hangman’s new music, it’s the old music from when he was pure. And it isn’t Hangman who’s out first. It’s MJF.

The music was a taunt to the crowd, and to his opponent. MJF offers a reminder of who Hangman was, and who he isn’t anymore. MJF’s gear is adorned with diamonds, perhaps a reference to the Dynamite Diamond Ring he won over Hangman long ago.

Hangman comes out to his darker, brooding music. He still wears the darker clothes. The crowd doesn’t care. “Cowboy shit!”, they delightedly chant, as Excalibur talks about how Hangman has clearly triggered MJF’s insecurities.

The bell rings, and it is immediately a flurry of blows. We expect that from Hangman, always forward for a fight. But on this night, the character of MJF has joined in too. He isn’t cowering, he isn’t playing games, and he’s ready for a fight as well. For once, MJF isn’t concerned with just winning. He wants to earn it. He doesn’t want to say he’s better than Hangman; he wants to prove it.

Toe to toe they go. Hangman unsurprisingly wins the striking battle. But it is MJF who wins the grappling one. A quick reversal and vicious powerbomb of Hangman onto MJF’s own knee and MJF takes control of the match. If only he could stop himself from jeering at the crowd.

“Main character, my ass!” he yells into the arena. He crosses to the other side. “It’s my company!” He is so insecure that, even as he is beating Hangman in a fair fight, he cannot control his need to bully the crowd about it.

In storyline, it is easy to forget that MJF is the man who went 60 minutes with Bryan Danielson. It is easy to forget he held the title for over a year. It is easy to think of his character as a step below. But in canon, his talent is on par with any wrestler. His potential may be unmatched. The fatal flaw he has is on the inside. He still misses something, and he fears the crowd knows it. And in Hangman, he sees someone who was also insecure, but now perseveres. He’s afraid Hangman might really have what he’s missing.

Deep into the match, Hangman is battering MJF with offense. He hits a Buckshot Lariat and yet MJF still finds the ropes. Hangman has an unbeatable heart, but MJF has uncanny ring awareness and an old-school veteran’s eye for every angle. Hangman sets up for another Buckshot Lariat but MJF dives to the outside.

And it is here, as MJF leans into the things he is good at (which I want to note, has not involved cheating), that he is able to survive Hangman. He stays in the fight. And when Hangman goes to the well too many times, MJF is able to reverse the next Buckshot into his Salt of the Earth.

The character of MJF is proving, with heart and with intelligence, that he is every bit Hangman’s equal. For once, his hokey gimmicks are gone, and he is thriving all the same. He breaks down Hangman’s arm. He has complete control. But again, he cannot leave well enough alone.

He goes to the announce table and grabs a headset. He berates the crowd. He says that he is the best and that everyone knows it. And that moment almost gives Hangman enough to get back in the fight. A series of reversals ensue. MJF sees the match slipping away. With no hesitation, he drives Hangman’s head into an upright steel chair via a Tombstone piledriver.

There is no give. Both the chair and Hangman are not moving. MJF scrambles back into the ring. This may not have been the victory he wanted, but if it takes murdering a man, he’ll do it and he’ll sleep at night. 8 counts pass. 9. At the last second, Hangman gets to his feet and lifelessly dives into the ring.

It is in this moment that MJF is broken. The character of Maxwell Jacob Friedman knows that no one should be able to keep fighting after what he has done. Yet Hangman will not die. Hangman has something more. He has something inside, and he is not beaten yet.

Face to face with his own worst truth, all MJF’s facades are gone. No longer the arrogant asshole, he is a broken man. He’s just Max, screaming at Hangman. “Why you and not me? WHY YOU AND NOT ME???”

© All Elite Wrestling

(I want to pause here and step out of the storyline. I’ve talked a lot about the characters and stories, but the actor playing MJF deserves more recognition for this moment here. You can see MJF’s spirit break in his eyes. You can see the realization of what Hangman has, and what he lacks. You can see it turn into rage and then to despair. It is an all-time moment that he sells with incredible acting. If there were awards for this aspect of pro wrestling, allow me to nominate this moment.)

Max jealously cries out “What’s so special about you??? WHY NOT ME???” Max tries one more piledriver, one last outward denial of what he knows to be true. Hangman reverses it into a Deadeye, and Max is out of the fight.

Hangman isn’t done, though. He hits his mentor’s Angels Wings to get vengeance for MJF’s attacks. Hangman seems filled with a new energy. He delivers another Buckshot. After this long match, he is yet finding new reserves.

Just as MJF had to come to terms with Hangman’s indefatigable heroism, the character of Hangman must now face it, too. He looks down on MJF, and for the first time in a long while, he seems to be back in his body. He looks around at the crowd. You can see him taking it in. He’s realizing that, despite what he has done, despite everything, he’s still their hero. He’s more than a monster. He avenged his mentor. You can see him starting to soak in what will be a long road to forgiveness.

© All Elite Wrestling

We have a structure for the “five-star match”. It is typically reserved for technical masterpieces, or for dramatic conclusions with that big fight feel. This match is not those. It isn’t a statement match so much as it is a landmark. It is a beginning, and it is a turning point. It delivers an emotional story like few others. Two experts in their craft, with wildly compelling characters, telling it all in the ring.

Whatever else you’d call it, I’d call it a classic. If you get a chance, give it a watch again and tell me what you think.

By Micah

© WWE

Surpassing Nitro

Aaron Wrotkowski of GrapPro looks at the significance of AEW’s achievement in surpassing WCW’s flagship primetime show.

On April 14, 2025, with AEW Dynamite in Boston, Massachusetts, Dynamite will officially surpass WCW Nitro as the longest running primetime wrestling show in Turner Broadcasting history.

The 289th episode of Dynamite, subtitled “Spring Breakthru” is being seen as a victory lap by AEW President Tony Khan on its longevity in the pro wrestling industry as a challenger brand to World Wrestling Entertainment.

For some folks it’s also a shot at one of Tony Khan’s largest critics in Eric Bischoff, who helmed WCW Nitro as the executive producer and helped pave the way for there to be a primetime wrestling competitor to the then World Wrestling Federation. Nitro went head to head with Raw, WWF’s primetime show from 1995 until its end in 2001 when the WWF purchased World Championship Wrestling. The move officially ended primetime wrestling on Turner until AEW’s inception. It would be good to look at this achievement from multiple angles. First from what Turner (now Warner Bros Discovery) has meant to AEW; if this should be looked at as a shot to Eric Bischoff; and what the outlook is for Dynamite going forward as the longest running primetime wrestling show in Turner Broadcasting history.

© Being The Elite

I’ve been watching All Elite Wrestling since it was first introduced on cell phones on Being The Elite 132 on YouTube, with the members of The Elite looking at their phones outside the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan and Hangman Adam Page revealing the AEW logo. The television deal was announced in May, prior to the first pay per view from the company in Double or Nothing.

Back then we didn’t know what day it would be on (the original trademark was for a Tuesday Dynamite) but it was a major headstart for AEW compared to the closest comparable promotion TNA Wrestling, which wouldn’t get their cable primetime deal until 2004, two years after the company’s inception. Then NWA:TNA, they bounced from a Fox Sports Net one hour timeslot on Fridays to a more profitable Spike TV deal on Saturday, with Spike TV replacing Raw with Impact only five days after Raw went back to the USA Network. AEW wasn’t having to run a taped one hour show on the weekend. It was getting two hours during the week in primetime live.

That first episode was a major success on October 2, 2019 with 14,129 fans in the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC and 1.4 million viewers tuning in to see the new company. AEW would never hit those numbers again (wrestling shows when debuting or moving to a new network rarely keep the ratings of the first episode) but would get close during their hottest period over the summer of 2021.

Dynamite faced an immediate threat of NXT, which had just gone from the WWE Network to the USA Network also on Wednesday, debuting two weeks prior on September 18. The Wednesday Night Wars as it was called was WWE’s way of trying to cut the momentum of AEW immediately. They had already once had an episode of EVOLVE Wrestling run live on the WWE Network head to head with AEW’s free charity event Fight for the Fallen back in July. The Wednesday Night Wars, unlike the Monday Night Wars in the 90s, wasn’t a back and forth. Instead, Dynamite would win 63 of 80 weeks by viewership and all but one (December 18) week in the 18-49 key demographic. One could say that might resemble the 83 week run of WCW Nitro against WWF Raw, but this being WWE’s development program boosted by WWE star appearances versus a brand new product, it wasn’t the guns blazing head to head stakes that the Monday Night War presented.

NXT would move to Tuesdays on April 13, 2021, effectively ending the Wednesday Night War. This coincided with some of AEW’s best live viewership of its history. This was also around the time the pandemic ended, allowing AEW Dynamite to run in front of live audiences again. All of this, coupled with a very hot Adam Page versus Kenny Omega storyline, led to a huge amount of momentum for All Elite Wrestling as a company.

© All Elite Wrestling

That momentum would lead to AEW getting new stars, with Bryan Danielson, CM Punk and Adam Cole all arriving thay summer, as well as a new show on Friday nights for one hour called Rampage. The bigger changes would eventually be Dynamite airing live from coast to coast on October 27, 2021, two years since the show began. The show would also move from TNT to TBS on January 5, 2022, due to Warner Bros Discovery signing a deal with the National Hockey League and wanting the Wednesday night slot on TNT for the NHL.

The next significant change to AEW Dynamite would come with the introduction of Saturday Night Collision on TNT, spearheaded by a returning CM Punk after suspension. AEW would treat the two shows as sort of a soft brand split, with wrestlers appearing exclusive to the separate shows. This would end essentially in September after CM Punk was fired. Some wrestlers would still be regularly seen on Collision or Dynamite/Rampage, but it was likely more their schedule choice than separating the rosters. Collision and Dynamite no longer resembles a brand split and talent bounces between the two shows based on need or preference instead of any arbitrary split.

© All Elite Wrestling

Dynamite’s next big change would be AEW’s new television deal in 2024, leading to Dynamite in 2025 showing on both TBS and the Max app, Warner Bros Discovery’s over the top subscription based online streaming service. Unlike WWE Raw which moved exclusively to Netflix in 2025, AEW would instead simulcast their show on both cable TV and the online streaming service, giving people a choice of how they want to watch the show. Unlike cable TV which has easy to find Nielsen ratings to see how viewership is, Max viewership is not published for public consumption. A report did get released by BJ Bethel of SEScoops saying AEW was averaging 500,000 viewers for Dynamite on Max, with deviation week to week on total streaming minutes.

Getting to 289 episodes for AEW Dynamite is a testament to the confidence Warner Bros Discovery has had in the company from day one. They took a chance on a completely new product with no history and gave them a primetime TV slot. A half decade later and multiple media rights extensions and AEW now exists simulcast on cable and streaming in the United States. That deal with WBD essentially has All Elite Wrestling now turning a profit in 2025. 

To surpass WCW Nitro is an exceptional accomplishment, though it more lends to realizing just how short and fleeting the Monday Night War actually was. Only five years passed between Nitro debuting head to head against Raw, going live instead of taped, moving to two and eventually even three hours, beating Raw for 83 weeks before losing the rest, and then the death of the company. In that same time, AEW has stayed live, stayed two hours, stayed on Wednesday, pushed NXT away to Tuesday, and despite live viewership falling (all cable viewership has fallen, Dynamite has at least stayed in the Top 10 in most weeks for 18-49 demo) they have only got stronger with WBD.

Not About Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff on his podcast and Twitter has done a good job making this about himself. As a consistent critic of the product (ever since AEW didn’t hire him after a few appearances on TV), Bischoff has claimed his real issue with AEW stemmed a (paraphrased) statement from Tony Khan that WCW would still be around if Ted Turner knew 1% about pro wrestling as the AEW founder does.

Bischoff’s criticism has included him attacking Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer for allegedly being biased in favour of AEW over WWE, and constantly predicting the doom of the company. Many believe that Eric is jealous of Tony Khan’s success with a wrestling company, especially after his failures with WCW as well as a run as executive producer of TNA Impact.

The problem is that Eric Bischoff was never the owner of WCW or TNA. He was just an executive producer and president. He was never truly given the keys to the kingdom and always had a boss above. He had a similar job as president, but not the entire job. To say that beating Nitro in episodes is a shot at Bischoff would be to give Bischoff far too much credit.

Bischoff is a loud critic of All Elite Wrestling and that’s fine. He has a podcast he does between his time as a real estate agent. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter how he feels about it, and to ask him is to make it about a man who, aside from scripted appearances on WWE reality shows and in Major League Wrestling on YouTube, is to make it about something who really has no skin in the game anymore.

Bischoff wasn’t relieved of his position in WCW as President when the WWF purchased the company in 2001. He was relieved on September 10, 1999. His appearances in the company after that were only as an on-screen character. His last WCW Nitro was episode 207 in Miami, Florida. AEW Dynamite surpassed that with episode 208 in Broomfield Colorado on September 27, 2023. 

So no, this isn’t about a man who didn’t own World Championship Wrestling, who didn’t own Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, who has no ownership role in a wrestling company today, who declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017, and now works as a podcaster and real estate agent. There’s plenty of podcasters out there with no role in pro wrestling anymore that think they matter when it comes to the state of All Elite Wrestling. Eric is merely one of many.
So no, I don’t want AEW to take a potshot at him on the episode, nor do I think AEW fans should be treating this as a victory against Eric Bischoff. Eric’s run on WCW Nitro ended at 207, not 288, and to give him credit for the totality of WCW Nitro just because he helped kickstart it with Ted Turner is too much credit. Let this be the last time I have to bring Eric up. 

© All Elite Wrestling

Spring Breakthu and beyond

The history of AEW Dynamite is one that’s already had some ups and downs. Some they couldn’t control like the pandemic, and some they could like the over-reliance of WWE stars over their original and homegrown talent.

The company used to run larger arenas that they couldn’t fill, but in 2025 they’ve been trying to run a lot more venues appropriate for the amount of fans they now attract. The days of averaging 4,000 with the occasional 8,000+ are essentially gone, now with 2,500 to 3,500 being the regular average for Dynamite. The company isn’t even trying with venues they have always drawn more in – they recently booked the Masonic Temple Theatre in Detroit instead of trying Little Caesars Arena.

Declining attendance could cause one to worry, and it’s certainly something AEW will want to turn around. They will want to fill these arenas to the brim so they can look into returning to the larger arenas in the future. That said, the choice of moving to smaller venues has helped the TV product in terms of crowd reactions. The show sounds hotter in the smaller venues compared to the large, hollow NHL/NBA arenas.

© All Elite Wrestling

I think of AEW Dynamite having three eras. The first era, running from October 2019 to September 2021, was the start of the company, surviving the pandemic, and coming out in their hottest period with a focus on Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and The Elite. That era would end with the debuts of CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Adam Cole – almost an embarrassment of riches of stars with WWE and NXT pedigree. 

The second era, from October 2021 to October 2024, is all about the volatile experience of growth for the company. A time of highs and lows, from the focus shifting from The Elite to the former WWE stars, everything involving CM Punk; from his championship win, to injury, to Brawl Out, to Collision, to One Bill Phil to getting fired at All In: London (the largest stadium pay per view event of all time for All Elite to Wrestling) to the departure of Elite member and AEW co-founder Cody Rhodes to WWE in early 2022. 

There was also a major increase in how many AEW shows were produced, the price of tickets going up and down, an attempt to build around MJF in 2023 that changed the feel of the content, and a 2024 that was spent paying tribute to the end of the career of Sting and the full-time career of Bryan Danielson. The end of this era coincides with Danielson losing to Jon Moxley, one of the central focuses of the first era.

We’re now entering the third era, from October 2024 and beyond. Much of the volatility of the second era has led to an All In stadium event in Texas that is hoping to sell a quarter of the tickets All In London 2023 did, or half the tickets All In London 2024 sold. Jon Moxley’s heel champion persona has been a major negative, wrestling some of the worst championship main events in AEW history. Nobody is sure yet if this is doing negative damage to the company that will be hard to recover due to the suffocating heat, or if his eventual loss will be worth it in making a suitable headliner for the company in the following weeks. The simulcast between TBS and Max looks to be a success for total viewers, even if it isn’t a success in selling more seats to TV tapings. Despite the negativity of Jon Moxley’s AEW Men’s World Championship run, Timeless Toni Storm as AEW Women’s World Champion has been one of the best parts of the company week in and week out.

© All Elite Wrestling

This third era of AEW will see the company make it to the 300th episode of Dynamite at the start of July 2025, will run Pay Per Views like Double or Nothing, All In, and Forbidden Door in fresh cities/countries, and eventually deal with the contract renewal or experiation of major AEW first year names like Chris Jericho and Jim Ross in 2025, as well as the leaders of the first era in Jon Moxley and The Elite in 2027. Time will tell if this third era can see the success of the first era, or continue the unsteady waves of turmoil and progress in the second era.

While AEW has had its ups and downs, those ups and downs are what contrast it from WCW Nitro. Nitro started hot, got hotter, then became the hottest primetime wrestling program in all of television in America. And then it stopped being hot, and it declined, and its decline continued until it lost half of its audience and soon the entire company was sold to their competition. There was no up and down. There was no moments of positive progress or increases. It was up and down and then out.

AEW Dynamite has had its low points, from the Dark Order beatdown in 2019, Warhorse in 2020, the Cody/Ogogo weigh in from 2021, stripping CM Punk and The Elite of their titles due to suspension in 2022, CM Punk being fired on the Dynamite in 2023 before All Out, airing the All In CM Punk/ Jack Perry footage in 2024, and the suffocating heat of Death Riders so far in 2025. While the Death Riders might be a wait and see, AEW has been able to survive all of its low points in previous years to rebound.

A large reason for its rebound has been the focus on great in-ring pro wrestling, something WCW Nitro would only make important in the undercard. In the dying days of WCW Nitro, the show focused on a WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Tournament, that emphasized the high flying and skilled wrestling ability of the roster. After years of boring main events full of run-ins and bad finishes, was too little too late.

AEW has, for the majority of Dynamite’s existence, always tried to be the best possible pro wrestling product in ring. To me that’s the key to its continued success under the Turner umbrella. 

Despite what McMahon acolytes would always have us believe, AEW has proved that people want to watch great pro wrestling week in and week out. It’s how the promotion got to this milestone, it’s how they will get to episode 300, 400, 500, and beyond.

By Aaron Wrotkowski of GrapPro.com