The honeymoon phase is over

We need to have a serious, uncomfortable conversation about All Elite Wrestling. It is Wednesday, March 25, 2026. We are exactly five days away from AEW Dynasty in Kansas City, Missouri. And for the first time in the history of this company, the vibes aren't just slightly off — they are aggressively concerning.

Let's drop the tribalism for a second. Nobody with a functioning brain wants AEW to fail. The industry is objectively better when there is a well-funded, nationally televised alternative to the WWE machine. We all remember the dark days of 2018. We don't want to go back.

But the "just enjoy wrestling" defense doesn't work anymore. The honeymoon phase isn't just over; the divorce papers are sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be signed by a massive chunk of the casual audience.

Tony Khan has built a roster that looks like a video game fever dream, yet he is booking it like a middle schooler playing Extreme Warfare Revenge.

Sunday isn't just another pay-per-view. It is a referendum on whether AEW can actually grow, or if it's destined to be a very expensive super-indie catering exclusively to the most hardcore demographic on the internet.

The fatal flaw of the five-star match

Tony Khan's fundamental misunderstanding of his own audience has become impossible to ignore. For the last two years, his primary booking strategy has been to throw two incredible workers into the ring, give them 25 minutes, and assume the match quality will cover for the lack of narrative build.

Will Ospreay is a generational talent. Kazuchika Okada is arguably the greatest in-ring performer of the 21st century. Bryan Danielson is a living legend. But you cannot build a weekly television audience purely on the promise of "bangers."

We saw this trap slowly close around the company throughout 2024 and 2025. You tune into Dynamite, and you see Jon Moxley bleeding profusely in a competitive 14-minute match against a mid-card guy from CMLL who wasn't introduced to the audience.

The workrate is phenomenal. The crowd in the arena chants "this is awesome." And then the quarter-hour television ratings drop by 85,000 viewers.

Great matches are the payoff to a story. They are not the story itself. WWE learned this lesson decades ago. Khan seems violently allergic to learning it at all.

When you condition your audience to expect PPV-quality matches on free television every single Wednesday, you devalue the actual pay-per-views. Why should I drop fifty bucks on Dynasty to see a great match when I just saw three of them on Collision for free?

The Continental Classic hangover

Let's look at the actual television product right now. A few months ago, the Continental Classic was universally praised. It gave the shows structure. It gave the matches stakes.

But what happened when the tournament ended? We immediately reverted back to the exact same chaotic, directionless booking style. It proved that AEW can produce compelling, sports-based storytelling when forced into a tournament format, but they completely lack the discipline to maintain that structure on a week-to-week basis.

You cannot run a 52-week-a-year wrestling company based solely on surprise debuts and tournament brackets. Eventually, you have to write a feud. You have to write a promo segment that doesn't end with the lights going out and a mysterious figure standing in the ring.

The audience has caught on to the formula. When the lights go out, people don't gasp anymore. They check their phones.

The ghost of Brawl Out still haunts the locker room

It has been years, and yet the shadow of CM Punk still looms over this company like a bad storm cloud. It's not because Punk was a saint. It's because Punk, for all his backstage toxicity, understood weekly episodic television.

He understood pacing. He understood how to make a promo segment feel like the most important thing on the show. Since his departure, AEW has desperately lacked a true center of gravity.

The Elite have tried to fill that void. The Young Bucks leaned into their EVP status, leaning heavily into meta-heel character work. Jack Perry tried to reinvent himself.

But the entire narrative arc has felt like an inside joke that went on for three months too long. The winks to the camera, the thinly veiled references to internet dirt sheets — it is exhausting.

Casual fans don't care about backstage drama. They care about characters they can invest in. Right now, half the AEW roster feels less like characters and more like guys pretending to be wrestlers on a soundstage. There is a severe lack of authenticity in the main event scene, and the audience can smell it.

WrestleMania 41 is a massive problem

You cannot talk about AEW's current predicament without looking at the calendar. We are exactly 25 days away from WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas. The hype machine for WWE is operating at a level we haven't seen since the Attitude Era.

Cody Rhodes is heading into Vegas to defend the WWE Championship. John Cena is gearing up for his farewell. CM Punk is locked into a massive, blood-feud program.

Roman Reigns and the Bloodline drama continue to generate incredible numbers. WWE is undeniably hot.

When the competition is executing at that high of a level, your mistakes are magnified tenfold. Tony Khan cannot afford to put on a "good" show on Sunday. Dynasty has to be flawless.

If AEW goes into Kansas City and delivers a card full of screwy finishes, confusing interference, and post-match beatdowns that lead to eight-man tag matches on Dynamite, the contrast will be devastating. The internet wrestling community will rightfully roast them for it. More importantly, the television viewers will simply change the channel.

The roster bloat and title fatigue

Then there is the issue of the championships. At last count, watching an episode of AEW television requires keeping track of roughly 14 different titles. That is not hyperbole. That is a structural disaster.

We have the AEW World Championship, the TNT Championship, the International Championship, the Continental Championship. We have the FTW belt. We have trios titles, tag titles, and women's titles.

And that's before we even start talking about the Ring of Honor belts that constantly bleed over onto TBS and TNT.

When everyone is a champion, nobody is a champion. The belts are supposed to be narrative devices. They are the entire reason these characters are fighting.

But when a guy walks out to the ring carrying a shiny belt, and the commentators have to spend 45 seconds explaining what the rules of that specific championship are, you have lost the plot.

Dynasty needs to be the start of a massive unification process. Khan has to trim the fat. The roster is too bloated. The championship picture is too confusing. It is time to make some hard cuts, both in terms of television time and hardware.

Swerve Strickland deserves better

If there is one massive, glaring failure in AEW's recent booking, it is the handling of Swerve Strickland. The man got himself over organically. He put on incredible matches, cut visceral, believable promos, and looked like a legitimate, mainstream star.

But his run at the top has been plagued by the exact same issues that have derailed so many other AEW pushes. Start-and-stop booking. Confusing heel/face turns. Getting shuffled down the card to make room for the flavor of the month.

Swerve is the kind of talent you build a company around. He is the guy who should be plastered on every billboard and media tour. Instead, he constantly feels like he is fighting for airtime against Chris Jericho's 47th stable reinvention.

Sunday has to feature a decisive, star-making moment for someone like Swerve. Not a 30-minute technical classic that ends in a draw. A dominant, violent, statement-making victory. The company needs an alpha. They need a top guy who doesn't feel like he's sharing the spotlight with six other people.

The final verdict on Kansas City

Tony Khan is standing on the edge of a cliff. He has all the money in the world, the best in-ring talent assembled under one roof, and a rabidly loyal core fanbase. But the goodwill is evaporating.

Dynasty cannot be a show booked for Dave Meltzer. It cannot be a show booked for the people who spend eight hours a day arguing on Twitter. It has to be a show booked for a mass television audience. It has to feature logical stories, clear stakes, and actual consequences.

If AEW delivers in Kansas City, they can reclaim the narrative. They can remind the wrestling world why they exist and why they are necessary.

But if they trot out the same tired tropes — the endless tournaments, the random run-ins, the disjointed promos — the decline isn't just going to continue. It is going to accelerate.

The time for excuses ended a long time ago. Sunday night is do or die.