AEW may have the best wrestling matches on the planet, but if there's one area where they've suffered, it's their creative direction. It's not that Tony Khan and company can't have good ideas, it's just that they can't stick with them. Just like he does with pushing certain wrestlers, Khan seems to get bored easily. Adam Cole's devil's perspective went absolutely nowhere, as well as the new elite who beat Khan up in the middle of the ring and took over AEW. Now there's another AEW takeover with the Jon Moxley-led Death Riders. It was fun at times, but it also plays out exactly like the nWo storyline. AEW needs to do something new with the angle because so far it leaves a lot to be desired.
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Jon Moxley shockingly betrayed Bryan Danielson
- Many thought Mox's return would lead to Shane McMahon's debut.
- Jon Moxley put a sack over Bryan Danielson's head at All Out.
- Moxley defeated Danielson for the AEW World Championship at WrestleDream.
Say what you want about the Death Riders angle at the moment, but it started off perfectly. At All In, Bryan Danielson won the AEW World Championship, a title he didn't want but was given to him as a thank you for his career. We knew his full-time career was over with the next loss, and although it looked like Darby Allin was about to have his crowning moment, it was Jon Moxley who returned from the break with a new gimmick. Mox came to the ring to make a cryptic promo about how this is no longer your company. This led many to believe that Shane McMahon was close to making his debutbut AEW had something else in mind.
Instead, Moxley began running around with Marina Shafir, and after one of Danielson's title defenses at All Out against Jack Perry, Moxley and the rest of the Blackpool Combat Club entered the ring, not to celebrate, but to attack the champion. It was a brutal blow Mox even put a plastic bag over the American dragon's head. Moxley then defeated Darby Allin to earn his title shot before defeating Danielson WrestleDream. Afterwards, Mox and the rest of the BCC absolutely destroyed Danielson, causing the locker room to empty and the heels to be evicted. It was quite an impressive sight, but it's been a bit of a disappointment ever since.
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The Death Riders have launched an AEW takeover
Every week the Death Riders are routed before an attack
- Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy, Daniel Garcia and Hook represented AEW at WrestleDream.
- The Blackpool Combat Club became the Death Riders.
- Every Death Riders appearance feels the same.
AEW did a good job of showing its top young stars like Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy, Daniel Garcia and Hook staring down the Death Riders at the end of WrestleDream. It was also a wise decision to finally abandon the BCC name, which had originated under William Regal so that the Death Riders are born. However, everything else felt lackluster. For one thing, Daniel Garcia quickly began a feud with Jack Perry instead of the new heel faction. Hook does his own thing. Darby Allin didn't wrestle much. And an intriguing setup that saw the Young Bucks consider supporting AEW against the Death Riders fell through when the Jacksons went on hiatus after losing their tag titles to Private Party.
Now week after week it's the same story of the Death Riders coming to the ring, giving a promo, beating someone up before being chased away in the ring or backstage. It feels like what the nWo once did so well and what so many factions have tried to recreate since. The Death Riders keep talking about taking over AEW, but other than Moxley becoming the champion, not much has changed.
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Darby Allin is positioned as AEW's version of Sting
AEW needs to stop looking at WCW's past success
- Sting battled “Hollywood” Hogan and the nWo in the 90s.
- Darby Allin stood by Sting for years in AEW.
- WWE's history with The Bloodline shows how to continually surprise fans.
Late 90s Part of what made the nWo work is that they created the Crow Sting to combat them. Sting was more badass than ever during this era, and now Darby Allin has fittingly become AEW's version of the character. This makes sense since Darby Allin has learned from Sting through years of working with Sting, but on AEW shows when Darby Allin slowly comes down from the rafters in his pink sweater, it looks like a silly imitation.
Of course, just as Sting “Hollywood” Hogan couldn't defeat Hogan right away, the final match in which Allin will beat Moxley and become AEW World Champion cannot happen yet. Instead, other AEW wrestlers must first challenge Moxley and lose to him. That is the purpose that Orange Cassidy served. He went there as part of the AEW team in the same way a Lex Luger or DDP tried to represent WCW.
What AEW is doing with the Death Riders isn't terrible, and they deserve praise for focusing on making it their top story every week, but it's all predictable and way too familiar. There is a better way to tell the story without trying to repeat the past. To prove this, look no further than The Bloodline in WWE. This story has been going strong for four years now, surprising fans at every turn by trying to be original, shocking and telling a new version of an old story. Ratings and attendance have not increased since the Death Riders showed up in AEW. For that to change, Tony Khan needs to go back to the beginning of the perspective and focus on what worked. The Death Riders need to be a real threat where anything can happen, not just a Dynamite and Collision section.
