Right now, NXT is really bad. I mean almost unwatchable at times. From the hideous new arena to the ridiculous gimmicks of their top talents, but at least NXT makes sense. The whole point of it is to bring in talent, put them into meaningful feuds, give them title runs and let the fans get a glimpse of what the future of the company will be. In a year or two, the main roster will be guys Bron Breakker, Carmelo Hayes, Solo Sikoa, Grayson Waller to name a few.

Let’s look at AEW’s developmental brands in Dark and Elevation. These aren’t developmental brands, these are fillers. Some people argue that the other companies are the developmental brands and AEW is the main roster now in wrestling. A few months ago, we watched the final matches of Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole on NXT. Now the trio is on AEW and all the developmental work done. Their names have been built up; their brand is still there. The trio didn’t lose a step from their NXT run. Tony Khan just brought them all over and they’re doing the exact same thing.

Dark and Elevation are poorly managed. Lets me give you the matches on February 8^th of Dark.

Julie Hart vs Kelsey Heather

Powerhouse Hobbs vs Gus De La Vega

The Gunn Club vs who the hell cares.

Mercedes Martinez vs Queen someone

Anthony Ogogo vs Someone

Lee Moriarty vs I don’t care

Anna Jay vs some woman

Fuedo Del Sol vs Serpentor

And last was Wheeler Yuta vs Aaron Solow

Who do you think won the matches? The AEW wrestlers that are featured on Dynamite and Rampage? Or the random people nobody cares about? The only match that wasn’t obvious was Yuta vs Solow. Everything else on the card was a waste of time. It didn’t elevate anyone. It just filled time and let wrestlers that aren’t featured in a while a chance to be in front of fans.

And worst of all, look at some of these records. Powerhouse Hobbs, a guy that I absolutely LOVE. A guy who I think will be running this company in a few years is 39-17. When the hell was Powerhouse Hobbs in all these matches?  And the Gunn Club is 35-0! You’re telling me this team is undefeated and running through opponents like this are just now going after the tag champions? That Christian Cage and Billy Gunn had to have a discussion about the worthiness of an undefeated team?

This card had 9 matches on it for an hour-long show. So, each match was about 6 minutes long. What exactly can you do in 6 minutes? You can’t have much going on. You can’t cut many promos. You can’t really have a lot of interference.

Did any of these matches elevate the winners? Anna Jay is a main roster wrestler, one of the most popular women on the roster, doesn’t need to be in any match against an extremely unknown wrestler whose name I already forget. It shows she can beat an unknown talent. So does she get a title match next week? No? then what was the point?

What is the point of putting Santana and Ortiz in a Dark tag match and then put them on Rampage? Santana and Ortiz, arguably one of the best tag teams in the world of wrestling do not need to be in a match that doesn’t matter.

I went to an AEW live showing. They film Dark before the show so we got to see a few matches. Preston Vance fought QT Marshal. Was the best Dark match because these were two main roster wrestlers, but it didn’t set up for anything. I was hoping it would set up for the Dark Order to fight The Factory. Two tag teams with interesting talent. I know I crap on the Dark Order every time I talk about them, but I would rather see them wrestle and maybe do something besides looking like fools online.

AEW is doing a massive disservice to its wrestlers with how they’re handling Dark and Elevation. They should have maybe 4 matches at the most. That’s about 25 minutes for each match in terms of entrance, match, finish, promo and future match teases. What an absolute waste of 2 shows.

Another great example is Captain Shawn Dean. I don’t know wither or not to care about him. He has Dark matches and he was featured in a match against MJF where CM Punk ran in and knocked out Dean to give MJF the loss. Soooooo is Dean going to be a future AEW star? Or is he cannon fodder? Or is he a realistic prospect? I know Grayson Waller is going to be a featured star in NXT. Why? Because he’s featured more. He’s in big matches like War Games and he’s having a feud with AJ Styles and LA Knight. You see progress. You see screentime. You see potential. You see a guy that is being smartly pushed.

AEW has 0 idea what they’re doing half the time. The whole company is just a dream match factory and that’s it. what do you guys think?

Simptastic Joe