Wrestlers that appear in AEW and then vanish are discussed by the pro wrestling legend.
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Arn Anderson of All Elite Wrestling says that wrestlers appearing on company television and then disappearing is a problem that the organisation has yet to solve. The former Horseman, speaking on a recent edition of his podcast, The ARN Show agreed that this is a problem, offering his son, Brock, as an example.
Anderson said, “I agree 100%. My son being one of those, if you remember correctly, his debut match was being partnered with Cody. They had a really good match with QT and one of the other kids, but it’s been so far back, nobody remembers it. He had his three or four weeks.”
On the 18 June 2021 edition of Dynamite, Brock, 25, teamed up with Cody Rhodes to defeat Aaron Solow and QT Marshall of The Factory in his first broadcast AEW encounter. Since then, just three of his 20 AEW fights have shown on Dynamite or Rampage, with the rest taped during Dark and Dark: Elevation tapings.
Arn went on to clarify that he wasn’t criticising AEW president and founder Tony Khan, who he claims has assembled “a heck of a talent roster.” Finding time for everyone – and providing young talents like Dante Martin with the cumulative opportunities they need to get (and stay) over – is the difficulty.
“Now to his defence because people get sick of me singing Tony Khan’s praises, but his intention is because now he’s assembled quite a hell of a talent roster, to try to get everybody exposed. If you get one week or two weeks, and then they move on, I get exactly what you’re saying. In order to get a person over, you have to have about eight or 10 or 12 straight weeks of good TV.
Now I am invested in this guy. Tony knows what he wants out of the shows. We support him 100%. I do agree that talent doesn’t get exposed. Dante Martin is a very special kid. He got springs like nobody else in the business. Just a short time back he had two or three or four really, really good weeks, and then now they disappeared down to Dark. It’s a dilemma that we have. We will figure it out.”
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Finally, Anderson said that bringing in big names like Bryan Danielson and CM Punk forces lesser performers to be moved down the schedule. He is optimistic, however, that Khan and the AEW will be able to solve the problem.
“But when you’re bringing in Daniel Bryan, you’re bringing in CM Punk, and no matter what you’ve done prior to that, that’s going to kind of push everybody else down a notch because those guys cost a heap of money to employ. When you bring them in, they’re going to take precedence over anything else you had going on. That’s the dilemma that we have. We will figure it out because Tony’s intentions are giving people who are avid wrestling fans and intelligent folks what they want.”
Anderson has been in AEW since December 2019, four months after making his All Out debut, where he assisted Cody Rhodes in his match against Shawn Spears.
