AEW needs a franchise superstar and it's not Jon Moxley, says wrestling veteran (Exclusive)

A wrestling veteran recently claimed that AEW requires a 'franchise' star. The star he named was Bobby Lashley and not Jon Moxley. The latter is the current AEW World Champion and is one of the biggest names in the company.

Meanwhile, Bobby Lashley made his debut in the Jacksonville-based promotion last month. He is one of the biggest ex-WWE stars in All Elite Wrestling right now. He recently defeated Swerve Strickland at Full Gear while Moxley main-evented the event against Orange Cassidy.

Despite having top stars on the roster, ratings have seemingly been an issue for the Tony Khan-owned promotion. In the recent edition of The Wrestling Time Machine with Mac Davis, Bill Apter and Teddy Long discussed what AEW could do to improve the ratings of the product.

While speaking on the show, veteran Bill Apter noted that AEW needed a 'franchise player' to lead the promotion. He claimed that Bobby Lashley is a huge name and that his match against Strickland should be the talk of the town rather than Jon Moxley versus Orange Cassidy.

"I always say it's not about the ratings or whatever, it's about the contract with Warner Brothers Discovery that they are getting. But I am sure Warner Brothers are looking at it like their ratings aren't like what we thought. They need a major franchise superstar. Right now, they got Bobby Lashley going against Swerve Strickland at the pay-per-view. I'm not hearing much buzz about this, I'm hearing more about Jon Moxley against Orange Cassidy. And to me, the billboard event is Lashley and Swerve Strickland but it's kinda like 'Eh, it's just not out there,'" he said. [01:03 - 01:52]

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Bill Apter believes Bobby Lashley's Hurt Syndicate and Jon Moxley's Death Riders should clash

Death Riders and Hurt Syndicate are currently dominating the locker room due to their numbers advantage. While the factions were formed recently in AEW, they have created a massive impact on the promotion.

While speaking on the same podcast, Apter claimed that AEW needs to pit its top two heel factions against each other to bring more eyes to the show.

"You need to put the Hurt Syndicate against the Moxley group now at this point. They are both two heel factions but I think that would raise the temperature of AEW. I really do," he said.

It will be interesting to see which stable will stand tall if and when these warriors collide.

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