Grading All Elite Wrestling's first year as a promotion

Men's Division: A

'Le Champion'

As I mentioned on a prior slide, the smartest decision AEW made in their first year was strapping the title to Chris Jericho. He is arguably the most entertaining personality in the whole business, and every time he's touched a microphone on Dynamite, it has often been the highlight of the show.

It would have been a different story had Hangman Page won the title, but his quest after failing to capture it is becoming an intriguing storyline. We also have the interactions between Page, Omega and Pac as well as Moxley's lone wolf status. Most of the matches have delivered.

MJF, Jungle Boy and Darby Allin have all been positioned as future faces of the company and for good reason. MJF is one of the best heels on the planet today whereas Allin and Jungle Boy are the undersized underdogs that fans love. We've seen that play out in both men's matches against Jericho and Allin's matches with Cody and Moxley.

Another smart move was to keep Omega away from the title picture. Hardcore fans would have wanted him to win the title, but it would have been a sense of nepotism had he or Page been the first AEW Champion. The records made things a little weird in the beginning because Pac had one of the best records but never got a title shot. It's at least being used in a storyline now, so at least it's going somewhere.