AEW's WWE "Problem": Facts and Figures

First published 4th August 2021.

A column by Jonny Knapp for WrestlingNewsSource.com.

If I had a pound (£ not lb for all you Americans) for every time I've read or heard that 'AEW signs too many people from WWE' or a derivation of that sentiment, I'd have enough money to start my own wrestling company. Most WWE loyalists will claim this to be true, whereas the vast majority of people consuming the AEW product will point to the successes of Darby Allin or Jungle Boy as an example of this being either far from true or at the least, a moot point. This seems to be coming up even more as the rumours that AEW have signed both CM Punk and Bryan Danielson get louder. But is there any truth behind these statements?

Since Double or Nothing 2019, I have collated the list of the 440 people who have performed in at least one match on an AEW PPV, Dynamite, Dark or Dark Elevation, up to and including AEW Dark which premiered on August 3rd. I separated these wrestlers into 3 categories. One off appearances means that the performer has only appeared in one match to date for AEW. Part Time includes anyone who has appeared in more than one match but is not on the AEW Roster page or is not currently signed to another company (Yuka Sakazaki for TJPW as an example). Full Time is anyone who is/was signed to AEW.

For each performer, I  asked four questions: Have they ever appeared in a match for WWE or had a substantial role on screen? Were they signed to a WWE contract? Did they make it to the main roster (Raw or Smackdown) whilst under contract? And finally, did they jump straight from WWE to AEW without appearing for another company in between.

To clarify, I am not a wrestling encyclopedia. Therefore not all of this knowledge is first hand from me following 440 individual wrestlers entire careers personally. I have used Cagematch and extensive google searches to be as accurate as I can but please don't crucify me if anything is incorrect.

Additionally, I am a human and a human with fat thumbs at that. This is a large amount of data to collate and I did it on my phone. I can't guarantee that even if I have the correct knowledge, I pressed the correct buttonwhen entering that data. So if you see anything you know is incorrect in the spreadsheet at the end, please let me know.

Finally, I am only including those performers who have had a match at the date of writing (August 4th). Therefore, more recent signings are not included, no matter how likely a match is to happen. These include Paul Wight, Mark Henry, Malakai Black and Chavo Guerrero.

As previously stated, AEW has used 440 performers over 246 events so far up to and including AEW Dark from North Carolina which aired on August 3rd 2021. 108 of them have been full time, 194 were part time and 138 appeared in one match only. I would like to take a second to recognise the incredible work AEW did to keep indie wrestling alive during the pandemic because who knows what state it would be in had any of those wrestlers decided to retire because they had no income from wrestling.

First question, has the performer appeared for WWE? With this one, I include any in ring performance including Dark matches at any WWE televised show including shows like Main Event and 205 Live. I also included any on screen performance in a non wrestling role on Raw or Smackdown, so MJF with Samoa Joe, Ricky Starks with Ryback, Scorpio Sky with Kane and Daniel Bryan, etc. Of those 440 performers, only 130 have appeared in WWE. 32 of 138 one off AEW performers, 45 of the 194 Part Timers and 53 of the Full Time roster.

AEW Performers who have appeared for WWE graphs pic.twitter.com/LRBblWdnFx

— Marko Stunt's Basketball Coach (@0r4n93_C4551dy) August 4, 2021

Was the performer under a WWE contract? This is probably the most difficult question to answer as not all contract details and signings are divulged publicly. I have based this on the assumption that if a performer has appeared for WWE on one off occasions and tended to lose as opposed to having a consistent run on one or two shows like NXT, then they weren't contracted and were working as enhancement talent. I concluded that 12/138 one off performers, 9/194 Part Timers and 31/108 Full Timers were once contracted to WWE. That's a total of 52/440 across all AEW performers.

AEW Performers who were under WWE contract graphs pic.twitter.com/YzRphqA1B5

— Marko Stunt's Basketball Coach (@0r4n93_C4551dy) August 4, 2021

Did the performer make the main roster whilst under contract? I'm asking this question to further separate the field. There is a major difference in signing someone from developmental and someone from the main roster. You wouldn't expect Tay Conti and Jon Moxley to be on the same level right off the bat. Once again, main roster is Raw and Smackdown only and they must have been contracted performers rather than enhancement talent doing the job in a squash match. 8/138 One off performers, 6/194 Part Timers and 20/108 Full Timers fulfill this criteria meaning that just 34/440 performers that appeared for AEW came with main roster WWE experience.

AEW Performers who have been WWE Main Roster Talent graphs pic.twitter.com/LnlcMovl2N

— Marko Stunt's Basketball Coach (@0r4n93_C4551dy) August 4, 2021

Did the performer transfer straight from WWE to AEW? This is possibly the most interesting question given that the discourse around the subject has gotten so loud recently due to the signing of Malakai Black and the rumours surrounding Bryan Danielson and Windham Rotunda. The performer applies for this criteria if they did not make a single appearance for another company between their last WWE appearance and their AEW debut. Ticking this box are 6/138 one off performers, 2/194 part timers and 15/108 full timers meaning a total of only 23/404 performers came to AEW directly from WWE.

AEW Performers who appeared directly after WWE appearances graphs pic.twitter.com/bmMXgrxDJ3

— Marko Stunt's Basketball Coach (@0r4n93_C4551dy) August 4, 2021

Furthermore, several of those performers have a large gap between those two performances. Serena Deeb waited 3 years from her last WWE performance to her AEW debut. Ariane Andrew waited 4 years before the former Funkadactyl made her one AEW performance after leaving WWE. Dasha waited 5 years between her one appearance for NXT and her one appearance for AEW, the same amount of time that Shaq was waiting after he appeared in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royale before he got into the AEW ring with Jade Cargill to beat Cody and Red Velvet. But topping this list is Sting who waited a whopping 5 and a half years between in ring experiences for WWE and AEW.

Also, whilst in much less numbers, it's not like none of the talent that AEW has used have subsequently found themselves working for WWE. Bea Priestley worked several matches early on for AEW whilst also wrestling for Stardom in Japan before the lockdown meant she was stuck in England. AEW decided to let her go and she now finds herself in NXT UK as Blaire Davenport. She's joined on that roster by the former Ben Carter who shone so brightly during his few AEW Dark appearances that he made it into Saturday Night Dynamite. Obviously Vince was watching that episode because it wasn't long before Ben was employed by NXT UK and being called Nathan Frazer. And it's not just the British version of NXT who have signed wrestlers AEW have used either. Elayna Black became Cora Jade after she made several appearance on Dark. And whilst Mercedes Martinez had made appearances for WWE before her appearances for AEW, it was only after AEW's use of her that WWE took her off the market.

So, back to the point of this whole investigation, are AEW too reliant on talent from WWE? This is completely subjective opinion no matter which side of the fence you're on as you could be of the opinion that AEW should live and thrive without anyone with a WWE past. But, if you're not being naive and realise that performers don't owe any allegiance to their employers, here are the final figures. 

Of the 440 performers, AEW have used only 29.55% of them have ever been associated with the WWE. Of those who can be considered as full time performers for AEW, this number increases to 49.07%. Meaning straight away, we can tell over half of AEW's main roster are completely free of any association with WWE. This decreases to only 28.7% of the main roster having once been under an WWE contract and 18.52% having appeared on the WWE roster. To date, only 13.89% of the AEW main roster came directly from WWE without being elsewhere first.

That's a hell of a lot of talent who were never televised to the two largest viewerships in American wrestling. Over 3 quarters of the main roster in fact! I think this just shows what a tremendous job AEW have done to thrive with talent that wasn't well known to the American audience in 2019.

Does this finally disprove the 'AEW signs too many people from WWE' take? Let me know what you think. And thanks for reading!

https://t.co/ODparnj4Uu

If I haven't fucked this up, this is my spreadsheet if you wanted to check my working

— Marko Stunt's Basketball Coach (@0r4n93_C4551dy) August 4, 2021

The views expressed in this column are those of the original writer and not necessarily those of WrestlingNewsSource.com.