And the criticisms (rightfully) continue for AEW Women’s Division.
AEW had its All In event at Wembley Stadium in London, England on Sunday Aug. 27. The show had 11 matches on the card with only one women’s match for the AEW Women’s World Championship. This included a two-hour pre-show which had two male performers with two matches (MJF and Adam Cole) on both the pre-show and the main event.
CEO Tony Khan continues to give excuses for the lack of women on his shows. AEW officially started in 2019 and for the past four years (minus some pay-per-view events as an outlier) the women continue to only get one match per weekly show and even most pay-per-views.
At this particular event the women’s match that featured Hikaru Shida defending the AEW Women’s World Title against Saraya, Toni Storm, and Britt Baker was the shortest match on the main card at 8:50. A match that didn’t even break double digits.
Lyric Swinton of Womens Wrestling Talk questioned Khan about there being only one women’s match on the card. The match did have a call back to the original All In. But Swinton questioned why we didn’t see names such as Athena, Willow Nightingale, Kris Statlander or others and if we will see more women’s matches on the All Out card and future pay-per-views.
Khan continues what he has done over the past four years and that is give excuses. He answers her concern with saying that Statlander vs. Ruby Soho will take place at All Out next weekend. He also commented that he will have to see how Saraya is doing after her match that took place today as she was crowned the new champion.
He goes on to say that the “pacing” of the show was his biggest concern. And even though there are great talents in the women’s division that there is only so many top stars he can put on one show.
“I think the pacing of the show tonight was probably the best we’ve ever had. The best show we’ve ever done. So I think adding any more would have been challenging. Also we have so many stars across both the men’s and women’s division – great wrestlers…..I tried to pace it perfectly and I think we did pretty great.”
Khan goes on to say he wants to try and get all the top stars in he can and goes back to pacing of the show as his reason. He also said he wanted the call backs to the original All In to be there. And with only one women’s match on that card I guess he did do just that.
So what do you think of Mr. Khan’s continued excuses about the poor utilization of the AEW women’s division?
