Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Who has the deeper roster?


Flyin' Brian

Recommended Posts

To me, it's AEW. Strictly because even with Punk & Danielson getting injured, they're not short in talents that can fill the void. In WWE, they spent so many months feeding people to Roman that they legit have nobody to take the mantle with Cody being out for an unknown amount of time after Hell in a Cell. And the sad part is that those are self-inflicted wounds by WWE.

 

AEW will be able to sustain interest from viewers, even without Punk and Danielson for a while. WWE gonna have to pull off a few miracles out of their ass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gunther theoretically could be featured for a short program. As it is, hard to count him.

I give the edge to WWE solely because their women's roster is deeper. If we are talking solely singles & men, AEW has the edge due to their booking philosophy. Punk and Bryan are out and they still have a healthy number of credible guys they can insert into a main event, as they never focus on just a single person.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WWE also suffers from the same people going in and out of main event programs for god knows how long so there's a staleness factor that isn't there at all with AEW. I do agree than on the women's side WWE has AEW beat by a wide margin even if Becky, Charlotte and Rhonda are played out at this point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of the things that hasn’t been brought up here is that the “depth” question is entirety based on environment. WWE’s “depth” issues on the mens side are clearly self imposed, but also, they’ve run multiple folks who are their “depth” on top in the past, only to be shuffled down the card never to be heard from again. 
 

AEW has more interchangeable parts, but that’s because it was born more out of necessity. They needed to keep trying folks to see who popped off the page, but they had a clear hierarchy in regards to the world title, for example. I think both companies project too talent pretty well, but I also feel like the idea of depth being talked about here is more about “talent we like.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since the injuries are occurring on the men's side, that's more where I was focused. Like stated, the women's roster is not really a contest. I think there are some wrestlers out there available that would definitely help the women's division if Tony Khan wanted to bring them in though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not so much 'talent we like' as talent that I feel has been presented/could be presented as main eventers if needed. Some of that is past elevation, some of that is current position on the card, some of that is potential. Of course, personal biases can and do come into play. These are just my lists for comparison, feel free to add or subtract from it with your own opinions. It won't hurt my feelings one bit. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's do a head-to-head comparison, using the lists @Flyin' Brian provided:

Adam Cole (AEW) vs. AJ Styles (WWE) - Cole was included by Brian, but I believe he's currently injured. Eh, I'll give the nod to Cole.
Adam Page (AEW) vs. Bobby Lashley (WWE) - Page
Chris Jericho (AEW) vs. Brock Lesnar (WWE) - Brock is a bigger star, but Jericho works more often. I''ll call this a draw.
Darby Allin (AEW) vs. Bron Breaker (WWE) - Allin
Eddie Kingston (AEW) vs. Drew McIntyre (WWE) - Draw
Hook (AEW) vs. Edge (WWE) - Edge
Jon Moxley (AEW) vs. Finn Balor (WWE) - Moxley
Miro (AEW) vs. Gunther (WWE) - Miro
Samoa Joe (AEW) vs. Kevin Owens (WWE) - Owens
Sting (AEW) vs. Rey Mysterio (WWE) - Mysterio 
Wardlow (AEW) vs. Roman Reigns (WWE) - Reigns
MJF (AEW) vs. Seth Rollins (WWE) - Rollins

Flyin' Brian's lists didn't have equal numbers, so I'll pick two guys from the AEW roster to match against Miz and Theory. Sammy and Scorpio Sky have both main evented AEW shows recently and will do here.

Sammy Guevera (AEW) vs. Miz (WWE) - Miz 
Scorpio Sky (AEW) vs. Austin Theory (WWE) - Can we go with neither? Draw

So my completely subjective and unscientific head-to head showdown of the men's rosters ends with WWE narrowly ahead of AEW 6 - 5, with 3 draws.

For AEW, I haven't included the injured Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, or Kenny Omega. For WWE, I haven't included Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, and Matt Riddle.

I think there is no question that the WWE women's roster is much stronger than AEW's, while the AEW tag roster is far deeper than that of the WWE.

Edited by Champagne
EDIT: Riddle's not hurt
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would say that AEW has the better roster in the sense there's more people positioned to fill spots if people higher on the card get hurt and/or leave. In WWE, they're pretty much fucked if Roman decides to go make movies or whatever full time. Even though they have a ton of people on the roster,  you can count the folks who could realistically be put in a top spot on one hand and have fingers left over. 

Now WWE has shown they can heat someone up and put them in a main event spot on a temporary basis, but they've also shown they don't stick with it and that the person ends up back in the same position they were prior to the push. 

I suppose this will be AEW's big test since Punk was their biggest draw and he's going to be out, but that's just going to open the door for folks who have been somewhat downplayed as of late. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's why the periodic shuffling of wrestlers down the card in AEW that people complain about is actually a good thing. Not only does it prevent anyone from becoming stale and overexposed, it means the company doesn't miss a beat if someone leaves or has to take time off. Obviously some folks are more important to AEW than others, but no one's as indispensable to them as Roman and Brock are to WWE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

That's why the periodic shuffling of wrestlers down the card in AEW that people complain about is actually a good thing. Not only does it prevent anyone from becoming stale and overexposed, it means the company doesn't miss a beat if someone leaves or has to take time off. Obviously some folks are more important to AEW than others, but no one's as indispensable to them as Roman and Brock are to WWE.

Plus the webshows have a different tempo and tenor than the main shows as they either have engaged early-in-the-night or studio fans, and don’t have to worry about commercials or fitting into a TV slot. Deeb was cycled back to Elevation last night and I’m really looking forward to four months of her teaming with Nyla/Emi/Bunny/Diamante. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

That's why the periodic shuffling of wrestlers down the card in AEW that people complain about is actually a good thing. Not only does it prevent anyone from becoming stale and overexposed, it means the company doesn't miss a beat if someone leaves or has to take time off. Obviously some folks are more important to AEW than others, but no one's as indispensable to them as Roman and Brock are to WWE.

I always remembered that quote from Paul Heyman when he was talking about when someone was about to leave ECW to jump ship to WWF or WCW or someone got injured, he always had someone ready to fill that spot. I think in a way, as the big ECW fan that he was, Tony Khan has kept that in mind and took this to heart so he applied this to his management philosophy. Yes, the AEW roster is bloated but at the very least, they have many options to fill positions when injuries happen. That's almost a godsend here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...