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AEW President Tony Khan was recently asked about making a big change to the promotion's roster, and he revealed that he had thought about implementing this. This would be a possible brand split.
The company currently runs three weekly shows: Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision. Both Dynamite and Collision run for two hours, but a brand split has not been implemented for either. During the Saturday show's debut, a temporary split was done, as CM Punk and The Elite reportedly needed to be kept on separate shows. However, this ended up being discontinued after Punk departed from the company.
During the media call ahead of AEW WrestleDream this weekend, Tony Khan was asked whether he'd have a roster split. He admitted that it was not a bad idea and something he considered. He revealed he was working on some things related to the roster's future at the moment.
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"It’s not a bad thought. It’s an interesting thought. I definitely have considered many iterations of roster management and still working on some really interesting things in terms of the future of AEW media and the future of the roster."
He mentioned that it was too early to speculate on something of that sort happening as their new deal had just been announced, but once again noted that it was interesting and he had thought about it already.
"It’s early to speculate on that frankly going into the new deal and what’s to come. But it’s a very interesting thought and to be honest, I have reflected on it and thought about it." [H/T - WrestleTalk]
Jim Cornette was previously against an AEW brand split
Back in 2022, Jim Cornette talked about the idea of a brand split within the promotion. At the time, AEW had weekly shows of Dynamite and Rampage and also had AEW Dark and Dark: Elevation, which was showcased on YouTube.
The veteran commented that they should not split the roster, as this would force Tony Khan to choose how to split the company, and he felt like booking wouldn't work well. He wanted them to just have the same arrangements, but make better decisions with booking.
"No, don't split the brand. Obviously, you should feature some people on TV on Friday that you didn't feature on Wednesday and vice versa. But don't make them completely separate brands because then... Number one, you're giving Tony Khan the task of picking who gets to be on what show, and since he does the weird job he does on everything else, then you'd end up seeing Daniel Garcia in the main event every Wednesday night instead of just once every three weeks. No, keep a roster, have an individual champion and a tag team champion and a f****ng TV champion or whatever if you want to, but keep the same roster and just have the discipline." (from 1:10 to 2:00)
Now that AEW has more hours of weekly television and a much more stacked roster, things may turn out differently, as a brand split may just help solve the issue of giving the deserving stars more TV time.
