---
title: "Why AEW Needs MORE Factions"
canonical: "https://wrestletalk.com/features/why-aew-needs-more-factions/"
type: "post"
language: "en-US"
author: "Connel Rumsey"
section: "Features"
published: "2022-02-03T21:00:00Z"
modified: "2022-02-03T21:00:00Z"
---

# Why AEW Needs MORE Factions

AEW needs more factions. Now I know I will lose some of you based on that statement alone, but if you can slow your roll, grab a cookie and lend me your ear for a hot second maybe I can sway your opinion. If not, well, maybe we can just hang out, have a chat and agree to disagree. I hear that happens all the time on the internet.

So AEW, it has a lot of factions, too many according to some people, but not me. See, AEW treats their factions similarly to how New Japan Pro Wrestling does in the sense that much of the promotion’s programming is based on gang warfare even if it isn’t branded as such.

You will have your top level feuds like The Elite vs the Dark Order and the Pinnacle vs the Inner Circle, but the undercard is filled with these kinds of rivalries as well. You might see the Best Friends feud with the Hardy Family Office, or the Nightmare Family feud with Time Magazine’s Men of the Year. Keep in mind that these aren’t all going to be rivalries that light the world on fire but the way AEW books their shows allows for more talent to be featured on television regularly because of their involvement in various factions.

Talent like Wheeler Yuta, John Silver, Powerhouse Hobbs, or TH2 wouldn’t be able to be featured nearly as much if AEW was full of only singles wrestlers and tag teams because there simply wouldn’t be anywhere close to enough TV time for everyone, there’s barely enough now.

Even when a talent that is low on the AEW totem pole does make an appearance on TV like a Shawn Dean or Skye Blue they usually have their short match and then disappear from TV again until the next time they are called upon and the appearance they do make is rare connected to the narrative direction of the show. If this kind of talent is linked to a group, those appearances would be much more frequent and the appearances could hold a lot more weight.

So with so much of AEW’s roster already aligned with various existing factions, why does AEW need more? Is there no group of talent in AEW that could use more screentime? No area of AEW’s programming that could use more focus? A women’s division perhaps? That’s right the title of this video is slightly misleading. While it is true that AEW has a need for more factions, the need truly lies with AEW’s women’s division.

![](https://migration-stage.wrestletalk.com/app/uploads/2021/11/britt-baker-jamie-hayter-rebel-november-7-a.jpg)

It seems like nearly every men’s wrestler in AEW is aligned with someone. Everyone from Daniel Garcia and 2point0 to Christian Cage and Jurassic Express to Death Triangle to Team Taz, there are men buddying up and having each other’s backs. What lovely lads they all are. Comradery and all that.

Meanwhile, the only faction in the women’s division currently is led by Britt Baker with Jamie Hayter and Rebel in tow. Maybe there just aren’t women in AEW with friends, but that seems unlikely so I doubt it. With just this single faction you can start to see the multiple benefits putting these stars together can have.

First of all, it offers a much easier route for Jamie Hayter to get on television, so that is immediately a win. The same goes for Rebel as well, while her in ring work is a bit… umm… her work as Britt Baker’s Scrappy Doo has played a large role in Britt’s development as a character since her knee injury in 2020 simply by being a comic foil for Britt to bounce off of.

Again think of how much more difficult it would be for either Hayter or Rebel to get consistent TV time with AEW’s stacked roster if they were both singles wrestlers. Does anyone remember anything specific about Hayter’s AEW run in 2019? No not likely. Granted she wasn’t being pushed nearly as hard as she is now but that also has to do with her having a designated place on the AEW roster and in this faction.

Britt Baker’s nameless Chip Skylark Shiny Teeth and Me faction has provided these stars opportunities but think of the vast number of performers who would also see their TV time get a boost by banding together.

Stars like Skye Blue, Leyla Hirsch, Red Velvet, Yuka Sakazaki, and even bigger stars like Riho and Nyla Rose simply don’t appear on TV most of the time because they have no roles in AEW’s ongoing storylines. However, if you give these women reasons to be on TV more regularly by aligning them with other members of the roster, storylines can occur more naturally.

![](https://migration-stage.wrestletalk.com/app/uploads/2021/12/jamie-hayter-december-12-a.jpg)

Look at it this way, there are going to be a certain number of segments on each episode of Dynamite and Rampage each week. These can be matches, promos, backstage interviews, brawls, doesn’t matter, but just think of these segments as simply allotments of time. Odds are these segments are going to be the same length regardless of if the performers are in a group or riding solo.

A quick 30 second pretaped promo will still be 30 seconds regardless of if it is Bryan Danielson giving the promo by himself or if it is Best Friends all standing together giving a line or two each, so unless there is a narrative purpose for them to be a loner like an Abadon for example, you are literally wasting time by not loading these segments with more talent.

Also keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that everyone in these hypothetical factions needs to stand out in every one of these segments but it would allow more performers to have little moments to add traits to their characters and get over with the audience.

Think Jamie Hayter during Britt Baker’s holiday party for example. She’s not the focus of the segment by any means but her continued unwillingness to follow along with Baker’s D.M.D. signoff is her own little moment that furthers her character in a subtle yet noticeable way.

Having more women on TV in factions would exponentially increase the amount of stories that could be told in the women’s division at once. Let’s take a step back from Baker’s crew for a moment. If you look at someone like MJF you can get a proper understanding of how AEW is able to tell multiple stories all running parallel to one another because of how they book factions.

![](https://migration-stage.wrestletalk.com/app/uploads/2021/05/mjf-tully-blanchard-pinnacle-may-5-a.jpg)

Here you have ol’ Maxwell Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. He’ll be involved in his major rivalries against the Darby Allins, CM Punks, puppies and newborn babies of the world, and those rivalries will be the main focus of his character. This will be at the forefront of fans’ minds if asked to think about what MJF is doing at a given moment but let’s look a little deeper than that.

Alongside MJF you have Shawn Spears, Wardlow, Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood, The Pinnacle, a seemingly united front. At the same time as his rivalry with Punk, MJF has also been teasing descension with Wardlow by assigning Shawn Spears as his acountabilibuddy. This story doesn’t receive as much focus as the main feud but it doesn’t have to. Instead little teases can advance the plot each week, giving MJF and The Pinnacle more reasons to be on television and more ways to further deepen all of the characters involved.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there, as MJF also has a lesser running story where he has been loaning out FTR to Andrade El Idolo. There isn’t a ton of depth to this angle but the simple interactions MJF has allow him to share the screen with Andrade, setting up possible future storylines between them. It’s a small thing, but even things like this go a long way in giving someone like MJF more potential segments in which he can appear on TV.

Rather than having just one story to generate potential segments, MJF has three because he has multiple characters interacting with him at all times as a result of being in a faction. Compare this now with one of the best rivalries in the AEW women’s division, Hikaru Shida vs. Serena Deeb.

![](https://migration-stage.wrestletalk.com/app/uploads/2021/11/hikaru-shida-november-18-b.jpg)

Shida and Deeb have been having a stellar rivalry ever since Deeb halted Shida as she was en route to her 50th win. Their matches have been fantastic but these are two wrestlers with no allegiances to other members of the roster.

As a result, there are far fewer narrative reasons for Deeb and Shida to be on TV during their feud. Whereas MJF has three different narratives that he can take part in, these women only have one. This more simple storyline structure isn’t bad by any means but it does make it more difficult to keep things fresh longer simply because there are less possibilities for segments.

In the case of Shida and Deeb, all they can really do together is have a match, brawl, and cut promos on each other. Again not bad at all but if you compare this with the vast number of possible matches and segments in rivalries between two factions it is easy to see which rivalry has the easier time staying fresh longer.

If both women had more people to interact with, those options for segments increase exponentially. I am still of the opinion that the most important part of a wrestling show is the wrestling matches. That has somehow become something of a controversial opinion in recent years but I stand by it. I like me some wrasslin’.

So with that in mind, when AEW puts their stars in these big factions you get possibilities for so many more match combinations, thus getting more talent on TV and keeping matches consistently entertaining and new. You’re able to tell more simple yet varied stories this way simply because there are so many more characters in play.

Bryan Danielson can go on a murder quest to destroy the Dark Order before his match with Hangman Page, or the Trials of Jericho with old man Chris running through members of The Pinnacle. But you can also just put more fun matches on TV that you would have otherwise like Adam Cole vs. Wheeler Yuta, or the Ghostbusters vs. Bambi, Kratos, a Cowboy and Brandon Coltler.

This is one of the biggest benefits of putting talent in factions in AEW. Look at the Shida and Deeb feud again, there is one person on either side, therefore there is one possible match you could book. But then look again at something like The Inner Circle vs. The Pinnacle with five men on each side of the conflict and you already have 25 unique combinations for singles matches. 25! Last I checked, 25 is a bigger number than one. That’s just simple math that you don’t need a degree from the Steiner Math Institute to understand. And that’s not even taking into account how many more matches you can book by doing tag matches or trios matches. The possibilities become endless just by incorporating more talent into factions with top stars.

![](https://migration-stage.wrestletalk.com/app/uploads/2021/11/thunder-rosa-anna-jay-tay-conti-november-7-a.jpg)

On the off chance that we get a big six-woman tag match on Dynamite or Rampage it is so refreshing because it is so rare that we get to see so many women in one match allowed to have time to wrestle and all shine. So imagine if we got this all the time. If instead of only one singles match featuring two women from this vast roster, we put some of these women together into factions that fit their individual characters and as a result we get more matches and more women on TV.

If you take the current AEW roster into consideration, you can already start to group some names together into potential factions. You could have a wrestler’s wrestler faction with Serena Deeb at the helm paired with Mercedes Martinez and a newly heel Leyla Hirsch, allowing the latter to have a bit more personality and learn from Deeb and Martinez while taking pins in trios matches and working her way up the ladder over time.

That’s just one example, you could throw together any number of combinations with AEW’s roster so long as the talent involved are able to share some goal or motivation. Have Maki Itoh join Anna Jay and Tay Conti as the female side of the Dark Order. You’re telling me you couldn’t have some fun ass matches and segments with Anna and Tay trying to be polite while Maki Itoh is singing and bouncing off the walls?

You could have an established vet like Ruby Soho take a couple of young talents like Skye Blue and Kiera Hogan under her wing and be a wholesome babyface group. And then when you start pitting these factions against each other you could have countless matches that would mean so much more than they would otherwise.

Again its simple math, nine singles matches are indeed more than one singles match. Is all this math completely blowing your mind right now? Wait till I figure out how to relate trigonometry and quadratic equations into wrestling then you’re all fucked. Luke can claim star ratings are science all he wants, I’m using cold hard math numbers baby!

Imagine a rivalry between Ruby Soho and Serena Deeb, totally plausible and perhaps even inevitable. Now imagine the matches that could take place with these hypothetical factions. A Ruby Soho vs. Leyla Hirsch match would mean much more if you could see the follow up segment of Hirsch selling while Serena Deeb or Mercedes Martinez talk about their upcoming match with Ruby because now Hirsch is actually part of a narrative.

The same thing goes if you then book matches between Deeb and Hogan, Deeb and Skye, Martinez and Hogan or Skye, there are just so many more ways to get all of these women on television in meaningful ways if you start putting them together.

![](https://migration-stage.wrestletalk.com/app/uploads/2021/09/riho-kris-statlander-ruby-soho-september-10-a.jpg)

Quite frankly I don’t see any reason why more women in AEW couldn’t be worked into various factions. It would allow so many performers to get on television more often, develop and further their own narratives, and compete in potentially dozens of different matches allowing rivalries to be extended longer and stay fresher.

I cannot overstate how much this would do to further progress the AEW women’s division towards being what the company had promised when AEW launched. Many steps have been taken since then no doubt, but it is still too often that the only action the women see on an episode of Rampage is a two minute squash match. Let’s add some more depth to this division. More matches, more storylines, more faces on TV and I promise you, the rest will come.

I mean as long as these women’s factions aren’t treated like The Factory, The Wingmen, or the Gunn Club I genuinely don’t see a way that this would not benefit the AEW women’s division in a major way.

Does AEW need more factions that will help it continue to establish it’s women’s division as being world class and a proper representation of how great women’s wrestling can be? Does a Bear Bronson shit in the woods? Yes. The answer to both of those questions is yes.

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