Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV | Tagged: all elite wrestling, wrestling

Here's Why Nearly Every AEW Championship Is Being Misused: Opinion

AEW has a great roster and amazing matches, but their title belts are a complete disaster, and the system needs an overhaul immediately.

One of the biggest gripes we've had over the past couple of years about AEW is its championship system being a mess. While the most recent Double or Nothing PPV was an absolute blast, it proved that the system and reasoning behind almost all of their championships remain in a state of confusion about what exactly they're supposed to mean and why they matter to the wrestlers, the company, and any storylines they're tied to. Championship belts can either be a prop or a motivator, depending on how they get used, and while we could go into an entire discussion of how story structure and character development could make a championship worth more, we're going to focus on the belts, what's happening with them, and how they could be better utilized.

First, Some Praise

Now, to start, we said ALMOST every All Elite Wrestling championship. We're going to skip the Men's and Women's World Titles because, for the most part, AEW has done a pretty decent job of keeping both of these titles protected to some degree. (Which, for the most part, we're going to refer to AEW as opposed to saying Tony Khan every time, since he is booking the place.) You may not like every champion that's been under each of those titles, or every story (Why did it need to be in a briefcase? What "deathrider" needs a briefcase?!?), but they're not playing hot potato with it or bucking immediately to trends with them. So they're being left off the list until AEW does something absolutely terrible with them in the future.

We're also leaving off the Ring of Honor titles from this list. Trust us, we could spend an entire article trashing the ROH system in its current state (and probably will), but this is an AEW-focused article, and that's where we're keeping it. We're also not adding the Owen Hart belts to this, because they're never defended, they're the prize at the end of their respective tournaments that hang around until AEW All In, so their purpose is pretty succinct and doesn't need a change.

The TNT/TBS Championships

A lot of you reading this may not be old enough to know what a TV Championship is, let alone its purpose. So here's a quick education. During the Territory days, a few companies had a TV championship, a shiny little belt that was defended on TV every single week, some of them in 10-15 minute time limits that sometimes ended in a draw. The goal of these belts was two-fold: First, you were promising the fans who tuned in that no matter what, they were getting at least ONE championship title defense on TV, so even if the show was kinda boring, you knew that was a guarantee.

Second, it helped develop talent you may never have given a second glance to, being presented in a different light. If you got a guy you want to build up, you give him a run with the TV title, beating everyone for 5, 7, 10 months straight. When he gets beaten, you make a new champ look like a new contender, while the old one moves on to bigger and better things. There's a whole video about this you can watch here to give you a better idea of its history in the NWA/WCW.

Cut to the present day, where AEW created both the TNT and TBS championships. Now, clearly, both belts were made to be synonymous with the two TV channels on which they were broadcast and to create brand synergy with Turner networks. For a time, in the early days of the company, these were treated as the secondary belts just below the world titles. But that luster is gone in the current landscape of gold, and if we take a real look at former title holders, only two TNT Champions (Darby Allan and Samoa Joe) and one TBS Champion (Kris Statlander) have gone on to win the biggest prizes in the company's seven-year history so far.

Both of these belts need to be turned into what they basically are at this point: TV championships. And honestly, that's where they could do the most good. Have the TBS title defended every week on Dynamite, which would give the show at least one women's match guaranteed every week, and put the TNT title on Collision, which would make the show and the title a bigger deal again, together. Make the matches 10-15 minutes, incorporate the same possibility of ending on a draw to create different storyline possibilities, maybe even throw in the subtle notion that champs make more money week to week, so it feels more than just a worker's title. It would do both belts a wealth of good and give the roster that isn't getting utilized much something to do.

AEW World Trios Championships

Do you know how Trios/6-Man Tag belts came into existence in the first place? To build up factions, or make three high-level wrestlers have something fun to do while waiting to get back in line with the World title. Seriously, that's it. The biggest example of them working in a feud was with the Fabulous Freebirds and the Von Erichs in WCCW, but there's no other practical application beyond those two reasons. When you're building up something like the Deathriders, or The Ops, The Conglomeration, the Don Callis Family, etc, these belts are kind of necessary to show that three men in that group are championship material, or at least that's the goal. Make people believe they're ready for the next level whenever they lose them.

But that doesn't feel true right now. In fact, I bet without looking up their website or Wikipedia, you couldn't name the last three teams to hold the Trios belts. Or who the three current champs are. Because they're just gold being passed around to keep people busy, rather than making people look important. The Trios Championships should be reserved for a team that has something on the horizon, whether that be a crack at the tag belts or the group splitting up. What's more, they don't need to be defended every week, but they need to be defended on every PPV moving forward. If you're not going to use them to get at least six men together in a match at a big event, then why have them at all?

Women's World Tag Team Champions

The Women's Tag titles are so new, giving them grief on here feels like a sin. They have existed for only about 7 months. The problem isn't so much the titles as the fact that they were necessary to give many of the women on the roster something new to do on TV. But, much like another major wrestling company that has tag-team issues, they're doing little to nothing to create new tag teams or bring in existing ones. And the two teams that won the titles were hastily put together, made up of women in singles competition.

The Inspiration signed with the company in February 2026. They lost their first match and are now wrestling for TJPW in Japan. The Brawling Birds (Jamie Hayter and Alex Windsor) formed in March 2026. They've won four matches but haven't challenged for the belts yet. When the day comes that they either win or lose their shot, there's no one on deck who is an actual tag team that could step up as a credible threat. We're not saying ditch the titles, but SOME kind of effort has to be made on TV to turn that extremely talented roster into credible tag teams across four hours of weekly television.

The Global Quandary: Three Belts That Do Nothing

AEW has created one of the worst secondary title systems in all of professional wrestling, with not one, not two, but THREE belts that basically do nothing they say they do. What's more, all three of them have names that don't even serve the purpose of the region they're named after. There's an easy fix for all three of them, but it's something that AEW would actually need to change up.

The Continental Championship

This belt was made for one purpose: To give the Continental Classic tournament winner a prize at the end. That's it. It's been worn by three people: Eddie Kingston, Kazuchika Okada, and Jon Moxley. This championship has no other purpose to it; you don't get a bigger title shot, you're not viewed as a bigger player in the company than you already are, and the rules that come with defending it are basically a fair match with no time limit. If there was ever a case to reduce the role of a title, this would be the one to shrink down until the tournament happens, and treat it like the Owen Hart belts.

But let's say AEW is dead-set on keeping it an active title. Okay… then you have to make both the tournament and the title mean more than what they are. Moxley is doing a pretty good job of making the belt feel like a fighter's prize. A pro-wrestling prize should come with value beyond having gold around your waist. And we're not talking about having an automatic placement in the tournament every Fall/Winter. The tournament should get the winner a legit title shot at AEW Revolution in March, at the very least, the same way the New Japan Cup and the G1 Climax in NJPW get you a championship shot. Otherwise its just gold trying to find a place on a roster filled with more important gold.

After that title shot happens, keep it as the occasional "I'm coming to claim my spot" kind of title, where people who might not be considered for the Continental Classic fight the current belt holder to get the guaranteed spot as defending champ. If someone defeats the current champ, that's the end of title defenses until the tournament. But if they lose, they can't even be in the next tournament. That way, you have something at stake for both men, a possible legit reason why we don't see every major player in the tournament, and it keeps the belt somewhat interesting throughout the year. Even if you end up with a double champion for a while.

The National Championship

For a minute, I thought this title was hot garbage. The goal of this belt, when it was introduced, was to be defended on an international level at shows in different countries and at different promotions. Which would be great… if not for the fact that AEW already legit has a belt in the company called the International Championship (more on that in a moment). So, by default, before Ricochet ever won the inaugural title back in November 2025, they made a championship that already came with brand confusion attached. But you know what, that's fixable!

The design of this belt was fashioned after the old Jim Crockett/NWA designs of the 1980s, when champions would actually appear at other NWA promotions with the belt and defend it there to give the territories a bit of a pop. You can turn this into that same thing, with a little more of an NWA version of the U.S. Title vibe to it. It's the National Championship: make it defendable only in the United States (and its territories), and keep it true to its name. If you have a babyface holding the belt, they become a "national hero," as you occasionally get title matches on TV and on every PPV in the States. If its on a heel, then anytime you show up in Canada, the UK, Mexico, etc., you get to be a dick and say you have the night off.

It adds a few possibilities for having a title match at any time on TV when most shows are filmed in the lower 48 states. If you couple that with the TV Title suggestion that champions make more money, then it becomes a prize worth challenging for. If anything, it creates the first of a few stepping stones for up-and-coming talent to prove they have World Championship gold in their future. Which brings us to…

The AEW International Championship

The championship belt that we wish was treated like a bigger deal, and at this point, should be. Originally called the All-Atlantic Championship (which made no sense given that Japan and China's flags are on it), it was renamed its current name nine months later during Orange Cassidy's first reign, and for a time, this felt bigger than the TNT Championship. The belt never really lost its luster or appeal, which is a good thing, but it has become relegated to playing second fiddle to everything else. Many of the previous champions have held the belt while also holding another title, like the Trios title or the Continental title, so it's just… there. Funny enough, the last two times it changed hands were when it felt like a big deal again, especially after the match we recently saw between Okada and Konosuke Takeshita.

Moving forward, THIS should be the AEW secondary title. This should be your Intercontinental/U.S. equivalent. This should be the workhorse title. This should be the prize everyone seeks out until they're ready to climb the only mountain left. This is the one that should be making the international rounds at other promotions around the globe, since it's literally in the damn title! And let's be real, if you're already the International Champion, what is the next logical step? It's not to be TNT Champion, all due respect to the TNT network… It's to become a World Champion. It just makes sense, and that's how it should be moving forward.

The AEW Tag Team Championship

The last set of belts on the list is the one that the company prided itself on almost as much as the World Championship. This was the company that held up a middle finger to WWE's lackluster efforts to build a tag team division across their collective seven hours of weekly television and managed to create a stronger division with amazing teams in just two hours on TNT and an hour on YouTube with AEW Dark. Great teams have held these belts, amazing matches that stole the show were put on over them, and even major storylines were tied to them that were on par with whatever the main title picture was doing. But in the past year or so, they just feel like luggage people carry to the ring and occasionally defend.

Don't get me wrong, it was awesome seeing them on Brodido (Brody King and Bandido), and seeing FTR have them once again, watching The Hurt Syndicate (Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin) hurt people over the belts. Hey, we even finally saw Private Party win them! But a lot of the stuff happening around those titles seemed more important than actually having them. Especially when you look at the fact that FTR was basically holding onto them until Christian Cage and Adam Copeland were healthy enough to win them.

The reason these titles are last is that, in many ways, it's the easiest to fix. The talent is there, the teams exist, the potential to do show-stealing matches and tag tournaments, and teams really coming out and saying that being tag champs would mean the world to them… It's all there! It just has to be put together. It's like having all the ingredients to make a dozen different kinds of sandwiches in front of you. There's very little AEW could do to screw it up, unless they're lazy or have no taste and just don't care what gets put between the bread. In which case, there's already a deli up the street that makes those.

The Past Is a Great Guide

Now, we know this is an opinion piece; we don't have a pipeline to Tony Khan's phone. (Although he has admitted he reads a lot of articles, so it wouldn't shock us if he saw this.) We know these are all suggestions and just our personal thoughts on the matter. But championships need to have meaning and purpose to them, or else it's just a hunk of gold sitting around someone's waist. And wrestling fans need to be invested in what happens to them, or they become ignored and pointless. The best example of why that can be problematic and wasteful is also in AEW, when Taz resurrected the old FTW Championship. It hung around for four years on multiple people, and the only person who got any real benefit out of it was the one guy it was probably meant to be with the entire time: Hook.

This is not a "the title makes the man" kind of talk; this is a"the purpose makes the title" kind of talk. If the belt has no real purpose, then why am I or anyone watching invested in it? For a lot of these belts, they don't need to be retired or fused into another belt to make a crazy combination champion; they just need a course correction.

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