AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Kyle Fletcher (again!), MJF on the rebound, Konosuke Takashita a victim of AEW assuming audience live on social media

Welcome everyone!

We are just a few days from the next AEW Dynamite. Let’s look back at last week and see who had a good week or not-so-good week, in my opinion of course.

Rising Star of the Week

Kyle Fletcher (again)

I usually don’t like to put the same person atop this list on back-to-back weeks. That said, who has had a better last eight days in AEW than Kyle Fletcher?

After winning the AEW TNT Title from Dustin Rhodes last week, this week may have even been better for Fletcher. Word came out that he signed a multi-year contract to stay with AEW to start with.

Then on Dynamite, Fletcher, while being flanked by Don Callis and multiple members of his family, had a promo touting his huge win. Making Fletcher and the TNT Title feel important. Something the TNT Title needs right now. Then Fletcher went on to explain he will be the greatest TNT Champion ever on his way to becoming the greatest of all time. I love the bravado here. It’s worth finding this promo and watching the start of something that, I think, could be very special.

On this week’s Collision, Fletcher defended his title against a Japanese legend in Tomohiro Ishii. After the win Fletcher listed off the guys he has “injured” in Adam Cole and Dustin Rhodes and how Ishii was just another legend he has beaten as Fletcher himself starts to create his lore.

Fletcher went on to challenge any legend from New Japan that wants to fight him at Forbidden Door. This was followed up by Callis saying a very similar thing but telling New Japan to send someone to this week’s Dynamite for Fletcher to beat.

This is how you frame a new champion as something special. Putting Fletcher up on a pedestal as an arrogant heel just works. He looks the part and sounds the part. Then he gets a hard-fought win to open Collision and his title reign is off and running. Now it’s time for him to just be set up with true challengers for him to take out one by one, much like I called for a few weeks back on this very column.

You now have two guys in “Hangman” Adam Page and Kyle Fletcher atop the two longest standing men’s singles titles that can leads AEW for years to come. Both have been presented as strong champions in completely different ways.

Let me ramble for a few sentences and explain what I see looking at these two.

Hangman is your Bret Hart, the guy we all fell in love with and watched fail as champion the first time. Then he continued to work and work to get back to the top. It took a little longer than Bret for him to get to his second title reign, but the ride to get there with Hangman has been great. He is a flawed character just like we all, as humans, are. It feels like he is not going to fail this time.

Fletcher is your Shawn Michaels, the guy who we are all going to love to hate but be so impressed with in the ring. Fletcher is eight years younger than Hangman, the same gap between Hart and Michaels. Fletcher is within a year of the same age Michaels was when Michaels first won the IC Title. Fletcher may not have Sweet Chin Music, but that running boot he does in the corner looks just as nasty. Hell even those glasses Fletcher wears gives off total Michaels vibes to me.

I can just see these two standing in the middle of the ring about to do battle for the AEW World Title at a huge PPV in the future. Can you see it?

1st Runner Up: MJF

This week was The MJF Show on Dynamite. He was the first person we saw to start off Dynamite, the last one we saw at the end of the show as he wrestled Mark Briscoe in the main event, and we saw him one other time continuing his ongoing issues with The Hurt Syndicate.

That is how you should be using MJF on a regular basis. He is the biggest and most over heel in the company. MJF should be featured every single week, even if he isn’t in the building that night. He can do most of what he needs to do through 2-3 minute backstage segment and then when you get to see MJF in a match on Dynamite, you know it’s special.

Just like this past week was. Why? MJF wrestled a singles match on Dynamite. Just his third all year. Looking at the guys AEW has built atop the singles division and it just feels like AEW is in a different place than it was two years ago. You all know what I’m referring to.

Now if you look at the true main event guys you have “Hangman” Adam Page, Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland, Jon Moxley, Darby Allin, and MJF. Any mix of those six guys could main event a PPV and no one would bat an eye. Then you have all the guys on the rise or guys like Adam Copeland and Samoa Joe who can be used in a pinch and I love this roster right now.

Back to the subject at hand, MJF. This week we get a face to face between MJF and Hangman. I am sure the way the match ended between MJF and Briscoe this won’t be Hangman just offering MJF a title match. Regardless I am intrigued.

Quick Honorable Mention: Brody King & Bandido

Brody King is a personal favorite of mine and I think we think very similar about things in the real world. On the AEW roster he just looks like a monster. Then there is Bandido. I was in attendance when he won his first ROH World Title. The crowd was small as it was ROH’s first show after the pandemic, but Bandido had us all on our feet that night. He just has something.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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Fading Star of the Week

Konosuke Takeshita

One thing stood out while The Don Callis Family was in the middle of the ring for Kyle Fletcher’s TNT Title celebration. Not the fact that they had three belts out there representing Okada instead of just the Unified Title. No, not that at all. My question is, where the HELL is Takeshita??? He has not been on AEW since All In Texas.

Look, if you are reading this then you are, most likely, entrenched in the world of pro wrestling. Your social media tells you a ton of news about anyone you love to follow. That said, we are NOT all on social media. Myself, I have not had any kind of social media presence since 2020. I cut them all out one by one over a two month timeline. Yes, it’s just as amazing and freeing as it sounds.

Thank you PWTorch VIP website and podcasts for keeping me up to date.

So while you and I know that Takeshita is on excursion in Japan, working the G1 Climax tournament for New Japan Pro Wrestling, the casual AEW audience does not. There has not been one mention of where Takeshita is. Despite the working relationship between AEW and NJPW, there has not been one highlight of Takeshita winning matches in the tournament.

Instead, the last time we saw him on an AEW show was, in a losing effort, at All In Texas in a losing effort during the gauntlet match.

This is an issue with AEW and letting guys go to work for other companies. Once you are off AEW television, most of the time, they don’t talk about then at all. This one is even more confusing because Takeshita has been teaming with Rocky Romero in the Don Callis Family. So you are letting NJPW use AEW wrestlers and faction names, but you don’t want to show everyone here in America. It’s just weird. Showing Takeshita hitting some big moves and getting his armed raised in victory does nothing but make the AEW audience want him back more.

To end on a positive note, Takeshita would be on my list of guys on the rise that you can plug into main events and the AEW fanbase is all for it.