{"id":218068,"date":"2026-06-17T16:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=218068"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:33:22","slug":"aew-rising-and-fading-stars-where-would-the-aew-womens-division-be-without-thekla-jericho-ciampa-and-bang-bang-bang-sereaming-wwe-circa-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/06\/17\/aew-rising-and-fading-stars-where-would-the-aew-womens-division-be-without-thekla-jericho-ciampa-and-bang-bang-bang-sereaming-wwe-circa-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Where would the AEW Women&#8217;s Division be without Thekla? Jericho, Ciampa, and Bang Bang Bang sereaming WWE circa 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-2849862297\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>Welcome everyone!<\/p>\n<p>Wow! That was a rough week of television for AEW. In my opinion, they could not get out of Ohio fast enough. Hopefully this week shows we\u2019ll have a better crowd.<\/p>\n<p>So, let\u2019s look back and see who I felt had a good week and who had a bad week.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>RISING STAR OF THE WEEK<\/h3>\n<p><strong>THEKLA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Where would the AEW Women\u2019s Division be without Thekla? Since Toni Storm left, and because of the creation of the AEW Women\u2019s Tag Team Titles, the division has lost so much star power. Thekla has been one of the few bright spots during this time. Thekla has just been consistent and believable as a loud mouth, badass champion.<\/p>\n<p>Thekla also has me interested in a PPV that I am typically meh at best on, Forbidden Door. I like that she has a story like this to do with Stardom. All it does is make Thekla feel like a bigger star.<\/p>\n<p><em>ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Check out the latest episode of the &#8220;All Elite Conversation Club&#8221; with Joel Dehnel and Gregg Kanner, part of the PWTorch Dailycast line-up: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/episode\/all-elite-conversation-club-dehnel-kanner-discuss-setup-for-key-forbidden-door-match-ups-ospreay-vs-strickland-set-for-owen-cup-final--72515486\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to stream (or search \u201cpwtorch\u201d on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"All Elite Conversation Club - Dehnel &amp; Kanner discuss setup for key Forbidden Door match-ups, Ospreay vs. Strickland set for Owen Cup final\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=72515486&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>FADING STAR OF THE WEEK<\/h3>\n<p><strong>JERICHO AND TOMMASO CIAMPA<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-143600673\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>I think part of the reason Dynamote felt flat was the crowd, but the start of the show was not helped by that opening segment with Chris Jericho and Tommaso Ciampa. None of that worked for me. It all screamed WWE circa 2015. Even when Jericho \u201csnapped\u201d and told Ciampa that the sport is important to him, not one person cared. It felt like that was supposed to get the crowd to &#8220;oooooo&#8221; or pop and, again, it just fell flat.<\/p>\n<p>One issue with all of this is that Ciampa has been all over the place since he got to AEW. He gives promos that sound like a babyface, but he\u2019s obviously playing a heel. There was a point over two weeks where it seemed like Ciampa turned heel back to face back to heel again.<\/p>\n<p>Couple that with the fact that Jericho has not gotten over since coming back and this feud does not work.<\/p>\n<h3>Runner Up &#8211; The Bang Bang Gang<\/h3>\n<p>Yes, again. Why? Go watch their Collision promo. It was not clever. It was not funny. It was also very WWE circa 2015.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wade Keller Post-show (6\/10) - AEW Dynamite w\/Keller &amp; Griffin\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UygXWDsxHH4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3652571559\"><div id=\"pwtor-4111421468\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Welcome everyone! Wow! That was a rough week of television for AEW. In my opinion, they could not get out of Ohio fast enough. Hopefully this week shows we\u2019ll have a better crowd. So, let\u2019s <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/06\/17\/aew-rising-and-fading-stars-where-would-the-aew-womens-division-be-without-thekla-jericho-ciampa-and-bang-bang-bang-sereaming-wwe-circa-2015\/\" title=\"AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Where would the AEW Women&#8217;s Division be without Thekla? Jericho, Ciampa, and Bang Bang Bang sereaming WWE circa 2015\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,4309,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-rising-star-fading-star","category-specialists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-12.08.45-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218069,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218068\/revisions\/218069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}