AEW Delaying Big Push For Popular Young Star

AEW isn’t cooling off on a popular young star, but the company is pumping the brakes on his push until fans are in attendance at its live shows once again.

According to a report from Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer (h/t Wrestling Inc), WWE is holding off on giving Jungle Boy a career-defining victory due to the audience-less shows resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic: “The company is reportedly waiting until fans can return to live shows to give Jungle Boy a major victory in the company, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio. Jungle Boy has been a part of major singles feuds in the past despite being affiliated with Jurassic Express. However, the AEW star has either suffered a loss or brought the bout to a draw in the major singles matches he’s been a part of. This includes his unsuccessful attempt at capturing the TNT title from Cody, his losses to MJF, and the match against Chris Jericho that ended in a draw.”

While AEW did have a limited amount of fans in attendance at this week’s Dynamite, the company has largely run audience-less shows during the Covid-19 pandemic, instead using its own wrestlers and indie stars to fill in the crowd and make some much-needed noise. During the fan-less era of shows, AEW has noticeably scaled back on giving significant singles pushes for some stars who appeared to be destined for big things in late 2019 and early 2020, a list that includes the likes of Adam Page and Scorpio Sky. The reasoning behind that decision is actually a logical one, though: AEW doesn’t want to strap the proverbial rocket to a star during a time when fans aren’t there in person to go along for the ride.

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Meltzer (h/t BodySlam.net) recently revealed AEW’s mindset behind not “peaking” certain stars amid the unique circumstances resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic: “They don’t want to peak somebody when there’s no crowd kinda like what happened — they don’t wanna do the Drew McIntyre thing. Nothing against WWE because they had no choice. [Brock] Lesnar was leaving and everything they had to do what they had to do. We all know if Drew McIntyre would have done it in front of 70,000 people then it would have been very different than him doing it in front of zero people and it’s the same thing for some of these things they’re doing in AEW. Some things really need to get that giant pop and you can’t get that giant pop in this situation so it’s best to save them, but the problem is that ‘what if we’re like this for another year.”

Current WWE Champion Drew McIntyre has been performing incredibly well in his role as Monday Night Raw’s top titleholder, but the lackluster overall state of WWE programming—resulting from a myriad of circumstances, including the pandemic and poor booking—has caused Raw’s audience to shrink to historically low levels. That’s been the unfortunate reality for McIntyre, who has been a dominant and likable champion but has done so in front of a remarkably small TV audience and no live audience at all. AEW Dynamite’s viewership hasn’t been hit nearly as hard as WWE’s has during the Covid-19 pandemic and has actually been thriving, but the company is still wise to hold off on the push of stars like Jungle Boy for the time being.

AEW has a slew of rising stars who could be cornerstones of the company for the next decade or more, and the one the company is clearly focusing on at the moment is MJF, who will challenge Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship at All Out next month. Even MJF, however, has had to bide his time in recent months and has only been strongly pushed over the past several weeks, which goes to show you that AEW is patiently waiting until the right time to catapult its rising stars up the card. MJF and Jungle Boy are arguably the two brightest “stars of the future” in all of WWE, as both are in their mid-20s and have already demonstrated the potential to be the next big thing in their current roles.

As Chris Jericho has continued to celebrate AEW’s viewership victories in the coveted 18-49 demographic, there’s something to be said about the masterful job that AEW has done of appealing to fans in that demographic by focusing on the right mix of established names and up-and-coming stars. By most accounts, Jungle Boy is someone who can appeal to those fans, a fantastic babyface who could be one of AEW’s top fan favorites both in the immediate future and for several years down the road. But as has been seen with McIntyre and other rising stars in WWE, there is simply something missing with their pushes during this audience-less era that has resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic.

That’s not to say that Vince McMahon shouldn’t attempt to create new stars, which is reportedly one thing he desires to do, but both WWE and AEW need to find the proper balance of pushing stars when the story is right and when the time is right, too. There should be no real rush with Jungle Boy, who has looked fantastic in matches with the likes of MJF and Jericho, and was clearly catching on with fans several months ago. Jungle Boy has all the time—and all the tools—in the world to accomplish big things down the road.

As long as he isn’t metaphorically buried by AEW’s top, established stars, he’ll be just fine, and if and when he does get that big push when fans come back, it should be one that those fans welcome with open arms.