AEW Worlds End 2024: Biggest Winners And Losers

AEW Worlds End was held in Orlando, FL on Saturday. The show not only featured the semi-finals and the finals of the 2024 Continental Classic, but also a four-way match for the AEW World Title which had been billed as a battle for the soul of the promotion.

As always, there were plenty of literal winners and losers, as seen on the results page, but now it's time to dig into who came out of Saturday truly looking like a "winner" and who looked like a "loser." The show's place at the end of the calendar year also means that for many, it was a last chance to cement the year as "good" or "bad." Some folks, like Mercedes Mone, came out of the show looking great, and some like Jon Moxley, barely escaped with their dignity intact.

Without further ado, let's break down the winners and losers from last night's show.

I'm not sure the AEW TBS Championship match between Mercedes Mone and Kris Statlander quite worked for me as much as it did for many others, but it is impossible to watch the AEW women's division right now and not think that the company has finally carved out a place for them. Mercedes Mone has wrestled two of the longest AEW women's matches this year, and to be blunt, that's the only way anyone is going to take this division as seriously as the men's.

Often forced to feed off crumbs from the table when it came to matches, AEW women's matches are starting to feel more like full meals. Add in the Tijuana Street Fight (more on that later) and there does seem to be a concerted attempt to bring the AEW women's division onto the same level. The company is still far from the likes of "WWE NXT" in showcasing female talent, but the attempt has been noted.

Narratively, the women's division has been a bit of a mess, with stories often missing connective tissue and motivations often rushed, but the matches themselves have been solid and substantial. Should this continue into the new year, 2025 could be very bright for the women's division.

In the early days of AEW, anytime a title needed a tomato can to buff up the champion's stats, Lance Archer would usually appear and lose some kind of plunderous gimmick match. He was a solid foil to the champions, but there are only so many Texas Deathmatches that one can lose before people stop believing in the talent, even one as big and nasty as Lance Archer.

Thunder Rosa is now in a similar space in the women's division. A tremendous competitor, a former champion, it seems Rosa's job these days is to lose hardcore matches. Her match with Mariah May on Saturday was not much different from her St. Patrick's Day Bash against Britt Baker, though with more localized gimmicks and far less blood. Rosa even lost a No Disqualification match to Deonna Purrazzo back in June. This was also her second loss to an AEW Women's World Champion in a single calendar year. It feels like AEW is going for quantity as opposed to quality when it comes to Rosa as a title contender.

Rosa has been a solidly dominant star on programs like "Collision" and "Rampage" (RIP), but so has Archer. 

The AEW Continental Championship feels like the red-headed stepchild of the AEW titles. It's two holders, Eddie Kingston and Kazuchika Okada, both feel like holding the title has been something to do while they wait for room in the main event scene to open up. Outside of Okada's win over Kingston, there hasn't been much "to-do" made about the Continental Championship outside of tournament season. This changed dramatically on Saturday.

The return of former AEW World Champion Kenny Omega set the 2024 Continental Classic Winner on a collision course with the AEW EVP, likely at All In in July based on the number of times the camera cut to that banner. Omega and Okada are responsible for some of the most-lauded matches of the 21st century and a promotion like AEW has always felt like a primetime showcase for feuds from the independent scene and abroad.

The fact that Omega vs. Okada will be happening for the Continental Championship is huge for the belt and the division. While both men are far past the prime they were in for their late-2010s classics, they are still tremendous competitors in a rivalry that still holds cache with fans to this day. The match, and Omega's involvement in the division, could do for the title what Jon Moxley did for the AEW International Championship.

After months of Jon Moxley claiming he intends to destroy AEW, snuffing out any possible hero from Darby Allin to Bryan Danielson to Orange Cassidy. Luckily, a savior has arrived. He's 51 years old and by October he'll have been in the company for two years (many months of which saw him absent with injury). That's right. The savior of AEW is a WWE Hall of Famer, who many people still call by his WWE name because it's what he's been known for 20-g**d***-years.

Edge, sorry, Adam Copeland, arrived on Saturday to do what seemingly every young AEW star can't end Jon Moxley's rein of terror. Even if Copeland loses the eventual match with Moxley, it just means that we're spending more time, sitting around and waiting for someone to become a star.

It just rings hollow to me, having Moxley's main motivation be "This company needs to step up" only for no one to be able to step up and Copeland coming in to do what the kids couldn't. It feels like the company is killing time. Between Copeland next in line for a world title shot, and Christian Cage hovering around the perimeter of the main event with a ridiculous Money In The Bank gimmick, it certainly feels like we are about to see a continuation of their hit-and-miss feud but on a bigger stage, and it all just feels a little too much like WCW. Former WWE guys like Copeland, FTR, Castagnoli, Moxley, and Cage are blocking the entrances to the main event for the Allins, the Hobbses, and the Starkses of this world, no matter how many Rah-Rah "AEW Good" promos that Copeland cuts. Even the Ospreays and Omegas feel a little sidelined to International and Continental divisions until all these WWE guys get hurt.