SUMMARY
- After months of uncertainty about her return to the pro wrestling industry, Mercedes Mone aka Sasha Banks has finally joined AEW.
- Making her debut for the Tony Khan-led promotion, the female star made a grand appearance on AEW Dynamite.
Mercedes Mone has arguably the most talked-about free agent in recent memory, as there have been numerous speculations about her return to the industry. Due to her previous stint with WWE as Sasha Banks, many believed that she would return to the Triple H-led promotion. But the other half was sure that she’d be joining the AEW.
Making the predictions of the latter half true, Mone has joined All Elite Wrestling, as she recently made her debut for the Jacksonville-based promotion. The 32-year-old female star made her first ever appearance for the Tony Khan-led promotion on the Big Business edition of Dynamite in her hometown of Boston.
Mercedes Moné is here!
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) March 14, 2024
Watch #AEWDynamite #AEWBigBusiness LIVE on TBS!@MercedesVarnado pic.twitter.com/qhX8MqPmpa
Showing up during the March 13 edition of the weekly show, Mone received a massive pop from the crowd. Following her spectacular entrance to the ring, Sasha interacted with the fans in the audience. She later also had a great promo segment on the Tony Khan-led promotion’s Wednesday show.
Throughout her promo on Dynamite, every single audience member was heavily invested in the segment, which shows the kind of star power the veteran pro wrestler brings to the table. In fact, the response Mercedes received from the live crowd left a lot of people wondering if she’s the star the company needed to boost their ratings and sales.
AEW’s battle with poor ticket sales and ratings
A lot of people have been questioning if Sasha could be the person who helps AEW improve their ratings because they’ve been suffering from poor fan response for a long time. It’s been a while since the promotion had a packed house for any of their shows, and it shows that their ticket sales are equally poor.
After a great start to the organization where people used to define All Elite Wrestling as a competitive No. 2, the company has clearly lost its vision in recent months. In 2024, the Tony Khan-led promotion has been struggling with sales, and it’s not that they don’t have the star power.
Names like Adam Copeland, Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho, The Young Bucks, Christian Cage, Eddie Kingston, MJF, Jeff Hardy, and numerous other superstars are on their roster. But the Jacksonville-based promotion isn’t still able to attract the pro wrestling audience, and a major reason behind this is the way the Stamford-based promotion is working.
AEW Dynamite: 800,000
— EliteRockerz 𝕏 (@EliteClubS0B) October 5, 2023
It featured the AEW DYNAMITE debut of Edge, btw 😬 pic.twitter.com/1UNo0DqsOJ
Even though WWE has been involved in a number of controversies in recent months, it hasn’t played any part in their product. In the first week of January 2024, WWE RAW had 1,751 million TV ratings, while AEW Dynamite had not even half of that, with 801K ratings.
On the other hand, AEW’s Rampage and Collision shows were even worse, as both of them were near to 400k in this aspect. Not to mention that the January SmackDown recorded a spectacular 2.465M TV rating. These ratings have only gone lower from the start of the year, as the first edition of February 2024’s RAW had 1,889M viewers tuning in, which was way higher than Collision’s 404K, and Rampage’s 314K.
In addition to the 3-hour show, the ratings are even lower from Friday Night SmackDown, as its February 2 show generated a rating of 2,469M on television. As far as the recent ratings are concerned, the February 19 edition of RAW had 1,870 million viewers, which was over a million more than the February 14 Dynamite.
In fact, AEW Rampage is in even worse condition, as it generated only 300K. On the other hand, the Triple H-led promotion’s blue brand is also getting an insane response from the pro wrestling world. The reason behind this is that the February 16 show had a TV rating of 2,555 million, which is surely a fantastic number for a weekly television show.
While the Triple H-led promotion has been generating millions in terms of TV views, most of the AEW shoes aren’t even reaching half a million. This is obviously something to worry about for the Tony Khan-led promotion, and WWE’s ongoing storylines make it even more worrisome for them. In fact, under the creative leadership of Triple H, the company is currently in one of its hottest stages ever.
But on the other hand, All Elite Wrestling isn’t as hot as it once used to be, and Tony Khan’s tactics and social media controversies aren’t helping. Reports have even claimed that some members of their roster aren’t happy with the way Khan is handling this situation, and that is also a reason why AEW isn’t improving on this aspect of their performance.
Can Mercedes Mone’s signing really change the fate of AEW?
Even though a variety of reports circulate about Tony Khan’s viewpoint of their sales and ratings, there’s no doubt that he has been trying to sign big stars to boost them. Firstly Adam Copeland, then Kazuchika Okada, and now Mercedes, Khan has signed some of the biggest free agents in the last six months.
While Mone and Okada have made their debuts recently, Edge has been in AEW for quite some time now, but he hasn’t been handled that well by the promotion. Now that Sasha Banks has also joined the list of former WWE stars who’ve joined All Elite Wrestling, fans wonder if she can really change the fate of the Tony Khan-led promotion, by helping them to improve their sales of tickets as well as ratings.
In this regard, it’s important to remember that even though Mercedes is a major name in the world of professional wrestling, her signing alone won’t help the promotion. It’s true that Sasha joining AEW would grab a lot of eyeballs, but to keep them invested in her journey, Tony Khan and his creative team would have to pull up their socks and make some changes to their storylines and ideas.
If the promotion doesn’t try new things and just keeps on doing what they are currently doing, it won’t take long for Mone to become just another name on the roster. Moreover, if All Elite Wrestling wants to boost ticket sales and ratings, they should also take some time to invest in their marketing and advertising. If the Jacksonville-based promotion doesn’t make these changes, there’s no way for them to be able to compete with WWE.
