So you got...
The Elite (Omega/Bucks/Cody/Page)
Affiliates: Daniels/Kaz/Sky/Dustin
The Inner Circle (Hager/PnP[terrible name]/Jericho/Sammy)
Affiliates:MJF/Wardlow/?
I know this goes towards War Games and the faction warfare stuff, but having little interior cliques under the umbrella could be interesting just because you create something akin to a brand split without actually having one. I'll miss the murky waters of the faces having some heel associates that MJF provided and such though. Like... wins and losses mattering is great. Excellent. But continuity being persistent and consistent, regardless of alignment shifts and such would mean way more to me. So we could get a, say... Christopher Daniels heel run, but not need to have his friends turn on him even if Scorpio is a face.
I think that's the one thing that has kept wrestling from being able to grow into the tweener/antihero stuff it wants to be in a post-SCSA world - the fact that, if you turn heel, literally all your previous friends hate you immediately. It's asinine, because as adults, all of us know someone who is our friend who we disagree with on fundamental, foundational shyt. But part of being an adult is being capable of looking past it. I've had friends that have cheated on hos that I got cool with while they were dating. Did I throw that nikka out the window to the wolves? No. Did it make it awkward for me when I was around both them and she ain't know? Somewhat because I'm a human, but I didn't 86 a friendship over that nikka doing shyt I wouldn't have done in his shoes. And that's adulthood. And I think the way AEW could make itself stand out, is not leaning into the 'alignment is a switch' thing.
Remember when Orton had one of his ill-fated face turns years back and him and Cena are over here on a team like they ain't spend the better part of what felt like a century trying to kill each other over the title to the point that even the company had to promise it was the last time they're wrestle? That's the shyt I mean. Throw that shyt out. Let shyt matter. Because if, in a year, things have shifted, and we have Bucks + PNP vs... whoever, I'mma have issues with it, I don't give a shyt if both teams are faces at the time, some beef is everlasting, and that is what pro-wrestling needs in this era: stakes and continuity. Even more than face/heel.
Because if you can keep that straight, you can run a heel-vs-heel program if you need to, but have it make sense solely because you'd have the history to pull from for those great hype packages.
And even better, you can run face-face without it needing to be some 'hurr durr, spirit of competition' shyt. You can have a face go 'me and this motherfukker been had issues. There's proof. Whether I was right or he was - it doesn't matter because I was right, and when we meet in that ring I'm tryna put him down because history.' And then you aren't trying to juggle those dynamics. You're simply interacting with established history. It's something WWE doesn't get for all their chasing mainstream. Shows have history that they will reference, even fukking Days of Our Lives and shyt. Established character dynamic that can be brought back up. And by ignoring that, it literally forces long-time fans to either be willing to casually ignore facts, or... have to delude themselves or handwave things.
AEW should take the chance to, ya know. Not do that. Literally never in the history of that company should Omega and Moxley be one the same side of any situation... until the single time they have to, because then that shyt will have weight.
But whatever. Rambleramble. Just seems like some of these folk need to understand the fundamentals of telling a tale - not 'telling a story in the ring', but creating an actual tale that won't collapse in one itself if you pay too much attention. Because WWE claims that 'longest running weekly episodic' nonsense, but it isn't episodic. Every so often, they burn the backstory book and hard-reboot everything, but in layers so it doesn't seem like it. In this world of streaming services and also of great recap packages in both companies, that shyt shouldn't have to happen. You can catch people up on your history, and it makes it more epic when you point out stuff from years back and how it ties in. So like... I hope they do that shyt?
They won't tho.
tl;dr: AEW needs to start treating its continuity sacredly from the jump, because if they do, then in 1-3 years, they'll have a wealth of slow-burn shyt they can pay off that they didn't even plan, just organically. And, it'll make it a better show because of it.