Ex-AEW Star: It’s No Place For Young Wrestlers To Learn

Brock Anderson believes that AEW’s ‘just TV’ nature has resulted in no ‘setup’ for young talent signed to the promotion to learn the basics. On the Under the Ring podcast, Brock spoke about his time with AEW and his belief that he needed more time to learn away from televised wrestling.

“Looking back now, I wasn’t ready for that because it — for young guys, there is no setup to really learn and grasp the business. It’s just basically just TV.”

Anderson signed a contract with AEW in 2021 and news of this was broken in March of that year on his father Arn’s podcast. Brock’s legendary father helped with his training, as did Q.T. Marshall, Glacier, and Lodi. Brock wrestled 38 times for AEW and shared the ring with notable names including Cody Rhodes, The Acclaimed, and the Blackpool Combat Club. Anderson racked up an impressive 22-16 win/loss record before parting the promotion in late 2023.

Since launching in 2019, AEW has been almost exclusively a broadcast promotion, with only a handful of live events, dubbed ‘House Rules’ shows to its name. Unlike its competitors at WWE, AEW does not have an official in-company developmental system.

The closest Tony Khan’s first promotion got to this was its Dark and Dark: Elevation shows, though these were still broadcast and neither exists today. In 2022, Khan acknowledged that Dark shows were supposed to be “somewhat of a developmental show” before the COVID-19 pandemic changed things.

Khan’s reasoning, as he told the Pro Wrestling Torch podcast, was that the pandemic left plenty of already-trained independent talent itching for a chance to work on a show that was still being broadcast, such as Dark. With a bounty of developed talent ready to work, Khan made use of these already-trained wrestlers, shifting away from the ‘developmental’ intentions of the show.