Are the Elite Turning Heel? AEW FanTheory All Out Edition!

Welcome back, everyone. As you may know back in the day we here at DraxisWeb did a lot of wrestling blogs between reviews of WXW live events as well as fun Tag Team and Faction ideas and predictions blogs. Well, I want to start picking up doing some of those again and my first foray back into this comes with All Out this weekend and my own Fan Theories on what may happen with the AEW Tag Team Titles, Hangman and Omega, FTR, and of course the Young Bucks and what will happen in the future of The Elite in AEW.

So to start this theory off we have to look at a few factors that have been being heavily teased here in AEW and BTE both. One big problem is a lot of people don’t watch BTE so they see only what’s on AEW and are sometimes lost….to those people I say GET YOUR ASSES ON YOUTUBE AND WATCH BTE!!!! It’s like 20 minutes of your day, it’s fun and some of the things carry over to the show so it’s not like you’re wasting anything by watching it.

Anyway, in BTE they keep teasing that Kenny is going dark, very dark like his old Cleaner days in the Bullet Club. At the end of BTE this week we even saw Kenny wearing his Cleaner persona sunglasses as he looks in the cars rearview mirror. We saw Hangman at the end of last weeks Dynamite left looking at himself in a broken mirror after being tossed from the Elite by the Young Bucks after he had betrayed them and made them loose to the Best Friends. This sets up FTR who had been getting buddy buddy with Hangman going against Hangman and Omega for the titles at All out.

Now speaking of FTR we have another little mystery with them. You see they are often talked about as the first step to creating a new Four Horsemen faction. Now Cody has said he would love to have a new Horsemen in AEW. Now add Tully Blanchard seeming to be their manager or at least in their corner all the time and Arn Anderson helping them with their contracts with AEW and the rumors look like FTR could be a cornerstone of a new Horsemen…but they have also said they do not want to be a new Four Horsemen as they could never live up to the name and neither could anyone else. They want to make their own thing, their own mark and if they can be as great as then that would be good with them. As we talk about this in a little bit we’ll show that there are basically 3 obvious members for this faction but who would be the 4th?

So here is where we jump into the whole fan theories…well my theories anyway and I am a fan so it all fits. Anyway, all of this is actually connected and interwoven. It even brings in the Dark Order and the Nightmare family. One thing I think AEW does great is long term story booking and they do it so excellently that sometimes you don’t even see it for a while and then when you do see it it leaves you speechless especially when you’re used to how WWE have done things and they just smack you in the face with what they want you to see in storylines. But now into what I think is going to happen and then why.

I think the entire Elite except for Hangman goes heel, this includes Cody. Hangman instead gets booked as a major Face character and eventually ends up in the race for the Heavyweight title against Sean Spears and Kenny Omega. Cody ends up in the TNT Title race against Brodie Lee and probably Matt Cardona.

So here is what I am thinking is going to happen to bring this about all starting at All Out. The first part is the new Four Horsemen. We see Tully Blanchard and Arn both helping FTR in different ways, Tully is also the manager of Sean Spears….so that’s 3 out of 4. Until this last show, I was thinking Adam Page would be the 4th member but now I’m thinking that’s not right. FTR was harsh to Page this past dynamite showing that the whole friendship thing was most likely to get him and Kenny at odds so they could get the titles easier. So if it’s not Hangman then who is it? Is it Kenny as the Cleaner? Kenny goes dark and splits with Hangman to become another Horseman? No, I don’t think it is him either. Kenny is Elite…he’s from the Bullet Club…ex-leader of both really (if I remember correctly) I don’t see him turning on the Bucks to join FTR no matter how dark he may go. So then who? Well we’ll get to that the first thing to know though is in my predictions blog I’ll be writing today you’ll see that I think FTR will be winning the Tag Titles at All Out. Now I don’t know if it’s going to be because Hangman fails in some way, or that Kenny turns his back on him but FTR picks up the title. In fact, I think in some ways there’s going to be a double screw job on Page to make him and Kenny lose the titles and break them up. I have an idea that something will happen to Kenny to either distract him or put him out of the match for a little bit, enough time for the Bucks to come out and either fuck up Page in some way or at least distract him so he fails and ends up losing the titles. This will then cause Omega to turn on Hangman the way everyone thought Hangman would turn on him so many months ago and this is the rise of The Cleaner.

So why do I think the Bucks go heel? It’s simple really. They were most on top of their game as members of the Bullet Club. They well-loved around the world but they weren’t really faces, they were more the Anti-Hero type which is something that’s very much overlooked in many ways in wrestling. That’s one thing I loved about the speech Leva gave to the Initiative on BTE this week which is what made me sad to see what Peter did to Brandon on Dark. There can be a gray area in wrestling. I think the Bucks need to fill this gray area. So Kenny has gone Cleaner at this point. One way or another the bucks help FTR get the titles splitting up Omega and Hangman. This cuts Hangman completely off from the Elite but the Bucks are afraid of Kenny being so dark as the cleaner and so they stick with him trying to keep him from going down that horrible rabbit hole. At the same time though the Bucks find themselves giving in to frustration. Here’s a tag team that has always said they are the best in the world yet they can’t even get the Tag Titles in their own company. This is a team that brought Hangman into AEW and looked at him as a brother and while they had problems for a while they still stood by him even as Hangman tried to distance himself until now where they got screwed by Hangman. This can explain why one of them dumped the beer on the “fans” head this week when lately that’s not how they roll. Also if you look at their match this week while SCU pushed Private Party to step their game up in the match the Bucks were being pretty dickish to Jurassic Express. I think Saturday against Jurassic Express we see the heel side of the Young Bucks come out and we see the Elite becoming heels. This can set up Young Bucks vs FTR later down the line for the Tag Titles.

But wait you say! You’re missing a member of the Elite you said they all go heel except for Hangman and one member isn’t here because he had his ass kicked by Brodie Lee…are you saying he is going dark too? Well yes, yes I am. You see this leads me back to the new Four Horsemen.

We have a name for this new Horsemen stable, The Revelation. It was said the other week yet I never hear anyone speak of it where they said “Fear the Revelation” it was soft but it was there. I also swear it was said this week but I’ll be damned if I can find where but it was very clear wherever it was. Maybe it was on Dark with Spears and I’m just running things together the thing is FTR always stood for Fear the Revolt before this (or some would say Follow the Rules) but think about this. What are the Four Horsemen? Biblically they are Anti-Christ, War, Pestilence, and Death (Antichrist may be known as Famine depending on who you talk to). So we know that but here’s the thing they are found in a book of the bible known as Revelations. FTR doesn’t want to be “the New Four Horsemen” they want to make their own mark. What better way than to make a new Horsemen that isn’t the Horsemen but still has it’s roots in the Horsemen? So we have The Revelation with FTR and Sean Spears and Tully as Manager. But can it be a coincidence that Double A helped FTR with their contracts? Can it just be a coincidence that in the Tag Team Appreciation night segment Double A stood next to Tully and put over FTR over the Young Bucks who sign his paychecks and are part of the Elite with Cody? Also, think about this after Brodie took out Cody so handily what happened? The Dark Order took out Arn, they took out Dustin, they took out QT and Anna Jay took down Brandi from behind. The Nightmare family was decimated and who didn’t show up to save them? The Elite. There was no sign of the Young Bucks, no sign of Omega. This has been happening since the founding of AEW so it probably doesn’t shock many people but let’s look at the history here. Cody was part of the Bullet Club. He was part of the Elite. He helped the Young Bucks and Omega start AEW and in fact, is one of the bigger behind the scenes faces when it comes to hyping the company on promos and such. You see Cody hyping AEW out on the press circuit more than you see the Bucks or Omega so in many ways he is one of the bigger faces in AEW in a business presentation while the Bucks and Omega are supposed to be the talent faces if that makes any sense. Yeah, the Bucks and Omega may be EVPs with Cody but when I think of the EVP side of things my first thought is Cody when I think Talent side of AEW whose running things I think Bucks and Omega.

So we get this new dynamic where Cody is out for a bit due to injury from Dark Order, we see him coming back to a company where Dark order has most likely taken out Dustin, QT, Cardona and Sky during All Out. He comes back to a company where the Bucks are going darker thanks to trying to keep The Cleaner in check. Also remember that Omega and Cody clashed in NJPW over who would lead the Elite, they may be friends but they were also rivals for leadership in the Elite and Bullet Club. So Cody comes back to the company to find his wife and Allie the Nightmare Sisters being beset by Anna Jay and Tay Conti both now part of the Dark Order. The Natural Nightmares are holding their own vs Dark Order maybe but it’s an uphill battle that even with the addition of Matt Cardona to their ranks even just as a friend of the family they maybe can’t overcome fully. Cardona has focused on Brodie due to what he did to Cody but when Cody comes back that puts Cardona in the way of Cody taking back what he sees as HIS title. Cody can’t go for the Heavyweight title anymore so if he wants to keep his legitimacy in his own company he needs that TNT title back at all costs. And this is where we get the new Four Horsemen and more, we get a brand new faction called the Revelation that numbers-wise can stand toe to toe with the Dark Order or Eddie Kingston’s group or the Inner Circle.

But think of the history between the Horsemen and Dusty Rhodes you say! Think of the history between Sean Spears and Cody since AEW started you say! You can’t be saying that Cody would become the 4th Horseman figure in the Revelation you scream! But hear me out.

Tully and Arn were tag team partners and seen as some of the best in the business back in the Horsemen. What if Tully convinces Arn that FTR and Spears could have Cody’s back to help him take control of AEW and all the gold. What if they convince Arn that they can help Cody get back his precious TNT title. See let’s dig a little deeper. FTR holds the Tag Titles after All Out. They feud with teams such as the Bucks, Private Party, and the Lucha Brothers the most to cement the whole feel the Horsemen vs the Rock and Roll Express that they had during the Tag Team Appreciation Night episode. You get the Down and Dirty technical wrestlers vs the high fliers. You get Sean Spears to go after Moxley or MJF whoever comes out of All Out with the title and I’ll save who I think that will be for my predictions page. I’m not saying right now here that I think it will be MJF but I think that before Cody comes back MJF will have the title to fuel this story I’m weaving even more. Sean Spears was given the black glove by Tully. One of the most respected versions of the Horsemen had Barry Windham in it as the mid-tier champion and he is known to have ties to the black glove. This is all fitting together better and better. But let’s look deeper and reach even more. Yes, Spears took out Cody with the chair but before that, they were best friends. So suppose Spears comes to Cody and offers to bury the hatchet. Suppose Spears offers to bring back their friendship, after all, compared to so many years of friendship they just had a small bump in the road compared to other wrestlers who have teamed up before. Sean could even frame it as he would destroy MJF for Cody for his part in making it where Cody could no longer win the World Title. Sean could win the World Title from MJF and bring it back to the Revelation for Cody if Cody would just join them. Tully would tell Cody he has nothing against him, he’s a talented young man….yeah he had a problem with Cody’s Dad but Dusty isn’t Cody….isn’t it time to put the blood feud behind them after all Arn has stood by Cody and Arn was part of the Horsemen.

Then you have FTR who owes so much to Dusty and has spoken so vocally on podcasts about how much they loved Dusty and how much Dusty influenced them being together and helping them become what they are together. I’m sure that Dusty spoke to Cody about them, I mean yeah the fans wanted to see the Bucks versus FTR but how much of the interaction between Dusty and FTR could have gone into them going to AEW and if it didn’t in real life for the decision it’s very easy to put that into a story for them helping convince Cody to come on. So if you look at it there are all these ties between Cody and the Revelation and only a few of them are bad between all of them that are good and this could sway him over to them easily from a storytelling perspective. The NEED to get his revenge on Brodie Lee and his NEED to get his title back making him turn his back on the Elite who weren’t there for him and bring his family into line with the Revelation. The Entire Revelation becomes a huge faction to be feared but it’s the main four men who get compared to the Horsemen. They become the harbingers of the Apocalypse in AEW, they become the ones everyone has to be careful of. They become the Heel or Anti-Hero face of AEW and for a time they will hold all the gold to further their comparisons to the Four Horsemen. This can also set up a female version of the group to help build the women’s division if you have Allie and Brandi as the Nightmare Sisters stepping forward to bring a newly released women’s tag championship into the group. Have one other come in to hold the women’s World Title like maybe Tessa Blanchard and for the name to keep the women’s side strong you can either find some way to put Rachel Elering into the women’s side of the Revelation or you can set her up as the big known family name as one of their opposition (especially since her dad was manager to the Legion of Doom/Road Warriors who were a major rival of the Horsemen) and use someone else to round out the Revelation side of things. The Revelation could be huge and set up so many stories for the company but there is one other reason why I want to point out Cody as the most likely candidate for the fourth member.

Look at the entirety of the AEW roster and then look at the Revelation as it stands now. FTR as Arn and Tully, Spears as Windham but Uppercard Title hunt instead of Mid. But we’re missing one person from the Horsemen originals who was a mainstay of all forms of the Horsemen that matter. Ric Flair. Now look at the roster and tell me honestly who would make the best Ric Flair analog? Who has the style of Flair, with the suits and the cars. Who could pull off the swagger of Flair? Who has the charisma of Flair in the AEW? The answer is simple there is only one person that could be compared to Ric Flair in the AEW Roster at this time (other than Jericho) and that is Cody Rhodes. The fans LOVE Cody (even if they aren’t behind his wife). Cody has the look with the suits, he has the presentation, swagger, and arrogance with his special entrance once they can start building that back into their sets. Cody in AEW ever since he was in the Elite and BTE when I started watching it before AEW was even a thing is the modern-day equivalent of Ric Flair in many ways. The only things that would be different in this Horsemen is that his Flair would be with the mid-card belt of the TNT Title like Windham was back in the day whereas Spears takes on the World Title position of Flair from back in the day but other than that change you have everything lining up perfectly for this mega faction that is built around the Revelation and their Horsemen mains. This would be a group that could feud against the faces and heels alike and even make some other factions be formed to try to take them down. My biggest thing with this idea is if they go this route they need to keep the Nightmare family out of Horsemen business and vice versa unless they are against an evenly large team like the Dark Order. We don’t need constant Nightmare Family on the sidelines for Revelation and Revelation on the side of Nightmare Family for every match…let them come out for entrances maybe or at least Cody to NF things, let Brandi cross over for being on Cody’s side but don’t overdo it. If you can call it two stables or even 3 stables inside of a mega faction that are looking for the same goal but not putting in the typical WWE mistake of them all just overwhelming force their opponents I think this could be done expertly.

Now this just leaves Hangman and what I think will happen with him. This is one that has been a soft build story for so very long, since even before he started teaming with Omega. Hangman came to AEW with his Elite friends and was put right into the title picture. Everyone seemed to love Hangman but not everyone saw him as the right choice for their World Title. He got his shot and he let it slip. He turned to drinking because of his failure. He started a slow split away from the Elite but no matter how much he pushed he just kept being drawn back in. The war against the Inner Circle drew him back in even though he and the Bucks had heat. His title run with Kenny drew him back to the Elite even though Kenny even said they aren’t best friends just the best wrestlers. He continued his drinking but he was still there when he needed to be. There were times you thought he would just bail on his friends like when at first he never showed for the Stadium Stampede and everyone was sure he had bailed on the Elite just to finally show up and try to run down Sammy on a horse. You saw him during the Stadium Stampede instead of going after the Inner Circle veer away to settle at the bar with some whiskey. He didn’t go back to the fight the fight came to him with Jake Hager first sitting down for a drink and then them going at it. He was initially saved by Kenny there before they worked together to take out Hager. There was the spot after Kenny and Hangman won against the Bucks in a knockdown drag-out fight where Omega went to the Bucks even though he was obviously unhappy with how harsh the fight got and at the very end everyone thought that Hangman on the outside of the ropes was going to do a Buckshot Lariat on Omega….even I was sure he was about to but instead he held the ropes for Omega. The foreshadowing has been there. The fans, however, have made it where Hangman is even in these Covid times probably one of the most over characters in the company and the telling of his story is so amazing especially from a psychological perspective. Watching him fall from grace to the point where last week he turned on the Bucks and made them lose the match so that he and Omega would not have to face them again at All Out and it was obvious with how Hangman sold things how conflicted he was about his actions, how the shame was eating him up for what he was doing. It led to the Bucks tossing him out of the Elite telling him he chose to be a jobber to FTR and slamming the door on him after throwing the whiskey in his face. The closing shot of that angle that night being the lost, broken look of Hangman reflected in a shattered mirror on the back of the door. Reflecting on him physically visibly but also metaphorically showing how he is broken inside mentally and emotionally and how he has broken his ties to all he had there. The writing for this and how it played out is so excellent and has been going on such a slow burn for so long and it’s truly only just starting because what happened this week proves that though Hangman could have gone heel with all that happened he is now destined for a huge babyface push from a writers perspective and if they keep it the way they have been doing it with this skill then either by the end of the year or maybe by Double or Nothing I’d say I can see hangman being the face of the company holding the World Title.

Hangman is going through his own deep heroes’ journey here. He wasn’t on top of the world with the Elite and has had serious self-doubt. He has made mistakes and now the world has fallen out from under him which will climax in just a day from when I write this at All Out. If this were a novel about Hangman Page as a writer I can tell you what happens now. He sees himself adrift from his friends, he sees how the alcohol has been screwing him up mentally and how it helped create the rift though he knows a lot of that was his own fault too. He sets out to overcome this though. Slowly you see Hangman sober up. He can’t heal the ties with his friends because they have become set against him, they are now the foil to his hero status. He grows into this part battling his own lack of self-confidence, he battles his addiction to the alcohol. As fans, we watch this man who we loved even at his lowest start to win over the obstacles that have been in his way since he first came to this company. He is alone but we see him climb the rankings, we see him overcoming everything slowly and becoming the hero of his own story instead of being buried by it. He becomes the main character in the perfect underdog story that has been almost an entire year in the making. By Double or Nothing in May of 2021 I think Hangman has become the face of the company. He has become the John Cena/Roman Reigns/Hulk Hogan that WWE wants now but hasn’t been able to produce. They push him slow and show him grow and he organically becomes the hero we chose and root for. At Double or Nothing, 2021 Hangman makes his bid for the World Title….maybe even against Jericho again to go full circle or maybe against Sean Spears to set him up as the AEW equivalent of Dusty Rhodes vs the Horsemen but I would say at Double Or Nothing Hangman becomes champion and people actually believe he should be there and want to keep him there. That’s my theory on him and I know it will take a long time to see if it pans out but that’s what I’m sticking to because unlike the WWE so far AEW has shown the ability to play the long game when it comes to booking, to be devious and weave the narrative the way they want it over a long stretch of time. This too can bring things full circle because if he takes on that champions spot we can then have Kenny as the Cleaner decide it’s time to get the championship and a new feud between Hangman and the Elite could start necessitating Hangman to find a new crew to hang with so the Bucks can’t blindside him to help Kenny. Maybe this is Jurassic Express stemming out of how Kenny has been treating Marko lately or Hangman and Private Party to rehash how Private Party knocked the Bucks out of the first contenders for the titles and now they are helping hangman because he wasn’t really doing the drinking until he got with Private Party the one time and they gave him the water bottle back when they were doing the whole “This ain’t water” thing and maybe they feel bad they “got him started” on his road to alcohol and his fall. There’s a lot of ways this could go down once there but I am excited to see what comes of it.

But hey that’s just a….oh wait sorry…sorry Matt Pat got caught up in the moment there…..don’t wanna step on any toes here. So that’s enough out of me for this theory page. We covered a ton of ground here but I’d like to hear your take on it so comment down below on what you think. Do you think I could be right or do you think I may be completely nuts? How far of a reach do you think my theories here are? Let me know below and don’t forget to check us out on twitter @DraxisWebGaming which is the home to all things from DraxisWeb Productions on twitter. Or check us out on our Facebook page HERE!

PS- Love ya Matt Pat…always watch all 3 of your theory channels! Hope you don’t mind me plugging you there.