AEW’s excessive National championship only making one of wrestling’s biggest problems worse

The last thing pro wrestling right now needs is another championship — especially a duplicate of another promotion’s.

It’s why Tony Khan’s announcement that AEW will hold a Casino Gauntlet match at Full Gear to crown a National champion was so stunning during Dynamite on Wednesday. It’s wrong on so many levels and further highlights a growing issue in the industry:

There is way too much gold being passed around. 

AEW already has a Unified champion after it smartly combined its International and Continental championships on Kazuchika Okada. There are currently 14 sets of championships being held across AEW and Ring of Honor and two more to come, with the first Women’s Tag Team champions soon to be crowned, as well as the Ring of Honor Women’s Pure champion. That doesn’t even count all of the 12 belts Mercedes Mone carries around, as well as the IWGP World Heavyweight championship Konosuke Takeshita holds and the handful of CMLL championships that have appeared on AEW TV.