>>17173012AEW marks don't want to admit this, but it's true. The founding of AEW in 2019, then COVID in 2020 really killed off the indie wrestling scene and it's still recovering. AEW signed up anyone notable on the indies, then bought ROH entirely just to run it as some weird zombie brand of random matches that no one cares about. MLW is arguably still trying to recover from all of the talent AEW signed away five years ago. Besides MLW, NWA, and GCW, the only indies left are small time, local promotions that mainly just exist to put on shows for a few hundred people tops.
Even a company like ECWA who used to be a respected regional indie promotion are barely clinging on, and can't even get big names for the Super 8 Tournament anymore. I know everyone's shitting on the WWE ID program, but that's arguably what's keeping indie wrestling alive by WWE giving these struggling promotions some cash, rather than Tony signing up anyone he sees go viral on TikTok, then rarely booking them outside of Collision.
