If you look hard enough on AEW’s official website, you’ll probably be able to find some sort of application where if you fill it out to a certain quality, you will become a member of The Don Callis Family. “The Invisible Hand” added yet another member to his extended family at Forbidden Door in the form of a returning Wardlow, the first time he’s been seen in AEW since March of last year. Wardlow attacked Prince Nana as Swerve Strickland watched on helplessly due to being injured by Kazuchika Okada in their AEW Unified Championship match, and while he celebrated with his new family members, Konosuke Takeshita arrived to eye up his new “brother,” or “cousin,” or “half stepbrother twice-removed on the dad’s side” (it’s a family, I’m sure there is some relation).
There are a total of 11 wrestlers in the family now that Wardlow is involved, but the key to making the group feel like they have some sort of direction is without question Takeshita. Callis has been singing the praises of Kyle Fletcher for months, giving Hechicero his own personal introductions in what could only be described as “Tourist Spanish,” and has been calling Kazuchika Okada the best big match wrestler in wrestling. However, Takeshita is the man who has been by the side of Callis the longest and has reached new heights as a singles star over the past year, with the G1 Climax victory last week being the pinnacle of his career.
With that said, Takeshita is almost an afterthought in his own group due to Callis having the attention span of a child with too many action figures. He sees a new shiny toy to play with and forgets about the man who he once put all his money on, which is all eventually building to that Takeshita face turn. There’s only so much that Takeshita can hear Callis say before thinking to himself “Hang on, I’m a G1 Climax winner, a former AEW International Champion, what’s changed?”
That begs the question of who the biggest money match will be between. At the moment, it looks like Wardlow is being positioned as the guy to take Takeshita’s spot as “The Alpha” of the group, which is fine, if not a little underwhelming considering how far Takeshita has come since Wardlow last wrestled in AEW. However, the money match has to be either Takeshita vs. Okada, something that was teased around this time last year but was never executed, or Takeshita vs. Fletcher, a match I can personally see being an AEW World Championship match within the next few years.
Callis has assembled a murderer’s row of talent when it comes to his family, but there’s only so many guys he can add before one of them feels hard done by. Takeshita has the biggest upside when it comes to a face turn, it’s down to Tony Khan to actually pull the trigger, something he’s not been able to do over the past few years.
Written by Sam Palmer