Were Adam Cole And Britt Baker the Right Choices As Owen Hart Cup Winners?

After playing a huge part on AEW television over the past month, the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament concluded this past Sunday at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view. The men’s final saw Adam Cole defeat Samoa Joe, while the women’s side of the tournament saw Britt Baker emerge victorious with a win over Ruby Soho.

The fact that Cole and Baker won their respective Owen Hart Foundation Tournaments doesn’t really come as a shock. When the tournament brackets were released, Cole and Baker were the betting favorites to win as they were arguably the biggest stars in their brackets.

But just because Cole and Baker were the favorites to win doesn’t mean that they were the correct booking choices to be crowned the inaugural Owen Hart Foundation Tournament winners.

Was Adam Cole the right choice to win the Owen Hart Cup?

The men’s side of the tournament started with Adam Cole, Darby Allin, Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, Kyle O’Reilly, Rey Fenix, Dax Harwood, and Johnny Elite (who debuted as a “Joker”).

At first glance, there seemed to be three viable options to win this eight-man tournament – Adam Cole, Darby Allin, or Samoa Joe.

With Johnny Elite not officially signed to AEW and the rest of the field primarily viewed as tag team wrestlers thus far in their AEW careers, any combination of Cole, Allin, and Joe seemed destined for the finals. When the bracket was released and Adam Cole and Darby Allin were on the same side of the bracket, then the picture became clear that Adam Cole and Samoa Joe would be meeting in the finals at Double or Nothing.

The question then became, would AEW want to keep Joe looking like an unstoppable force by beating Cole or would they deem it more important to get Cole a much-needed win?

By choosing Cole to go over Joe, AEW booked the finals of this tournament exactly right.

Adam Cole needed to win this tournament in the worst way. After suffering a loss to Orange Cassidy, albeit in an unsanctioned, lights-out match, and then failing to win the AEW World Title from Adam Page twice, Cole was in need of some strong booking to push him back up to the top of the card.

In not only having Cole make the finals of this tournament but pairing him with an undefeated Joe, who had looked like an unstoppable machine in AEW, Tony Khan did everything he could to reestablish some of the shine to Cole that had been worn off in many people’s eyes.

Cole comes out of this tournament with bragging rights that nobody can take away from him and a ton of momentum that he will need as gets ready for the returning Kenny Omega and the eventual rift that is most likely coming between members of the Undisputed Elite.

Was Britt Baker the right choice to win the Owen Hart Cup?

As perfect as the booking was on the men’s side of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, it was a massive miss on the women’s side.

Britt Baker is a star. So it makes perfect sense that AEW would want her to be on the Double or Nothing Card. However, a win here does nothing for Baker and more importantly does nothing for the AEW women’s division.

A Baker loss in the final also would do nothing to hurt her status in AEW. She would still be the biggest draw in the company’s female division, but it is a division that desperately needs more members in the upper echelon. And the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament seemed like the perfect place to elevate another member of their women’s division.

Any number of women winning this tournament would have been a better choice than Baker. Ruby Soho, Toni Storm, or a recently repackaged and more serious Kris Statlander would have all received a huge bump into the top of the women’s division with a win here. And while both Storm and Statlander can come back from their defeats, Soho, losing to Baker for a second time, and clean at that, really puts Ruby in a “where do I go from here” spot within the promotion.

AEW reminds us frequently that they are not WWE. But that does not mean that they cannot learn from the mistakes of WWE.

While Charlotte Flair is an amazing talent, her constant booking at the top of the card at the expense of other talented individuals that don’t ever seem to be given a chance to shine has become exhausting for wrestling fans. AEW needs to be very careful that they don’t create the same type of scenario with Britt Baker.

At the end of the day, AEW went with the two biggest stars participating in the inaugural Owen Hart Foundation Tournament to be the winners.

But they need to be careful doing this moving forward, or they may run the risk of putting themselves in a booking spot where they are incapable of creating new stars.