Dark Order, Austin Theory and the Biggest Losers of AEW and WWE in 2022

Everyone has ups and downs throughout any given year, but some wrestlers in AEW and WWE just happened to suffer more than others.

After all, every match needs a loser in order to crown a winner.

Previously, the biggest winners of 2022 were broken down. Now, it's time to turn our attention to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Whether they kept staring up at the lights while being pinned, put on terrible performances that hurt their overall career value, fell victim to debilitating injuries, struggled with awful creative directions or even found themselves fired, certain wrestlers stand out as the biggest losers among the pack.

Let's look back on 2022 and the performers in WWE and AEW who had the most miserable times this year.

2022 was Austin Theory's most successful year so far, but it still saw him coming out of it looking like far more of a loser than he should have, given his accomplishments.

He won the United States Championship twice, as well as the Money in the Bank briefcase, and was involved in main event segments with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon at WrestleMania.

That sounds astounding until you look under the surface.

Theory's first United States title reign fell a little flat, ending at Money in the Bank, where Theory turned right back around to capture the briefcase.

It seemed as though that was a level-up at the time, but the briefcase became an albatross.

Theory fell victim to the contract curse wherein WWE frequently books whoever is holding the briefcase to perpetually lose, likely thinking it'll all balance out once they cash in and win the title.

But sometimes, like with Damien Sandow and Otis, it doesn't work out, and Theory spent months looking like a fool, unable to cash in his title shot.

This came to a head when he wasted his opportunity for the United States Championship—a downgrade in many fans' eyes. Not only did he do so during an open challenge, he also failed to even take home the gold.

Theory then admitted he was never going to win the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, which came across as the creative team trying to justify this to the fans.

Strangely, he won the United States title soon after in a fluke pin that made him look lucky to be in the right place at the right time, rather than a worthy next in line.

Theory is now arguably in a worse spot than he was at the beginning of the year despite holding the same title. At best, he's come full circle, rather than making any real progress.

Dark Order started off as a serious group the fans didn't like and turned into a comedic group that was beloved. They weren't winning championships, but at least they always had strength in numbers.

That is, until 2022 came around.

Colt Cabana essentially wasn't a member anymore. Anna Jay and her ally Tay Melo joined The Jericho Appreciation Society. Stu Grayson's contract expired in May and wasn't renewed, and Alan Angels left AEW soon after.

"Hangman" Adam Page hasn't been much support and suffered his own losses this year. Most recently, Preston Vance turned on his teammates to join the horrendous La Facción Ingobernable of all things, which shows that Dark Order is even less beneficial to him than a group that has been struggling to sustain itself since its inception as the Andrade Family Office.

It is rare to be able to lump every aspect of an entire brand onto the "biggest losers" list, but that is what NXT UK went through in 2022.

Along with its continued lack of buzz or viewers, two titles had to be vacated after Ashton Smith and Ilja Dragunov went down with injuries.

Those belts would soon be gone, though, with the unification of all NXT UK titles at Worlds Collide, which saw not one then-current member of the NXT UK roster retain their titles. Even Pretty Deadly had moved on to NXT by that point.

NXT UK was then disbanded in favor of a reboot with NXT Europe, which is supposed to come around some time in 2023.

To make room for this change and save money in the meantime, though, the roster was gutted.

A dozen or so Superstars had transitioned to NXT in the previous months, and a select few more like Oro Mensah and Lyra Valkyria have been brought in since then. Most others weren't kept at all, with upwards of 30 wrestlers let go, along with other personnel and talent that hasn't even been confirmed.

2022 marks the official destruction of NXT UK in all aspects, and we can only hope NXT Europe is a bigger success.

Serpentico achieved a dishonorable but noteworthy record this year as the first AEW star to reach 100 losses, making him effectively the company's No. 1 jobber—something to be proud and ashamed of at the same time.

AEW's regular enhancement talent should all be considered for the biggest losers list, including members of The Factory, The Wingmen and arguably the worst faction of the past year-plus, the Andrade-Hardy Family Office.

Of course, nearly everyone who comes in for a guest spot on AEW Dark or AEW Dark: Elevation tends to be even lower on the totem pole, as they're the only ones someone like QT Marshall can ever beat.

On the WWE side of this, there are perennial losers like Dante Chen and Guru Raaj who only ever show up sparingly and just to get tossed around and take a pinfall. They often don't even get entrances or even a lower-third on screen identifying their names.

Shanky has a distinction for being arguably the worst on the main roster with his horrendous dancing gimmick and his completely useless contributions in the ring to go with his 2-12 record. Those two wins were over Jinder Mahal on house shows in July, too, so they don't officially count.

A special shoutout goes to Reggie for his involvement in the terrible 24/7 Championship storyline, his frequent losses on Main Event—the program WWE doesn't even acknowledge exists—and his laughably awful new character in NXT, Scrypts.

Some were even released after only being with the company for a few months and racking up a series of losses, like Draco Anthony, Erica Yan, Ru Feng and Sloane Jacobs.

There has to be a bottom of the barrel, and these wrestlers sadly found themselves sinking to that level.

Roderick Strong was the sole member of The Undisputed Era still left in NXT once Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish departed for AEW, along with his wife, Marina Shafir. It seemed inevitable he would leave, too, only for his requested release to be denied, per Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp (h/t WrestlingNews.co).

It can't be argued WWE kept him for a good reason either, as he's had a terrible year on screen. That is, when he's actually used.

His 3-12 win-loss record started when he dropped the NXT Cruiserweight Championship to North American champion Carmelo Hayes in a unification match.

With that, Strong not only lost the belt but his purpose as a brand leader, since 205 Live and the entire cruiserweight division was eradicated going forward in favor of NXT Level Up.

Following that, Strong didn't come close to bouncing back. All he did was get into arguments with Diamond Mine where he was accused of ruining the group from the inside, eventually being attacked by Damon Kemp and put on the injured list for the past several months with no indication of if or when he'll return.

Miro isn't on this list for anything he's done that could be considered failing. Instead, he's here because he hasn't done anything, period.

He wrestled a grand total of four matches in 2022. Three of those were in June with two Dynamite matches leading up to Forbidden Door, where he lost his shot at the All-Atlantic Championship.

Then, he randomly teamed with Darby Allin and Sting against The House of Black for All Out three months later and promptly disappeared once more.

For the first quarter of the year, Miro was on the shelf due to an injury. After that, he was off filming a show for CBS.

Since becoming free again, though, AEW hasn't bothered bringing him back.

In an interview with MUSE TV Network, Miro explained that his return isn't up to him. He's sitting and waiting for an opportunity to come back (h/t Andy H Murray of WhatCulture).

Miro had a rough start in AEW with his Best Man character alongside Kip Sabian. Once he finally hit his stride as TNT champion in 2021, it seemed he was on the path to success.

Instead, this year has been a complete wash for him, as if he wasn't even on the roster.

If AEW can't think of any way to use him after all this time, why bother sticking around?

Dana Brooke once had a gimmick as an accountant for Titus Worldwide, so she would understand how numbers can be deceptive on paper.

Technically, she had 15 title reigns this year, which sounds impressive.

However, those were all the WWE 24/7 Championship, which has never meant anything and downgraded even more in value over the course of 2022.

Most of her time was spent running around with Reggie, Akira Tozawa and Tamina in one of the worst storylines of the year, or defending her title on house shows.

Meanwhile, she became a punchline, with Corey Graves, Seth Rollins and others randomly taking shots at her skill level and lack of accomplishments. Brooke was effectively always trying to defend herself and the 24/7 Championship.

Instead of getting that opportunity, she lost the title to Nikki Cross, who promptly tossed the belt in the trash afterward and seemingly retired it.

Brooke didn't even get the distinction of being the last champion, nor something better like an opportunity for a unification match with the Raw Women's Championship. She was merely cast aside with the belt that her career revolved around for the past year.

One of AEW's most consistent criticisms has been against the women's division, which has had a rough go in 2022.

There isn't enough star power on the roster as is, but that was made even more abundantly clear with a good portion of the talent missing in action for many months.

Leyla Hirsch, Riho, The Bunny, Abadon, Penelope Ford, Emi Sakura, Yuka Sakazaki and more were barely there.

Ruby Soho had momentum at the start of the year that wasn't capitalized on. Eventually, an injury put her on the shelf. The same goes for Kris Statlander.

Athena had a terrible run all the way up until ROH Final Battle, where she became the reigning champion of that fledgling brand.

But even with the available talent, AEW seemingly had nothing inspiring in mind of what to do, anyway.

Most of the year revolved around constant rematches of Thunder Rosa and Toni Storm against Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter, as if Tony Khan had no idea what else to do but rinse and repeat from the previous week. That became insufferable to keep watching, despite how talented those four are.

Rosa fell victim to an injury that forced a complicated interim title situation to play out, which Khan eventually backtracked on and acknowledged Storm and now Hayter as lineal champions in hindsight.

If the best the division had to offer this year was Jade Cargill wrestling short matches that she was in no danger of losing, that's sad.

CM Punk twice won the AEW World Championship this year, but the lasting impression he's leaving on the company after just one year of being on the roster is not about a title reign, but his departure.

Upon winning the title, Punk was already apparently unpopular with a lot of talent backstage.

His feud with "Hangman" Adam Page eventually blurred the line between the fictional storyline and the reality of the behind-the-scenes conflicts.

While winning the title against Page, Punk also suffered an injury that left Forbidden Door without its main event and AEW without its top champion, forcing Jon Moxley to fill the void as interim champion.

Punk's return was a dud, too. He lost to Moxley, who was then crowned the new lineal champion. A few days later, Punk won the title back at All Out but was injured again in the process.

That would have forced him to take more time off and do the whole thing all over again as is, but that didn't even have a chance to play out, as Punk went into the post-show media scrum and proceeded to badmouth his coworkers.

Whether he had any right to say any of it is up for debate, but what isn't is how it certainly made Tony Khan look ineffective as a boss for just sitting there allowing him to do this.

The black mark that was put on AEW as a result of that and the subsequent fight backstage—referred to as Brawl Out—now has Punk seemingly out of the company, with friend Ace Steel fired for his role. The Elite also had to drop the World Trios Championships.

Last year, the wrestling world was heaping praise on Punk's return as one of the best things going. Fast forward 12 months, and everything is in shambles.

With the benefit of hindsight, one has to wonder if Khan, Punk and many others would rather he not have signed with the company in the first place.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, Spotify and everywhere you find podcasts. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.