Scorpio Sky has been off AEW television since late 2023. Much like with Miro and Andrade, Tony Khan just forgot about Sky, for whatever reason. Some say Sky may have said something in an interview that rubbed the CEO, GM, Head of Creative, Founder, and Co-Owner the wrong way. Fans may never know what really happened. So, as Scorpio Sky sits in purgatory, riding out the final year-and-a-half of his contract, here are eight suggestions for Tony Khan to start getting some return on investment for the rest of that five-year contract.
AEW has largely used Ring of Honor (also owned by Khan) as its version of NXT. It is a separate brand used to train and develop wrestlers for AEW television, as well as to keep established wrestlers busy between AEW programs when Khan doesn’t have an immediate plan for them. I am surprised Sky hasn’t really been utilized there during most of the last year. Scorpio Sky is a two-time AEW TNT Champion and one-half of the inaugural AEW Tag Team Champions (with Frankie Kazarian), he should be getting airtime somewhere.
Khan could further build Sky’s résumé by having him win, say, the ROH Pure Championship or the ROH Television Championship. As Khan often does, he could then have someone from AEW’s main roster challenge for the title. Khan likes to air the lead-up to the match and often the match itself on AEW television. This will increase Sky’s popularity on both brands. Eventually, Sky will drop the title and appear on AEW TV with the added cachet of being a former ROH champion, in addition to his other accolades.
Ricochet stated in a recent backstage vignette that he could see that, to survive in AEW, one needs to have a crew. Most fans assumed that he was referring to CRU, the team of Action Andretti and Lio Rush. While CRU would be a good addition, Ricochet should also consider taking on Scorpio Sky. Sky and Ricochet would make a dynamite tag team, and both are capable of bringing singles gold to the hypothetical heel faction as well. CRU would make excellent errand boys or thugs for the faction. The team would be high-flying, yet vicious.
After a while, Khan will have multiple options for the faction’s storyline. He can have CRU turn on Ricochet and Sky when they tire of being their errand boys. Selling out Ricochet and Sky would have consequences for CRU, but they would get to screw the managing partners out of something big, maybe the tag titles, on the way out the door.
Alternatively, Khan can have Ricochet or Sky turn on the other. CRU and the remaining heel would then beat down whomever Khan wants to turn face. If Ricochet remains heel, Scorpio Sky gets months of battles against his former faction. If Sky remains heel, he has his own faction, who would then try to make Ricochet’s life a living hell. However, Khan spins things, Scorpio Sky and CRU would get to stay on TV for a while.
After the break-up of SoCal Uncensored (Sky, Kazarian, and Christopher Daniels), Sky teamed with Ethan Page (now in WWE NXT) for a while. Those two eventually joined with Dan Lambert’s American Top Team. American Top Team is a renowned MMA program run by Dan Lambert that has produced several top-tier fighters.
As part of the cross-promotion, Lambert brought fighters like Andrei Arlovski, Paige VanZant, Junior dos Santos, and Jorge Masvidal to AEW for appearances. The MMA fighters didn’t have a significant presence in the ring, but they generated considerable publicity for AEW.
Sky, Page, and Lance Archer did most of the wrestling, while the MMA fighters mainly did beatdowns outside of the ring. Lambert has said he would be open to revisiting this role. Khan would just have to find another under-utilized wrestler or two to pair with Lambert’s fighters. Tony Nese, Josh Woods, and Ari Daivari (the Premier Athletes) would be a perfect fit for this storyline.
An AEW version of American Top Team today could feature Sky, Nese, Woods, and Daivari with Lambert as their manager. To fill out the faction and provide more “muscle,” Lambert could bring over fighters turned coaches Thiago Alves, King Mo, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, and active fighters Jorge Masvidal, Dustin Poirier, Paige VanZant, and current UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Kayla Harrison. Fans loved to hate Lambert, often giving him the equivalent of Dominik Mysterio heat when he would cut promos for his faction.
This version of ATT could actually put some of the MMA fighters in the ring with more regularity. King Mo and the other retired fighters mentioned above no longer have to worry about getting hurt and missing matches. Paige VanZant wrestled a little in the last AEW/ATT cross-promotion. Dustin Poirier is retiring after his next MMA bout, so he would then be free to occasionally step in the ring, if needed. There is enough talent here that Tony Khan could run a takeover angle with ATT this time around.
Don Callis is constantly stabbing the wrestlers he manages in the back, or the head, more often than not. As they get popular with the fans, AEW gives them a face turn, and then Callis forcibly expels them from the group and thwarts their efforts for months, often with a screwdriver to the head. The storyline has worked for Kenny Omega, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Will Ospreay.
It will soon be time for Kyle Fletcher, Josh Alexander, or Konosuke Takeshita to go–maybe even more than one of them. Callis is constantly back-filling with talent like Lance Archer, Brian Cage, Trent Beretta, Mark Davis, and Rocky Romero — often wrestlers who have been left without storylines. Scorpio Sky would make a fitting new addition to the family. Callis could make Sky a star, especially if he is the one used to beat down the next Callis Family exile.
We all know that Maxwell Jacob Friedman’s union with the Hurt Syndicate is not long for this world. Both sides are merely using each other, and this will eventually escalate into a bitter blow-off feud. Scorpio Sky could be MJF’s replacement, as he is a much better fit for the group’s vibe. Sky would fill the role that Cedric Alexander filled in the WWE version of the faction as a little more of a high-flyer than the other members.
There is another option, however. When MJF leaves a faction, he often hires a team to beat down the group on his way out or takes some members with him (or both). Sky could join before the split and go with MJF into whatever ill-fated faction he forms next, or he could start as one of MJF’s hired guns. Any of those scenarios would work, and all would result in Scorpio Sky having a role as an enforcer in a faction where he could get television time without having to cut a lot of promos.
Shane Taylor Promotions runs in both the Ring of Honor and AEW. Most of STP’s talent is raw enough that they spend the majority of their time in RoH. Taylor and Lee Moriarty could use another hand on the AEW side of things if they want to get more TV time. Scorpio Sky would be a huge addition, as he has more in-ring ability than anyone in the faction. The fact that he is so much better than the rest of the team will eventually lead to a Sky face-turn when he realizes he doesn’t need STP to succeed. Cue the exit feud.
In the meantime, though, Scorpio Sky could serve double duty, running back and forth between Ring of Honor and AEW, if needed. The more exposure, the better. The Infantry (Carlie Bravo, Shawn Dean, and Trish Adora) and Anthony Ogogo certainly aren’t going to get featured on AEW much. Lee Moriarty is the Ring of Honor Pure Champion, so most of his focus should be there. That would leave Sky and Taylor to handle most of the STP’s business on the AEW side. Sky could provide the name recognition that those other wrestlers can’t, plus he brings a championship résumé.
Khan could have Scorpio Sky start taking out singles wrestlers from behind somewhere in the backstage area before their matches. Christopher Daniels, Sky’s former teammate in SCU, has been an on-again, off-again AEW official. Daniels could stumble upon Sky loitering backstage or sitting in catering after the attacks while muttering to himself that he has no one to fill the match now. You can almost see the light bulb go on inside Daniel’s head when he throws his bored, down-on-his-luck, old friend a bone.
After a couple of weeks of match-stealing, someone will put two and two together, and Sky will have any number of feuds on his hands. If one of the stolen opportunities is a title shot, Sky might even be a champion going into those feuds. Alternatively, Khan could also book Daniels as the one jumping people, just to give his old buddy a chance to get back in the ring. Sky would not even have to know. The two could even be in on it together, trying to “stick it to the man” for holding Sky down for all this time.
All of these angles would work, and they could open doors to feuds with almost anyone. Komander, Daniel Garcia, Kevin Knight, “Speedball” Mike Bailey, Hologram, Rush, Nick Wayne, and Christian Cage would all make excellent targets for these attacks, as they are all free from long-term feuds right now.
Like Scorpio Sky, Jack Perry has been missing in action in AEW for months. Tony Khan has been very hot and cold with booking Perry. In his last run in AEW, The Elite brought Perry in to be their “Scapegoat.” The nickname stuck. Perry would go on to win the TNT Championship, despite the gimmick. However, after Perry lost the title to Daniel Garcia, Tony Khan evidently had nothing for Perry again. So, for the second time in the last couple of years, Perry headed to Japan. Despite being under contract with AEW, Perry has been wrestling for New Japan Pro Wrestling.
That would leave the position of scapegoat/errand boy for The Elite open again. Now that the Young Bucks are back on television regularly, it would behoove them to add someone to fill that fourth spot with them and “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada. Enter Scorpio Sky. Sky has the championship pedigree, the ability to wrestle solo or in a tag team, and the ambition that would make him a nice fit for The Elite. They may very well need someone to put between them and “Hangman” Adam Page very soon, and that would be a very high-profile match for Sky after sitting in purgatory for so long.
Scorpio Sky is too talented to be sitting at home or in catering every week. If Tony Khan is not going to release Sky, like he finally did with Miro, Andrade, and Malakai Black, he needs to utilize him. Any of these scenarios would be better than booking him to Netflix and chill every week.
I would love to see some version of Option #7, where Christopher Daniels is involved in getting his old SCU pal back on the map, either knowingly or unknowingly. A Ricochet-Sky teaming also makes a lot of sense, and I think Khan could get a lot of mileage out of that booking.
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