by When Jade Cargill arrived in WWE at the 2024 Royal Rumble, fans went wild and there was genuine excitement of her arrival. 20 months later, it has become clear, the Cargill hype that was built in AEW has never carried over to in ring success in WWE. Allow me to expound.
The initial plan for her in WWE was a short build up to WrestleMania 40 where they hoped she could go 1 on 1 with Bianca Belair in a dream match. It became clear quickly that she wasn’t ready for that kind of singles match at a WrestleMania so soon, so they inserted her into a team with Belair instead. It was then crystal clear she couldn’t carry her load in that tandem either, so Naomi was tagged in as well and then took on Damage CTRL in a Six Way match. Cargill couldn’t sell and was only good for a few high offensive spots only. Much like her days in AEW on Rampage, clearly, the WWE brass never watched that show either.
Again, the following plan was to team her with Belair again, have massive success leading to a hyped split and eventual match at WrestleMania 41. Instead, it was clear only a few weeks into that run that she still wasn’t ready, and they wrote her out of the team and subbed Naomi back in. Each time they wrote her off TV, it was for the hope that she would go down to the performance center and train to get better. She never did.
The WWE had no choice but to bring her back again and realize clearly that their dream match of Belair vs Cargill was still lightyears away, and instead, settled for an epic disaster at WrestleMania 41 where Cargill and Naomi had one of the worst Women’s matches in WWE WrestleMania history. Cargill still couldn’t sell to save her life and even her offense was starting look sloppy.
It was now clearer the ever that her best days where against nobodies on Friday Night Rampage in AEW with no one watching as she squashed a bunch of enhancement talent. This was this generations The Ultimate Warrior with none of the charisma. Still though, this is a the WWE and they don’t give up that easily. They gave her one last super push including a big win over Asuka as the WWWE 2025 Queen of the Ring in Saudia Arabia. Still, she looked awful, the match was short to cover it, but the message was clear, she wasn’t winning at WWE SummerSlam.
With this latest WWE super push of Cargill ending in a clean loss to Tiffany Stratton at SummerSlam, one thing is clear, the WWE creative team realizes she may be a lost cause and as good as her look is, the rest of it still isn’t there and probably never will be. She simply doesn’t have “it”. Tony Khan has let so much talent leave the building, everyone from Lexis King, Mero and Ethan Page to Ricky Starks, Penta and Alistair Black with most of those being big losses. However, the Cargill one which at one time seemed like a huge blow to AEW, appears to be addition by subtraction.
