The AEW Thread

[Bert Raccoon]

AEW is clearly missing someone like The Undertaker to step in and sort these petty squabbles out. Not saying they should go back to the days of wrestlers court but they seem to need a locker room leader who tells someone like Punk to cut out his shit. No idea who would step into that role as they all seem shit scared of annoying Punk 

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

43 minutes ago, Bert Raccoon said:

AEW is clearly missing someone like The Undertaker to step in and sort these petty squabbles out. Not saying they should go back to the days of wrestlers court but they seem to need a locker room leader who tells someone like Punk to cut out his shit. No idea who would step into that role as they all seem shit scared of annoying Punk 

Jericho or Moxley are two who have been cited as leaders in the past, but I'm sure both were slated by Punk during his many meltdowns.

Danielson seems well liked by everyone, but he strikes me as someone who doesn't give a shit about locker room nonsense.

I can see why Tony Khan wants to keep Punk around, as he is absolute box office and it's probably easy to overlook him being an arse to lower card acts like Nemeth. Sooner or later Punk is going to cross someone who will gladly give him a smack in the face and Brawl Out x 10 will happen. Good luck telling an Eddie Kingston or Rush that Punk isn't allowing them in the arena after travelling across the country to get there.

If Punk makes it to Wembley, then the crowd reaction will be fascinating. I think Joe could end up being the most over person on the night, apart from Cole and MJF.

[GNU_Linux]

I've got the perfect solution to solve AEW's backstage issues

Brawl For All 2.0

[forameus]

1 hour ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

Jericho or Moxley are two who have been cited as leaders in the past, but I'm sure both were slated by Punk during his many meltdowns.

Danielson seems well liked by everyone, but he strikes me as someone who doesn't give a shit about locker room nonsense.

I can see why Tony Khan wants to keep Punk around, as he is absolute box office and it's probably easy to overlook him being an arse to lower card acts like Nemeth. Sooner or later Punk is going to cross someone who will gladly give him a smack in the face and Brawl Out x 10 will happen. Good luck telling an Eddie Kingston or Rush that Punk isn't allowing them in the arena after travelling across the country to get there.

If Punk makes it to Wembley, then the crowd reaction will be fascinating. I think Joe could end up being the most over person on the night, apart from Cole and MJF.

In that sense though, Punk went after arguably the most important people in the company with Brawl Out.  He made the owner look like a complete dildo, then went on to start a fight with the people who basically made the company a thing.  And not only did he basically get no punishment (his suspension was during his injury anyway), he was arguably rewarded on returning by giving him a safe space with his pals where he can seemingly bar anyone he wants.

50 minutes ago, GNU_Linux said:

I've got the perfect solution to solve AEW's backstage issues
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Brawl For All 2.0

 

To be fair, Butterbean is doing pretty well these days, I'd happily see him knock f**k out of Punk.  I mean, we'd be in uncharted waters in seeing how Phil gets on in actual fight, aren't we?

Spoiler

 

[DA Baracus]

Tony Khan really needs to be telling Punk to pipe right down and stop being a dick or else he's gone.

Khan sadly is far too much of a fanboy and shitebag to do so.

[DA Baracus]

3 hours ago, forameus said:

All In is starting to look more and more like an absolutely epic missed opportunity for the company.   They've built their brand to the point where they can come extremely close to selling out one of the most iconic stadiums in sport, and instead of taking that and building a show to fit the event, they're seemingly (it could change, of course) putting on a glorified house show.  If that doesn't change, at best you're going to have a lot of very disappointed people, and at worst you could seriously damage how your product is seen to fans.

Aye I said similar earlier on the thread. What the actual f**k are they playing at here?! The show will be good and enjoyable, but little will mean anything, and shortly after a lot of fans will be asking why, especially when they see actual meaningful matches a week later on All Out (Hobbs vs Miro for example, Punk vs Starks is probable).

They should have been building towards this being their best ever show from the moment they announced it. They should have been building to peak all the big storylines/angles/feuds etc at Wembley. They should have had wrestlers talking about it months out and hyping it.

Instead we've had barely any build to most matches and we're getting numerous multi man/women matches. Aside from the main event and the tag title match, what do any of them mean? They might be loosely connected to an overall story, but why are we not getting the pay offs at Wembley?

[forameus]

16 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Aye I said similar earlier on the thread. What the actual f**k are they playing at here?! The show will be good and enjoyable, but little will mean anything, and shortly after a lot of fans will be asking why, especially when they see actual meaningful matches a week later on All Out (Hobbs vs Miro for example, Punk vs Starks is probable).

They should have been building towards this being their best ever show from the moment they announced it. They should have been building to peak all the big storylines/angles/feuds etc at Wembley. They should have had wrestlers talking about it months out and hyping it.

Instead we've had barely any build to most matches and we're getting numerous multi man/women matches. Aside from the main event and the tag title match, what do any of them mean? They might be loosely connected to an overall story, but why are we not getting the pay offs at Wembley?

Aye, complete failure on their part, particularly the insistence to have All In so close behind.  It's like they didn't fully plan having a Wembley show at all, and at some point it just became a thing they could do that they jumped on.  All In was obviously booked in well in advance with their schedule, so they felt like there was no real way to cancel that one, and they felt like the opportunity to do Wembley either couldn't be moved to another date, or they couldn't countenance passing on it.  Nothing else really makes sense, particularly as the card starts to take shape.  Even All In seems like it's going to suffer, as they're struggling to build that one too.  Ideal would have been to position All In so that it was THE show, and build accordingly.  Instead, there seems this reticence to prioritise Wembley (which they should) which is leading to both All In and All Out being considerably worse than they should have been.  There's a genuine chance that a show in front of near enough 80000 people in a "new" market could be the worst PPV they've ever put on.  Obviously not going to be bad by any means, but the bar is high.

[FairWeatherFan]

2 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

when they see actual meaningful matches a week later on All Out (Hobbs vs Miro for example, Punk vs Starks is probable).

Hobbs v Miro as meaningful

Going by Collision, Starks is suspended in ring for 30 days which would mean missing both shows. Since he brought up having his manager's licence I'm thinking he either manages Joe at All In being involved in the finish or he brings in someone for All Out

[DA Baracus]

Chris Daniels

What do you see?

You're barred and

so is Matt Hardy!

[8MileBU]

Watching Dynamite….
 

Johnny (get off my) TV

[djchapsticks]

On 14/08/2023 at 21:19, cb_diamond said:

Khan booking AO Vs Cole and MJF on the pre show is mind-blowing stupidity on a couple of levels.

Imagine it would be to entice folk in early. However they've gone the opposite way and instead of booking a good level match that lets folk who want to see it filter in, it's a top tier match that everyone will want to see, so will see the same crowds bottleneck, just earlier.

[DA Baracus]

9 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

Imagine it would be to entice folk in early. However they've gone the opposite way and instead of booking a good level match that lets folk who want to see it filter in, it's a top tier match that everyone will want to see, so will see the same crowds bottleneck, just earlier.

Surely this will end in a DQ after Roddy Strong interferes and hits MJF? Then MJF will sell an injury walking back up the ramp and then for/during the main event, leading to speculation that Strong did it for Cole (and who knows, maybe even leading to the revelation that Cole asked him too; that, or it will lead to a Cole vs Strong match at All Out or some show).

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, DA Baracus said:

Surely this will end in a DQ after Roddy Strong interferes and hits MJF? Then MJF will sell an injury walking back up the ramp and then for/during the main event, leading to speculation that Strong did it for Cole (and who knows, maybe even leading to the revelation that Cole asked him too; that, or it will lead to a Cole vs Strong match at All Out or some show).

Oh there is 100% shenanigans abound but I think the logic in booking it on the preshow is that most of the 80,000 in attendance won't pass up on the chance to see Cole and MJF in the ring twice in one night and will get people in early in comparison to say a women's match or something involving QT Marshall.

Usually in that instance, you stick on a good match, get around a quarter or a third of the crowd frittering in and by time show starts, the gates outside aren't as busy. Difference is by 5pm, there's going to be at least 50-60k (at a conservative guess) already in so there's no opportunity to avoid massive queues as everyone will want in at one time.

[FairWeatherFan]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

Surely this will end in a DQ after Roddy Strong interferes and hits MJF? Then MJF will sell an injury walking back up the ramp and then for/during the main event, leading to speculation that Strong did it for Cole (and who knows, maybe even leading to the revelation that Cole asked him too; that, or it will lead to a Cole vs Strong match at All Out or some show).

I'm actually expecting them to win the tag titles. Not sure the point of re-introducing The Kingdom from the ROH void unless to be contenders to the title.

[forameus]

That was...certainly an episode.  Some good stuff as always, but some really, really odd stuff.  Khan clearly rattled by everyone rightly pointing out that he's a complete wet wipe by shoehorning himself into the MJF/Cole stuff giving them a bollocking (was it even him shouting?).  That Texas match was only very, very slightly above that zombies match that WWE put on.  

But most of all, despite them now realising they probably need to play up that this is a really, really massive show they're doing, they still seem absolutely set on cutting it off at the legs with a pretty meh card.  Stadium Stampede will likely be good nonsense, but it all seems a bit thrown together, and trying its best to wring out every last bit of juice from the "BCC are pure nasty by the way" story.  Kingston will go down well of course, but given AEW's propensity for questionable production, I fully expect to miss most of the spots while in the stadium.  Putting Ospreay with Jericho is pretty criminal.  He's a legend obviously, but I'm not sure he's got it in him to rise to the levels that Ospreay can, and reminds me of him vs Vader but not quite as bad.  When you could have had him vs Omega, it's a bit shit.  Even him vs Guevara I'd rather have had, as at least the annoyingly beautiful wee c**t could get closer to the high-flying stuff and pick up the pace.  Not sure Omega is really being used to his full potential either in a trios match, particularly if Ibushi is in similar shape to how he was at Blood and Guts.  

Having said all that though, at least they seem like they're now trying to build something.  f**k knows what they're going to do for All Out with just one week.

[DA Baracus]

The multi man matches will be fun but just scream house show or TV match. A waste of so many guys too. 

All Out is an odd situation too. If they announce some top matches the folk who went to All In will rightly be annoyed that they never got those matches and asking why. If they don't have some top matches folk who go to All Out and pay for it on PPV will be asking why they're paying for a sub standard card.

[FairWeatherFan]

22 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

The multi man matches will be fun but just scream house show or TV match. A waste of so many guys too.

It's basically every AEW PPV. All the more so after the introduction of the Trios Titles.

[DA Baracus]

47 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

It's basically every AEW PPV. All the more so after the introduction of the Trios Titles.

True, but every show isn't being billed as one of the biggest of all time with 80k fans.

Orange Cassidy has a title. The International Title. Would surely make sense were to defend it internationally.

Nah. Only two singles matches on the card so far, mostly involving Dynamite talent.

[GNU_Linux]

Jeff Jarret harking back to late late era WCW & early TNA going by whatever that match was last night.

[DA Baracus]

Jericho turning face now? Pfffftt.