The AEW Thread

[rowsdower]

With you on the hangman/swerve match, swerve is a fucking star.

The main event was a really good match, but the story is weird now.

[Bert Raccoon]

I'd put my mortgage on Osprey winning the title at All In

[forameus]

Bit of a mixed bag with Full Gear.  I thought early on it seemed like it was missing something huge.  Trios match to start off was fine, but felt more like a bit of a tribute/house show match.  Are we really going to have "this is the last time Sting will wrestle in..." at every venue?  Seems like it.  The ladder match was fine chaos, but again didn't feel maybe quite as big as it could.  Particularly disappointing was the Mox/OC match.  Not sure what it was, but it felt like they were just trying to get through things, and never had the feeling like there was the bad blood in the story that had been told up to that point.  Good to see them put the faith in OC, but that's about it.  And as a final kick in the stones, the final line of commentary was along the lines of "it doesn't look like we've seen the end of the feud between the BCC and Best Friends."  f**k off.  Ospreay lifted things slightly, and I am really looking forward to seeing what they do with him at Wembley next year.

Then Hangman/Swerve happened. f**k me.  I'm not convinced it was particularly smart, but if you're putting together a Texas Deathmatch on one of your big shows, by f**k did they deliver.  They threw absolutely everything at each other, and no-one comes out of it looking weaker.  Swerve is an absolute star, and will be very interesting to see where that goes next.

Bucks/Jerichomega was...fine.  I still just can't take to the Bucks with the constant mugging to the camera, but it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.  

Then the main event...I really liked how they built a story through the show to pay off in the main event, although I would have peppered a bit more during.  I can see the point of people saying the story's starting to fall apart a bit, but I think that was probably the best choice at the time.  I was absolutely sure we were getting the payoff to the devil stuff and it being Cole, but they swerved that.  I assumed at some point the boot comes off, and suddenly he's not injured, and he's the devil, and krrroooossh, and smaaash, and all that.  But they're taking the Gargano/Ciampa route, and when he inevitably turns on MJF - presumably in his home town at New Year - it's going to be all the bigger.  As for the match, MJF just keeps getting better.  It takes a lot to make that length of match believable with a worked injury, and usually you get a few moments where they just forget to sell, or take you out of it, but every moment he's selling it, but never quite pushing it into bullshit territory.  Massive credit to Jay White too.  And fucking hell, I bit so hard on that belt-based false finish at the end my teeth fell out.  

Roman Reigns will always get the press as the undisputed top guy in (probably) the top company in the industry, but when you compare how the respective matches go, MJF (and the writers) are putting on something noticeably different most times, have gone through one face turn (and potentially a heel turn too), while Reigns has basically been having the same match for years now.  No comparison.

[8MileBU]

Hopefully that’s Jay White’s push knocked right on the head. “Switchblade”

Also, every time Osprey is on the mic BRUV:

Edited November 21, 2023 by 8MileBU

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

The mini G1 should result in plenty of cracking matches. It definitely feels like a response to the criticism that AEW has got a bit too 'sports entertainment' recently.

 

 

 

[TheGoon]

Really looking forward to it. I’d love to see Eddie win it.

[Lukovic]

Maybe this is how we finally get Garcia in the BCC

[FairWeatherFan]

12 hours ago, Lukovic said:

Maybe this is how we finally get Garcia in the BCC

I'd rather they use Danielson v. Claudio as chipping away at the BCC idea. Its ran its course. Danielson's meant to be on his retirement tour. Moxley's better as the lone wolf. Since dropping the ROH title Claudio can start getting more involved in the AEW single scene.

[forameus]

Not a huge fan of the long-winded league format, but that's likely just me being a basic bitch.  If they can pepper in bits of storyline, fair enough.

Bit disappointing that it seems like the World's End match is just Joe vs MJF.  Makes sense, but I thought we'd build to all these story threads and challengers having this big multi-man match.  Maybe MJF does retain after all.  Starting to look like maybe Cole's injury is more serious than they thought, and now they're desperately spinning their wheels until he can return.  The quick shot of the devil certainly seems like they're trying to distract from it being Cole whilst not really moving things on at all.  

Christian is just having the best time, isn't he?  I'd love to see what happens when he gets through to the back away from the cameras, and just how nice he is to the people he's just verbally cut down. MJF can make anything work promo-wise, but his heel stuff often jumped towards the usual "your city/sports team/idol is bad" stuff.  If you want someone to cut - literally - a heel promo with proper heat, Christian's on another level.

[DA Baracus]

They've always said that Cole's injury is serious and he'll be out for a while. He had to have two surgeries. 

For some reason a lot of fans are still thinking he'll due back imminently. A lot were thinking he would have been revealed at Full Gear.

The guy can't walk without crutches yet! He's still in a cast.

[forameus]

8 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

They've always said that Cole's injury is serious and he'll be out for a while. He had to have two surgeries. 

For some reason a lot of fans are still thinking he'll due back imminently. A lot were thinking he would have been revealed at Full Gear.

The guy can't walk without crutches yet! He's still in a cast.

I was still seeing an outside chance that they'd worked an injury into a more serious injury, but that's clearly not the case.  I didn't think he'd be back imminently in any sort of wrestling capacity outside of fantasy booking.  I don't know, something about the way they presented on Dynamite suggested that they were scrambling a little about the injury, but that's got no basis really.  They've got a history of not really knowing how to pivot when it comes to injuries and just forging ahead regardless.

One story that seems to hold a bit of weight that I read would be the devil stuff building up to World's End and the kayfabe of MJF's contract coming to an end.  Cole reveals himself, causes MJF to lose his title in Long Island, thinking he'll be leaving the company anyway now he has nothing.  MJF can get a well-earned break, heal up, sell that he's really gone, and once Cole has a clearer timeline for returning, MJF can come back vowing revenge.  Then you can give Joe a nice little reign, maybe even all the way to All In when he can pass it to Ospreay (as surely there's no doubt he's going to win that title at Wembley)

 

 

[DA Baracus]

5 hours ago, forameus said:

Bit disappointing that it seems like the World's End match is just Joe vs MJF.  Makes sense, but I thought we'd build to all these story threads and challengers having this big multi-man match.  

No reason they still can't have that match at World's End. Could easily add another person each week to it. Would be a decent build I think. 

[GNU_Linux]

Wrestling fans on the internet sure do have some takes.

[forameus]

I just couldn't really see Ospreay ever going to WWE.  He's one of the best in the world, but I can't see them just accepting Ospreay the way he is.  If you round off those edges to make him WWE-worthy, does he retain the same allure?  AEW he's already worked with, he can basically step straight in without changing, he's almost certainly going to figure heavily at Wembley in August - possibly even main event - and he's allowed to drift over to Japan if need be.  

 

[GNU_Linux]

3 hours ago, forameus said:

I just couldn't really see Ospreay ever going to WWE.  He's one of the best in the world, but I can't see them just accepting Ospreay the way he is.  If you round off those edges to make him WWE-worthy, does he retain the same allure?  AEW he's already worked with, he can basically step straight in without changing, he's almost certainly going to figure heavily at Wembley in August - possibly even main event - and he's allowed to drift over to Japan if need be.  

 

With Ospreay being in AEW's main event scene I can see his NJPW appearances being mostly Wrestle Kingdom, Forbidden Door & NJPW Strong shows. An added bonus for Ospreay is AEW's style & schedule will be much kinder on his body.

[TheGoon]

I think he’d fit in well in WWE tbh, but I thini this is the correct move. When he’s still capable of having unbelievable matches - he’s as well doing it now. He’ll only be like 34 when his deal’s up, plenty time to have a lengthy WWE run if he fancies it. 

[djchapsticks]

On 20/11/2023 at 10:06, forameus said:

 

Bucks/Jerichomega was...fine.  I still just can't take to the Bucks with the constant mugging to the camera, but it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.  

Seemingly BTE is ending and Bucks are on 'extended hiatus' as they are repackaged as heels. They've also registered 'KTB Wrestling' and 'Superdick Party' as trademarks.

I can't take to them either as faces or as heels. They aren't likeable at all as faces and can't actually commit to being heels as they constantly want to do the wee winks and nods despite not even being the slightest bit cool or edgy even though they think they are.

I get Omega is marmite as f**k but at least he commits to whatever he is portraying himself as and he can both go and knows the psychology of a wrestling match. The Bucks are just completely uninteresting spot monkeys, devoid of any personality and who are intent on coming across as too cool for school despite one having the charisma of a bag of vomit and the other being so cool he has to wear a massive headband to disguise his hairline which by now starts halfway down his neck.

Meanwhile, a guy they were instrumental in running out of AEW has basically endured such an ongoing shitshow in the last 18 months that he's retconned every single reason he left WWE in the first place to go back there as he's seen the way the competition is run. And instantly walked into the main event to boot. And will probably get at least one shot at his career goal of finally main eventing Mania.

Find it quite funny that probably the two biggest stars in the company - one being the only EVP that has left so far and more or less confirmed without saying it, was run out of the company by the distance created between him and the other EVPs, the other being their undisputed biggest name signing and biggest draw - will more than likely be headlining Mania night 1 and 2 in less than four months, whilst these two suckers do victory laps around half empty arenas and Tony Khan lets them instead of punting the c***s back to the indies where they can be carnies all they like.

[DA Baracus]

They ran Punk out of AEW? That's quite the take.

[Ludo*1]

AEW seem to be in a bit of trouble in the US. Collision and Rampage posting around 250k average viewers last week. Whilst being the B and C shows, that's less than a prominent 'irrelevant' podcaster pulls in per week. The ticket sales are apparently appalling in the States as well. Seems the company is considerably more popular this side of the pond.

To put it into context, that's down 44% from this time last year and 43% down on their beloved 18-49 demographic. There's also been reports that they're needing to re-seat live crowds to avoid embarrassing gaps in the crowd on TV.

[Lukovic]

Collision has mostly floated around 400-500 range when not up against any WWE programming. Different story when head to head obviously.

Think their ticket sales are doing better since the summer but would definitely need to check that.