The AEW Thread

[DA Baracus]

3 hours ago, 8MileBU said:

No real discussion value to this, but having never heard of Serena Deeb before AEW, I was quite shocked to recently learn that she’s only 37.

I just assumed she was some 50 year old female legend from the indie promotions that AEW were paying her dues with a couple years contract before retirement much like they did with Sting.

You mind she got her head shaved in WWE to join CM Punk's (short lived) Straight Edge Society? Said faction also included Luke Gallows (in storyline Festus was just him but being drugged; he somehow got off the drugs and binned being called Festus) and Joey Mercury.

Edited May 11 by DA Baracus

[8MileBU]

2 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

You mind she got her head shaved in WWE to join CM Punk's (shirt lived) Straight Edge Society? Said faction also included Luke Gallows (in storyline Festus was just him but being drugged; he somehow got off the drugs and binned being called Festus) and Joey Mercury.

Nah I don’t remember. I drifted out of following wrestling for many years post attitude era.

[Bert Raccoon]

On 11/05/2024 at 11:31, DA Baracus said:

You mind she got her head shaved in WWE to join CM Punk's (short lived) Straight Edge Society? Said faction also included Luke Gallows (in storyline Festus was just him but being drugged; he somehow got off the drugs and binned being called Festus) and Joey Mercury.

Truelly was a wild time

[GNU_Linux]

Eddie Kingston out until May 2025 courtesy of a broken leg, tibular fracture & a tear in both the ACL & meniscus.

[TheGoon]

Rumours of Willow/Banks main eventing tonight, which seems bold when there’s an Anarchy in the Arena.

[Lukovic]

They've been billing it as a Triple Main Event which is a bit of a cop out.

However, their stuff was on last on the countdown show they put on YouTube.

Think it'd be a tough job for any match to get the crowd back after anarchy in the arena but hope they can do it if they end up last.

Genuinely think someone is getting set on fire in anarchy in the arena fwiw 

[TheGoon]

2 hours ago, Lukovic said:

They've been billing it as a Triple Main Event which is a bit of a cop out.

However, their stuff was on last on the countdown show they put on YouTube.

Think it'd be a tough job for any match to get the crowd back after anarchy in the arena but hope they can do it if they end up last.

Genuinely think someone is getting set on fire in anarchy in the arena fwiw 

Darby probably only came back on that condition.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

MJF going for the 2002 uber-roided Triple H look tonight.

[TheGoon]

MJF back and signed up is a massive shot in the arm, so ling as he stays a p***k and not a comedy goof.

[TheGoon]

That main even was complete insanity. The fire I could tolerate, but I really did not like Darby hanging there. 

Excellent show overall though, just too long. They could do with putting a few of these matches on Dynamite instead.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

I thought that was an enjoyable enough show, especially the final 3 matches and MJF looking like he is back on top form. I did feel a bit bad for Adam Cole seemingly getting the Poochie treatment, but maybe it's best to draw a line under the devil storyline. It was also good to see Mone put on such a good match after a fairly tepid start to her AEW career.

I thought the FTW match went on far too long and seemed fairly sloppy in parts. I think Hook maybe was legit knocked a bit loopy at one point.

The downsides were that almost every match had interference and Don Callis seems to be involved in every single storyline. They should get Ospreay away from him ASAP.

I'm looking forward to the Owen Hart Cup, especially with such a huge prize for the winners now. Forbidden Door should also be good fun, especially if they can get some of the Soft Ground guys involved.

[DA Baracus]

Owen Cup final will surely be Ospreay vs MJF, with Cole costing MJF. 

At Wembley we get MJF vs Cole in a big mad grudge match, possibly with some mental gimmick or stipulation. We would also get Swerve defending against Ospreay.

[Lukovic]

I'm thinking it'll be Hangman or Ospreay for the men's side and Mariah May for the women's.

Overall thoughts on the show were that it was good but probably still behind Dynasty and Revolution for the year overall.

Thought the last three matches were all fantastic but no idea how they can top some of the stuff in Anarchy without someone actually dying at this point.

[DA Baracus]

Some pop for MJF like. Also he absolutely smashed it with that promo. Fantastic stuff.

 

 

 

 

[DA Baracus]

12 minutes ago, Lukovic said:

without someone actually dying at this point.

Don't let Darby hear this!

[forameus]

Didn't get full attention watching this unfortunately so probably missed a lot of the good stuff, but had full attention on the final two matches.  Usually they slavishly stick to their 4 hour runtime, so to see it go another 32 minutes, wondered if they would let things breathe a little more.  They did not.  Still struggling with having one segment still running while they're desperately trying to get things moving on to the next.  I know I say it every time, but they craft a lot of great moments, and they're so guilty of just not letting them have the impact they should.  It does mean the show skips along in a way that WWE will never manage (All In last year did not feel like we'd sat there for five and a half hours), but it's still a problem.  And the second big problem that they seem to refuse to learn from came in their now standard clusterfuck match.  I imagine in these kind of matches they're keen to empower their talent to just go out and have fun and make things less scripted outside of the main spots.  That's great, and having things be too scripted goes the other way often.  But it's absolutely murder for actually presenting as a product for pretty much everyone involved.  The stadium stampede match at All In was fun, but you often had very little idea what was going on if the action wasn't near you.  And if you're watching at home, you're probably going to miss a lot because they struggle to film it all.  They seemed to be trying to remedy that with split screen, but ended up having half the cameras essentially giving the same shot.  If your wrestlers are going to kill themselves for a match, the least you can do is make sure their effort gets shown.

Edge/Black was the usual circus of nonsense, although looks like the former might be out for a wee while with how mobile he was at the end.  That "elbow drop" looked very much like he completely shat it, and landing on your feet from that height is not a good idea.  Hopefully it's just him feeling it a wee bit after adrenaline and not a big injury.

Still not feeling Mone as a character at all.  Having her actually wrestle improves things drastically, but they - and her as well - seem to have no real idea what they're doing.  Surely if you beat the beloved face, you cement your place as the heel, but she was playing the ending like it's childhood dream Shawn Michaels stuff, and it all just seems...off.  Still early days though, if she can start wrestling regularly, do her shite dance less regularly, and just generally shut up, she'll do fine.

MJF coming back is a massive shot in the arm for the company, and an even more massive shot somewhere else for MJF himself looking at the size of him.  But once the pop of him actually arriving was done...bit off the rails.  You're imagining him coming back would ignite this massive ending to the story they were trying to tell with Cole, and that would be so, sooooo easy to tell. But instead, like someone said, they give him the poochie treatment and make him seem like a complete dildo, then seemingly put the entire story behind him.  Just seems like such an incredible waste of what was probably one of the best builds they've ever done.  MJF can make pretty much anything work, so I doubt what he ends up doing will fail, but it just seemed a bit shit compared to what we could have gotten.  And there's a worry that he can't be as healthy as he could be as he's clearly opted against surgery.

Then the main event...at the risk of coming off a bit Helen Lovejoy, I really didn't like the look of that fire spot.  Maybe I'm wrong and Darby Allin has spent all his time while out getting all kinds of pyro technician training to make sure everything was as safe as it could be, but somehow I doubt it.  As a Rammstein fan, I know they used to just go out on stage and f**k about with things, then part of their burning stage fell into the crowd one gig and injured a fair few.  Since then they're all fully qualified for everything they do.  Any time I've seen them do something like that - and any other time I've seen it done anywhere from memory - usually it's light them up, let them have a few seconds ablaze, then get them the f**k out. I haven't usually seen the pyro guy chase the receiver manically, only stopped by other wrestlers randomly going at him with fire extinguishers.  I'm probably wrong and it was all incredibly safe, but the addition of Darby Allin pushes it a wee bit, as the guy seems to genuinely not care about his own wellbeing.  Fine when it's only him affected, less fine when it isn't.  The hanging upside down spot seemed similarly stupid to do.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

He was fortunate not to completely Sid Vicious himself doing that spot. It's still a shame he's going to be out, as most of his matches have been fantastic in AEW.

 

Edited May 28 by Sherrif John Bunnell

[FairWeatherFan]

21 hours ago, forameus said:

I really didn't like the look of that fire spot.  Maybe I'm wrong and Darby Allin has spent all his time while out getting all kinds of pyro technician training to make sure everything was as safe as it could be, but somehow I doubt it. 

It wasn't so much Darby hanging about with stunt workers, but Jack. This clip started going around again after Darby turned up on TV with the "flamethrower"

He was pretty well coated in the gel. They were quick with the extinguishers and towels. It was pretty safe all things considered. An important point being they understood that being on fire was enough of a spot on its own. If it had been Darby on the receiving end I could imagine him saying he wants to be set on fire and throw himself off stage.

[Comrie]

I'm still watching DoN this afternoon.

It's bit fun with a couple of good matches but it feels like very messy, disorganized booking in places.

 

[forameus]

Do they know they can just not involve Ospreay in everything?  He is brilliant, but he's already got one belt, no real need for him to be number 1 contender going into Forbidden Door.  Seems the easiest thing in the world to have him win the title for the first time in the main event of All In.