Go2Sleep
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Posts posted by Go2Sleep
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54 minutes ago, tbarrie said:
Probably too late to bother with match by match reactions, but one thing I thought was interesting: the Death Riders/Young Bucks team were the only heels to lose all night. (Unless you want to argue that, as the less beloved face in their matches, Mina and Ospreay were kinda-sorta heels for the night. Which - I don't know. Maybe?)
You have the two matches you mentioned that were face/face, plus Hurt Syndicate who are tweeners that everyone is much more into than Dustin/Sammy. It also helps that Mercedes and Okada are in the same boat where crowds are mostly "we're happy to play along with you being a heel, but we really love you."
Another great little moment in AITA was Willow's reaction when Bodies started playing.
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1 hour ago, JLowe said:
So WWE has booked an NXT show for the 2300 Arena a week before the AEW Philly residency. Petty, petty shit. Expect them to make big money legends offers to some ECW vets.
The old-ass ECW carnies would be wise to play the two against each other for the biggest payday.
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AEW is basically ROH grit and grinding their way to the big stage. Black and gold NXT was great, but that clearly had a hard ceiling. WWE buying WCW set the wrestling world back literal decades, and it's nice to see us finally coming out of the dark ages.
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2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:
Thekla's introduction, besides the back-bend and camera stare, was pretty weak btw. It felt like they let her do that and then skipped right over it without a second word.
I disagree with this, I thought it was pretty effective considering she doesn't have a lot of name recognition. Quick beatdown of an established name, then a flashy pose that made her look dangerous but also kinda hot and it was so quick and smooth, you can tell she's probably pretty good in the ring which is the biggest sell you need in AEW. Basically came across like a much better version of The Bunny. Excited to see what she can do.
The women really stole the show overall. Toni/Mercedes feels big time, and Anna and Harley really don't believe in putting their hands up.
With Hangman going over in the Owen being somewhat of a surprise and having no obvious direction for Swerve and Ospreay, I was kind of wondering if they would weasel into a 4-way. It would get around the problem of not having the most compelling guys at the top of the card for the biggest show. If you're not going to put Toni/Mercedes in the main event spot, a 4-way elimination match where Mox goes out first and you have Swerve, Hanger, and Will going nuts for 30 minutes seems like a better fit for the moment. If TK finally has the balls to do a women's main, then this isn't as important and you can run Swerve/Will vs The Bucks or Claudio/Yuta.
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Did a re-watch of Okada/Speedball, and it was top-shelf. It had the vibe of a Dean Malenko CW title defense on an NWO-era show. No excessive finishers and kickouts, just a lot of smooth wrestling and counter-wrestling, well-timed high spots, and a perfect tempo to keep the crowd engaged without over-stepping its bounds on the card.
Way lower stakes than the main, way less spectacle than AITA, but a perfect fit on the card and a MOTYC in its own right.
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Pretty stacked card with a lot of guys fresh off big PPV matches. Wouldn't at all be surprised to see Fletcher take the TNT belt.
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AITA was really good. I don't know that they needed to let Bodies loop 3 times, but otherwise it was a perfect blend of comedy and violence. The Bucks were great stooging in their Continental Army getup, and I'm So Excited getting a music spot was great. Willow getting padlocked to the ring post through her gauged ear did not get enough focus. Swerve's staple gun-fu is always a blast, and the staple to the tongue was some fresh cringe. Briscoe driving the ambulance back to lock up the DRs and leave the stooging Bucks to get theirs was a good layout. The OWA through an exploding table being an afterthought was hilarious.
Hanger/Ospreay was great as expected, and didn't seem to run excessively long, refreshingly simple even. I liked the touch with each trying to finish with a move from their biggest rival, showing what they've learned through their epic battles. Hanger winning is cool and somewhat unexpected. Big question is what does Ospreay do at All In now?
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20 minutes ago, tbarrie said:
I don't think they are redoing it. They're doing a reconciliation angle, which in my opinion is much more satisfying than having Willow be all "Oh, you're a face again now? Okay, all is forgiven.".
Big agree with this. It's too bad the heel Stat/Stoke partnership didn't go anywhere, but if they had to scrap it, I'm glad they aren't just pretending it didn't happen. Kinda feel like it could pay off with Stat eating a chair shot from one of the male Death Riders in AITA that re-awakens that sympathy from Willow. Would work best if Willow then breaks something over the same person's head/puts them through a table/whatever that gives her team the win.
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Briscoe/Ricochet in a stretcher match feels like a "spin the wheel make the deal" kind of thing, but both guys have top level character work and are more than willing to take crazy bumps, so I expect it could be a quiet show-stealer.
Only match I'm not interested in is the tag titles. The MJF/HS angle just needs to get where it's going, and it took a step backwards on Dynamite. The Outrunners match showed that Shelton and Bobby need to be in there with guys who push the pace, and Dustin is definitely not that. In fact, he's probably the worst type of dance partner for the Syndicate. Too big to be thrown around, too slow to hit credible offense. CRU would've been a much better fit here.
Beyond that, it looks like a killer show. Hanger and Ospreay are signaling that they're going full epic, AITA is always fun, Hayter/Mercedes is a good pairing, FTR vs. Nigel/Garcia is much better suited to deliver the type of story they're going for with the tag title match, the aforementioned stretcher match, Speedball/Okada is a foregone conclusion but could be a lot of fun if Okada isn't in "mail it in" mode. Lots to look forward to.
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1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:
I'm going to start with the bad but I hated the Hurt Syndicate segment. It feels like with how MVP and MJF were acting this is going to lead to a split and we those two feuding with Shelton and Bobby. The seeds were planted when MVP kept advocating to bring Max in and it wouldn't surprise me if this is the direction they go. Maybe that's why I hated this but even if that doesn't happen there was no need for the group to have MJF and I'd rather they stay in the tweener role more than anything else.
Agreed that this segment was really bad, although I'm not as worried about that particular doomsday booking scenario. The biggest problem was it felt like they were building to *something* and then it just trailed off into nothing. MVP and MJF have been riding the tweener line nicely for this angle, but it felt like they were forcing a full heel act to try build heat for Dustin and Sammy who, I'm sorry, are a horrible act right now in AEW. Dustin cutting the same "fired up" promo he's been doing for the last 4 years and Sammy clearly in "be a good boy and don't rock the boat" mode is so grating. Plus the match is going to be terrible. Dustin is too big to get thrown around and too slow to hit credible offense and Sammy is not a sympathetic babyface. CRU vs HS would've been a fun match with the weasely heels trying to get anything to stick and maybe even engendering some sympathy as the match goes on. Dustin and Sammy should not be on a ppv.
A couple other less bad, but weird, things were the Russo-ish end to the women's match and making a big deal out of Hanger/Ospreay as the main. I was really hoping we'd get the trivia note of Willow and Marina being the first women to main event an AEW ppv, plus it just feels wrong to stick AITA in the middle of a show, no matter how much of a fuck finish they're planning for it, or how obviously good Hanger/Ospreay will be.
I liked the wild brawl at the end and Toni calling out Mina's entrance music was hilarious.
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I've been on the Kyle Fletcher bandwagon for a while now (and still am despite this upcoming criticism), but has anyone else noticed that he leg slaps so hard his own leg bleeds in almost every match?
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If that's what she's going for, TK should chip in with a fitting theme song. I'm far from an expert on what constitutes 60s/70s British counter culture music, but there has to be a good wrestling theme from Pink Floyd or Zeppelin or something.
Edit: It's "Burn" by Deep Purple. Get on it,Tony.
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2 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:
It seemed to me that MJF is going to have his "lawyer" mess with the contract and he's gonna do a corporate takeover bit, which would be awful.
MJF and Sterling taking over HS and reducing the original members to menial tasks would have some really bad undertones. If they aren't gonna play it straight, MJF is the one who should be getting out-smarted.
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I forgot to comment on last week's Collision, which I thought was an ideal weekly TV show for AEW. Bowens and Takeshita/Alexander took care of business quickly, which left room for Speedball/Dralistico to be the quiet show stealer, and Ricochet/Angelico landed somewhere in between. The main got some time and had some blood to stand out despite the non-finish, but it effectively set up a future angle like Willow/Stat. Perfect pacing.
Anyway, Beach Break was a fine bigger Clash style show, which is totally fine to run once in a while. Opening tag was fun with some good fake outs on Ospreay and Hangman falling apart. The women's 4-way was good with some extra chaos at the end. Good to see Mina back and I'm excited to see what Thekla can bring. Not sure what's going on with MJF and HS, but there is some intrigue there. Shelton lined up to superkick MJF if Lashley gave the thumbs down and quickly switching gears was a good touch. Main event wasn't that great, but the attitude style set up for AITA was good. Not super excited for Gabe Kidd, but if he's just there to eat damage instead of Okada, then whatever.
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Didn't Curt Hawkins have a big losing streak in WWE that at least raised his profile from "who" to "a guy on TV regularly?"
More recently, Harley Cameron, which is a surprising overlook by this thread.
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3 hours ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:
I found this interesting, because on the face of it, this seems like more the sort of thing I'd like to see from AEW. I think I'd just like to see them utilise more of their roster and in more interesting ways. But I don't know how much of the appeal of something like this is just nostalgia, and it's hard to gauge looking at it out of context, so I thought I'd have a go at transposing a card like the above to a modern AEW show, and to see if that looks more or less appealing than what we regularly get. Here's my attempt:
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So, I dunno. Would people like to see more stuff like this? Probably not all on one show I'm guessing, but sprinkled in amongst the regular workrate stuff?Only comparison I think is way off is Finlay/Eddie which is obviously more of lower-card workrate match. Roddy Strong vs. Wheeler Yuta is probably more apt.
And yes, I think the answer is sprinkle in like 2-3 of these kind of matches while still allowing for some longer matches every week. The goal isn't to kill the workrate vibe of AEW, it's to make the matches that do go long feel more special and meaningful for the wrestlers involved. Also, there's nothing that says a short match has to be bad. Given the general quality of AEW's roster, I don't see why that would be the case very often. The fact that "short" equals "bad" or "squash" in peoples' minds is a big part of the problem (and this is not unique to AEW, this goes all the way back to when Raw went 3 hours).
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Of all the people who don't need to be going 10 minutes, 2025 Rhino is at the top of the list. Maybe he could've gored Kip Sabian first, but that was exactly the kind of match I'm looking for on my weekly shows. Not everything needs to be 5*
Okada/Knight was pretty good despite falling into the trap of being longer than the story required. Okada mixed up his TV formula and let his heel personality shine through. Knight is a super athlete with a decent amount of physical charisma despite not establishing much on-screen personality yet. Speedball as the Steamboat-level pure babyface is working for me. I'd love to see Jet Speed vs. FTR down the line.
I think every match had a really good finish.
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21 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:
Nitro 12/22/97:
- Fit Finlay vs. Eddie Guerrero
- Meng (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Steve McMichael
- Hector Garza, Juventud Guerrera & Rey Misterio Jr. vs. La Parka, Psychosis & Silver King
- Hammer vs. Chris Benoit
- Rick Steiner (w/Ted DiBiase) vs. Scott Norton
- WCW United States Heavyweight Title Match: Curt Hennig (c) vs. Disco Inferno
- Lodi & Riggs vs. Harlem Heat (Booker T & Stevie Ray)
- Buff Bagwell vs. Chris Jericho
- Randy Savage (w/Miss Elizabeth) vs. Lex Luger
You could probably get a better opponent for Benoit, and hopefully the Harlem Heat match was a 2-minute squash, but honestly, I'd love a show like this. Finlay/Eddie and the lucha 6-man could use some time, but everything else sounds really fun if kept under 5 minutes. The other thing is WCW had tons of workrate banger ppvs from this time frame (Starrcade from this month wasn't one of them, but nevertheless) that weren't 6 hour arms-races because how do you make your ppvs feel more special than your weekly shows when the weekly shows are filled with 10+ minute competitive workrate matches?
AEW has been getting a little better about this lately, but the main reason a lot of their shows feel repetitive is that if everything is a workrate match, nothing is. One thing I will say I love about AEW's format is they vary their overruns enough that you can't clock the finish of the main.
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If AEW could replace Marina Shafir with Shayna Baszler and gaslight the fans that she was always in the Death Riders, they could do a lot more with that role.
AEW's women's roster is really deep now to the point where someone the caliber of Deonna Purrazzo has trouble getting on TV, but I think Dakota Kai and Kacy Catanzaro would be really good fits without needing to take over the division. Alternatively, merge the TBS/World title and bring on the women's tag titles.
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I know people have calcified opinions on the Bucks, but that was a damn good match with Knight and Speedball. All the action was smooth and they had the right balance of the faces getting good moments, but the Bucks just being in the right spots more often to sell the experience advantage.
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3 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:
Unpopular opinion (maybe?), AEW doesn't do enough squash matches. Even enhancement matches are 15 minutes long and have a commercial break. It's a real draining format. They need to switch shit up and do a few short matches and a few squashes here and there.
I think this has been a big knock on modern style going back years before AEW. It's amazing how MNW-era shows got shit on for having "bad" matches, but going back and watching some of that stuff really highlights what could be done better today (and I'm going to guess this applies to WWE almost as much as AEW). Back then, two guys could get plenty of shit in under 5 minutes and the match was still very competitive. Now maybe we didn't appreciate it as much back then because that time was being saved for a 20 minute HHH or Hogan promo, but guys back then were accomplishing just as much in 5 minutes as today's guys do in 15. It also had the knock on effect where every ppv wasn't 5-hour arms race.
In AEW today, imagine having some quick attitude style matches, then saving that time for a great 15 minute TV main. You get more guys on the show, and the fans are more engaged throughout.
As far as whether or not someone like Blake Christian is a jobber right now (he absolutely is), it's helpful to think of things in terms of inflation. Blake Christian isn't a jobber like Iron Mike Sharpe, but that's only because Sharpe wasn't working in an era where everyone got 10 minute matches. If you follow the trendline of Sharpe -> Funaki -> Blake, you can see that each is equally a jobber, but the amount of offense each gets is proportional to the average match times of their era. Yeah, Blake might get some 2-counts on Omega, but those 2-counts are worth about as much as a 1000 marks in post-war Germany. He's every bit as hopeless in a match against Omega as Sharpe was against Diesel or Funaki against JBL.
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Heel FTR is already more interesting than they've been since the Briscoes feud. Dax always works better as bitter guy who *thinks* he's saving pro wrestling, and Cash's faux-conflicted "aw shucks, I guess I gotta try to kill this guy" thing is hilarious.
I feel like they could get more mileage out of GoA and HS. GoA are one of the most teflon acts in AEW. Seems like we're headed towards MJF/Lashley for a spot in the syndicate at DoN, but I hope GoA can be protected a little and maybe fill the void left by Cage/Archer.
Toni's promo reminded me of the Jericho battle royal ring intros.
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4 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:
Re: $400,000 Purse
I (kinda) like how they didn't explain anything regarding the money. Who provided it? Why did they provide it? How will it be paid out? Will they be given an giant novelty check? Adversely, did Top Flight/AR Fox ever get their money?They absolutely did and still talk about it 3 years later. I love the random jackpot matches. Everyone knows how loaded the Khans are, and it adds a little extra to random cluster match AEW would be running anyways.
Hate to say it, but the attitude-style opening promo kinda worked for me. Granted, it was more like the Invasion time frame where I wasn't really thrilled with the direction of the main angle, but each new song still elicited that internal pop, and still gave hope of something cool happening down the road. Kenny is a really underrated promo. Not the most naturally gifted speaker, but has a genuine connection with the crowds that makes his occasional awkwardness endearing rather than exposing.
Dug the quick finish to Mox/Shibata and Swerve/Pac, although that appeared to be caused by injury. Really hope Pac is ok. His ankle would not have been my first guess of things that got hurt on that buckle bomb, but they clearly audibled straight to the finish.
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On 4/8/2025 at 2:39 PM, twiztor said:
i must have not been in the right mindset while watching this, because while i didn't find any match BAD, i also didn't think any match was GREAT.
Kinda feel the same way. Fletcher/Briscoe was probably the best (and even that probably ran 5 minutes longer than necessary), and Toni brought the character work really leaning into the Rocky aesthetic, but overall it was a card of "high floor low ceiling" matches that all ran together. I thought the triple threat was a lot more epic than it needed to be, but I'll give Kenny and Ricochet props for that finish. I can't remember a damn thing from the trios title match, but the FTR turn was great.
In a way, it felt like show where everyone felt pressured to justify their spot on the card, rather than everyone working together for tight, cohesive show.
AEW - JUNE 2025
in ALL ELITE WRESTLING
Posted
God I hope Luchasaurus can get back, because a team with him and Mortos that is some kind of Money Inc/FoF mash-up is my new ultimate fantasy booking.