Go2Sleep

General question: Who should be the person to end Orange Cassidy's streak? OC's AA/INT title run has quietly turned into one of AEW's best angles. It's like a scaled down version of Taker's Mania streak. Started off innocuous enough, then about 2/3 of the way through it started becoming a huge deal where every match feels like high stakes, and each successive win taking more and more out of them. OC has helped himself a lot with a lot of MOTYC level work in his more recent defenses (particularly the Buddy Matthews match). It's at the point now where you can't just pass the title along, it's going to be mega heat for the next person to beat him. With Callis' sudden turn, my vote is heel Takeshita. I'm not sold on the turn happening so soon, but since it has, this could make the most of it. Callis needs a new guy, and that guy has to actually accomplish something to justify leaving someone booked as strong as Kenny. I think they're missing a lot of potential with babyface Takeshita, but this is a good way to get him to that next level. My second choice would be Swerve, who should have a bigger role than he does and would no doubt be great in that "bi-weekly banger tv match" role. The only thing is I'm not sure if it would be too much system shock if he went from this Rampage-level feud with Keith and Dustin all the way to one of the biggest wins AEW has to offer right now. No doubt he has the ability to pull it off, does TK as a writer?

Imagine 3 years ago if someone told you that you could book Bad Bunny vs. Logan Paul and it would be a surefire MOTYC.

My knee-jerk reaction is I don't really dig the Callis turn. Seems too early and doesn't make a lot of sense since Don's whole character is making money off Kenny, who just had Mox dead to rights in the cage. That said, AEW usually has good explanations for things, so I'll give it a week. The in-ring action on the show was top notch. Definitely feels like the right direction to let BCC/Elite be the focus of the show, while the pillars get the rub from the title. Both groups look worthy, but the former is definitely better at filling tv time on a weekly basis.

The obvious route is Punk beating one of the Jacksons at the Collision pilot, giving the win back to Kenny at All In, then setting up a long program with Hangman after that. I guess that would involve everyone being professional, including Jericho having the self-awareness to realize he's not a part of this.

This is one of my all time favorite matches, a story-telling masterpiece. Nigel head-butting Danielson right in the eye socket is the absolute dirtiest heel move ever (Danielson had a previously detached retina vs. Morishima, and had been avoiding Nigel's head all match because he didn't want to give Nigel another concussion).

Being a child of the 90s, I had an elaborate Beanie Baby wrestling promotion. My younger brother copied me, and of course we eventually had to some super shows. He learned an early lesson about being careful which promoters you worked with as his beanies never went over in a meaningful match.

The answer is Brock wants to bleed in his matches and no one's gonna stop him. Vince is too enamored with him to say anything, is well past the point of even thinking about stepping up to him physically even in a futile effort, and Brock doesn't actually care if he never appears on WWE tv again. What 170 pound ref is gonna step in and tell Brock it's company policy to stop his match when he's "in the zone?"

Damn, sad news. Thank you Dean for all your contributions to the best wrestling message board ever. I know it pales in comparison to those who knew him personally, but I've read and posted here for nearly half my life. While I'm sure he had much more value in his life elsewhere, I hope a small part of him knew and derived joy from building a place for others to happily post about wrestling after he has left us.

I know wrestling promoters can be a delusional bunch, but presumably AEW did some market research before booking a venue like Wembley.

The mid 2000s were terrible for catchphrases lazily being added to the front of theme songs. It definitely picked up in the attitude era because everyone wanted (or Vince wanted for everyone) that "shattering glass" pop, but kinda skipped over the fact the pop was for Austin, not the glass. I think it jumped the shark with Hardcore Holly getting "How do you like me now," Finlay getting "My name is Finlay and I love to fight," and finally Gregory Helms getting just literally a recording of himself saying "Gregory Helms." I was looking for a the theme video of the last one (a rare youtube miss for wrestling themes), but here it is in a random match with Taker.

"We want hot crowds" "... Not like that." As for the history of sing-a-longs in WWE, I suppose the New Age Outlaws were the first prominent example, but that was an outlier and also more of a rhythmic catchphrase. You started to see it get really popular in glory days ROH with fans singing to the awesome (un)licensed songs there (Final Countdown leading the way). Like most things in modern wrestling, the ROH influence went mainstream as the top stars went to the national promotions and the fans that followed got their trends to catch on with the larger audience, like "this is awesome," cooperative dueling chants, etc. The Euro-invasion Mania crowds that peaked in the early 2010s took entrance-singing to the next level by getting Fandango's theme to undreamt of heights. I have to admit "John Cena sucks" to the opening bars of his theme had me rolling the first time I heard it. Once people realize it's a trend, themes start getting designed for more fan involvement.

Eh, it's wrestling. If Ric Flair can beat Vader in a cage, Kenny can beat Mox no problem. Also, I hope Pac isn't hurt because I need him to challenge Vikingo for unceremoniously taking his spot in Death Triangle.

Kenny did beat Mox in an exploding barbed wire death match so he has some hardcore cred on top of being presented as one of the true aces of AEW.

Unless you just don't like Roddy as a matter of taste, I'm not sure I get this. He fits in perfectly for the AEW format and doesn't need to be pushed extensively. He can have a match every few weeks that will be reliably good, do some small programs, bounce between ROH, etc. This 8-man, a match with Garcia, and a friendly OC challenge probably gets him through the next 2-3 months. I'd like to see him bump into Stoke and start a little feud with Moriarty

I like Roddy as a depth guy for AEW/ROH. OC walking in on Cole's interview time was great too, and gave some continuity for the save later. Not much else to say about this show, it was total filler. The writing for the major angles is really stuck in the mud.

WCW had amazing ring announcers in the 90s. GMC and Penzer were both really good, and Buffer made the main events feel special (except for Bret Clark). Of course, WWF had the Fink, so what else do you need? Vince deciding sometime in the late the 2000s that all ring announcers needed to be young and attractive definitely created a worse presentation (although Justin Roberts turned out to be pretty good).

As a naive suburban white 9 year old, I always thought it was so bizarre that Harlem Heat had their street mentioned in their ring intro. Why not just give out their full address? Why do no other wrestlers get a street name, or even a subdivision, in their intros?

I mostly meant that both guys can play face or heel effectively. I have no idea what either guy's pre-plan/call it in the ring ratio is, but they definitely both have their finger on the pulse of modern wrestling, no matter where they're working.

The ideal scenario would be Punk is a heel everywhere but Chicago like Bret in Canada (or currently MJF in Long Island), but realistically he's going to get cheered everywhere. If they aren't doing Omega/Ospreay at Wembley just do Kenny vs. Punk and let the chips fall where they may. Both guys are good enough to adapt to whatever the fans give them.

I really liked Vikingo/Loco. Vikingo definitely has 96 Rey vibe, and this match showcased it better than the Komander match. He hit some crazy stuff most people haven't seen, but he also got to work from underneath some and showcase some decent striking. Much like Rey having good technical skills, it may not be what people want to see the most, but it's important to fill out matches so they aren't collections of stunts with nothing holding them together, which get old very quickly. More matches like this and his fanbase in the US will grow very quickly. Only minor nitpick is Vikingo shouldn't have exposed the business with the catch spot. Not exposed in the sense that someone his size shouldn't be able to do that spot because he obviously did it in plain sight, but exposing that every wrestler is super strong and it's nothing special when a big guy catches someone out of the air. He can do enough cool stuff, save some things for the guys who can't do springboard 630s.

100% agree here. Can't complain about "the same guys always being on top" then immediately pivot to "these new guys suck." There is nothing inherently wrong with running MJF vs. JB or Darby, or even a filler 4-way, the problem has been this inexplicable shift to WWE-style long promo builds. MJF is the only guy who can really do that. Darby can do good short, intense promos, but Sammy and JB need to be limited to quick interviews and pre-tapes. The very first promo segment after Revolution was the only one this program needed. Just let them wrestle after that and let the ranking-drama be the story. JB and Sammy had a perfectly good Dynamite main last night, but all anyone is talking about is their bad promos. These guys are clearly assets for the future of AEW even if they aren't "the guy," so just book to their strengths as you let them put their toes in the main event waters. Also, on the subject of young assets, Wardlow's stock is somehow on the rise again despite being booked terribly for nearly a year. Orange Cassidy is as hot as he's ever been. Takeshita is finally in a high-profile feud. Jay White has the look and skill to be a true ace. AEW is absolutely loaded with fresh acts for the next few years.

Almost all of them. Women's tag finally hit the intensity to justify this long ass feud, and Jamie's opening run was great. Hobbs/Wardlow was fun modern hoss match. JB/Sammy may not be good at promos, but they are good wrestlers and they did their thing in the main. Acclaimed/JAS was skippable. Really, it was a pretty fun show with two bad (and long) promo segments dragging it down. The opening promo was just a mess with everyone blurring the face/heel lines and trying to be cutey-shooty. MJF getting a big pop when he came out should be a big tell that something's off here. The Jericho/Cole segment was some goofy overacted shit. The "handcuffed partner forced to watch other partner beat down" is usually a guaranteed heat-builder, but this was totally flat. I get not wanting to go full Sandman/Dreamer, but Saraya's kendo stick shots were severely lacking. If you're gonna run one of these type of segments to up the heat on a feud, you need to make it a little uncomfortable to watch. Also, I'm begging AEW, for segments like this, please include a cut-in that shows an obvious save candidate (like Jamie Hayter) barricaded into their locker room. That said, the BCC/Elite segment was awesome. Crime boss Danielson is so refreshing after the MJF feud, and I love Takeshita getting the rub here. I do think Takeshita and Callis will turn on Kenny in due time, but I'd like to see them milk the odd yet sensible babyface alliance with the Elite for a while. Still lots of mileage left for Takeshita as face, especially with this as his first real major feud.

AEW needs to focus on a split with ROH before they try anything crazy with their main shows.

They could let Silas go a couple of minutes, long enough for the announcers to put over that he's a former ROH TV champ at least. There's a lot of room between jobber entrance/zero offense and 50-50. It's a minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things, but why waste a guy who was at least being used as a good hand in ROH when any local or Serpentico would do?

Also, losing to Jay White won't hurt Ricky one bit. Most AEW fans are very familiar with White and see him as a big deal, and even someone who's never seen anything NJ at least knows that another company trusted him to play the same role as AJ Styles and Kenny Omega.