Go2Sleep

Kind of a meh episode of Dynamite after last week's great show. Danielson turn was extremely predictable and poorly sold by the announcers, but it did get the right crowd reaction so they're definitely onto something with Hangman as the babyface ace. It's also nice to see a top heel stable without Jericho as the centerpiece. Overall, this program had way too much heel dominance. The BCC angle was cool enough, but OC getting dominated by Butcher and not winning clean, injured/distracted Omega giving most of the match to un-over Cobb, Cole giving most of the match to lower-ranked Garcia, Willow and Riho looking like total idiots against the Outcasts. Even when the faces did get a moment, it didn't compensate and the crowd wasn't as into it as they should be.

The Vince meme doesn't have enough panels.

Nikki Bella and Trish Stratus. I don't know if Christian fully counts because his team with Edge was great stuff, but as singles guy he was painfully boring until he went to TNA. Some combination of being the big fish in a small pond, a promotion backing him with confidence, and working with fresh faces made his matches must-see pretty quickly. Currently in AEW, Big Bill.

Also, ROH is basically early AEW/prime NXT now. If you like that simple pro-wrestling aesthetic and tighter matches/shows, you should definitely be watching Honor Club every week.

Didn't AEW hire a Kevin Dunn disciple last year to head up their production? They definitely do a lot of the WWE-style "change cameras with every impact" thing now.

Matches: Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Penta el Cero Miedo(TNT title) Brody King vs. Jake Hager Leila Grey vs. Taya Valkyrie The Acclaimed vs. The Kingdom

Aussie Open would be my top choice, though also the least realistic. Rush/Dralistico would be my second choice as a good first heel team for the right babyfaces to chase down. The Kingdom seems to have more "go away" heat, if they have any heat at all. If they were more stoogey like the Ass Boys or Lethal/Jarrett I could see some value as transitional champs to the right face team, but they take themselves too seriously and I'm not sure that hypothetical must-win face team has presented itself yet in New ROH. Rush/Dralistico can hold the belts as heels longer without getting stale. Top Flight and Lucha Bros are AEW-first guys, and probably shouldn't be taking time on both shows. Of the two, it would obviously help Top Flight more to at least pad their resume since they're still 6 months to a year away from winning the AEW belts.

If you want to see Vikingo in a Tony Khan production again, you won't have to wait long.

Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae. Not sure if Ricochet and Kacy Catanzaro are still together, but that's another answer.

Is there a reason the airport cops couldn't disperse the stalkers?

I like this idea since it's kind of hard to figure out who the extra heels are gonna be if this is building to Blood and Guts or Anarchy in the Arena (outside of farfetched Punk scenarios). Stu taking a long time off, seeing the Dark Order go soft and the BCC filling the role they used to have wouldn't take too much suspension of disbelief by wrestling standards. Vikingo/Kenny was special as expected. That was a master class on how to make someone the majority of the audience probably hasn't seen before into a draw for your company. You can book Vikingo as a special attraction any time now. Would love to see him vs. Claudio, Darby, Pac, Danielson, or another round with Fenix for the AEW crowd.

Also likely Mercedes' first AEW match.

I mean that's a pretty generic corporate statement. Although I'd be down for Goldberg/Jarrett one-off feud.

Still can't believe Omega vs. Hijo del Vikingo is happening on this show. If they do 2/3 of the match they had planned for Triplemania, that'll be worth the price of admission. Also always a privilege to see Sting wrestle live. Gunns/Top Flight would be better if FTR hadn't already come back and Top Flight wasn't feuding with the Kingdom in ROH. I'm sure they'll put on a good show as usual, but that's pretty filler-ish as far as title matches go. Also disappointed with the women's match. Do we really need Skye to get squashed by every member of the Outcasts? Hopefully Rampage will have a better offering for the women. I was really hoping for Hayter since she was on the ticket promo. Same for Hangman.

The mold breaking matches always tend to be among a wrestler's best, but I think the spirit of the question is when both wrestlers involved deviate from their structure. Bret/Austin at Mania 13 is one of the best matches ever. It's a big deviation from Bret's baseline, but not really outside of what would become Austin's baseline for his attitude run. Flair/Foley I Quit at Summer Slam 06 is gritty and viscerally hate-filled in a way that few matches are. It was incredible to see Flair venture into those waters at the stage of his career where he definitely didn't have to, but it wasn't out of the norm for Foley. Combining the names on the list is where you find the hidden gems. Bret vs. Shawn at Survivor Series 97: The Bret/Shawn Iron Man is exactly what you would've expected from those two in the mid 90s. While the Survivor Series match is mostly known for the finish, it's a lot of fun to see these two working a distinctly attitude style main event instead of a golden generation one. Lots of brawling, strike-based offense, no real dead time. Just two guys who hated each other slugging it out until the best fuck finish of all time. Flair vs. Hogan at Superbrawl 99: Their BATB 94 match was a perfect blend of their routines, but much like Bret/Shawn, it was really fun to watch these two just fight like they meant it instead of milking every second for the ideal crowd reaction. This was the at the start of WCW's free fall, so one could be forgiven for missing it (and yeah, it does end with David turning on Ric using a taser while both guys are tied up in a figure 4), but this is definitely worth 10 minutes of your time. Shawn vs. Cena at Mania 23: HHH tearing his quad again and avoiding the planned triple threat was a blessing in disguise. Shawn got to work as a crafty overmatched vet instead of a standard WWE face who takes a bunch of moves then goes straight to his signature spots. Cena got to work as dominant champion instead of a fighting spirit WWE "face." Really smart match that flies under the radar as one of the top career matches for either (granted both have so many to choose from). Matt Hardy vs. Edge at Summer Slam 05: Not guys on the list, or with a distinct formula per se, but they were both very much pure WWE style guys in 2005. Here in the wake of the affair, though, these two brought it for the grittiest most violent 5 minutes of their careers. Nothing cheesy or over done, they just both acted like they wanted to kill each other and it's my #1 sub 5-minute match, and I would think rather easily the best non-gimmick match of either of their careers.

I know, I love AEW.

A nice subtle touch to Mox's heel turn is that after he tapped to being hung with a chain, he's become obsessed with choking people out. Yeah, he's always used various wrestling chokes as finishers, but now he's hanging on after the match and wants to put everyone to sleep. It's the classic trauma response of doing it to others to hide that it happened to him.

Put me in the "show was good" group. The opening promo segment was a good reset for the future of the AEW title, even if it was clunky at times. The lesson learned from the MJF/Danielson feud is that no matter how good the match ends up being, people are going to tune out of a feud with a predictable heel win. At least JB and Darby could both believably beat MJF. Sammy was the only weak link here. All wrestlers should be given a cheat-sheet thesaurus for when they want to use insider terms in promos. Sammy could've easily said "lackey" instead of a "job guy" and his promo would've instantly been 100x better. Although, his real problem is that he's still, ya know, Jericho's lackey so everything said was hollow anyway. It would've been especially hilarious if he took the fall in the main. Nevertheless, the idea was good, and I won't begrudge AEW from making their unique stars the focus of the title picture. BCC/DO 6-man was awesome. Yuta reminds me of Dean Malenko in the Radicals. He can switch between a technical killer and a cheating motherfucker in a second. Mox and Claudio haven't changed too much beyond attacking guys after the bell, Yuta is the soul of the new heel BCC. OC/Jarrett was everything you'd want from such a match. Jarrett's Memphis tribute act is perfect balance for the AEW midcard, as long as he loses his big matches, which he does. Not sure about QTV, but I wasn't instantly repulsed by it as some. It probably isn't good for Wardlow to be involved with this for too long, though. As little sense as it would've made, I would've preferred Wardlow taking Sammy's spot in the opening promo and forgetting about Hobbs and QT altogether. Women's stuff was in a holding pattern this week. Taya beating Jade with help from the Outcasts would be the ideal outcome I think. The main event was a fun modern-style clusterfuck. I liked that Jericho wasn't afraid to work face for one night. HOB retaining is the right call, and the ending finally gave me reason to believe in Mox/Hangman still going on. If BCC goes after the Elite, that's something. Imagine if they brought Punk back as the fourth...

I've been trying to catch up on New ROH. It reminds me of HHH-era 2-hour NXT. You think you're gonna burn out on too much wrestling, but the matches are all so good, you end up coming back. Thought Yuta/Thatcher was particularly good. Yuta is a fine fighting spirit babyface, but he's a lot better as a dickish heel who has talent but cheats anyway. Thatcher is a hard sell as a singles face (his team with Ciampa was good), but the pure rules and Wheeler being an asshole made his style work for the face role here. Billie Starkz seems like a women's wrestling LeBron James. Such obvious talent as a high schooler, hopefully her career is long and successful.

I don't think AEW needs more belts, but they should find a way to convert the TBS title to women's tag titles. They actually have a good window right now, because Jade losing to Toni, Saraya, or even a freshly turned Ruby wouldn't hurt her (especially when she comes back to wreck them as part of the originals), and the promo with them saying "we all deserve a belt" is pretty easy to write. The initial change would be jarring and require a ton of suspension of disbelief, but it's worth the short term hit to get the women's division to a better place.

Since most gamblers are idiots, I'm sure wrestling bookies could come out ahead playing it straight with +/- and O/U bets while keeping the limits low, but I'd still expect promoters to do last minute changes on bets with lopsided action from time to time just because.

Even the caricature stuff was gold, because you could really follow Vince's descent into madness as he was repeatedly humiliated by Austin (and occasionally Taker). Re-watching the Attitude era a few years back, I was blown away by the fact that Austin had the upper hand on him 80% of the time. The character of course wore out its welcome by 2000, but the arc from Montreal into the corporate ministry days was great stuff.

I don't think a reincarnated Brodie Lee would even get the bad taste out of my mouth of this feud stealing the Blood and Guts spot from the women.

I like Hobbs as a champ, but I don't think rehabbing QT from comedy jobber to serious threat is gonna work. Bryan channeling Dean Malenko with his dejected promo was great. Time for "Metalik" to win the casino battle royal for a #1 contender spot. OC/Lethal was great and built off their previous matches. Not sure why Mox/Hangman is continuing. I like the full heel turn for BCC, but I don't think we need any more Mox/Hangman matches for a long while.