Go2Sleep

The show-ending angle was obvious, but executed perfectly. Unhinged Hangman actually having a peaceful moment knowing that he finally one-upped Swerve was some top-tier character work. BCC/Conglomeration + Will was a fun match, but I wished they had prepped Danielson for some of the obvious questions he'd get on commentary. He's the leader of BCC, why wouldn't he know Pac's status within the group? Why would he not have any insight on Mox, even if that insight is "he's gone AWOL for a couple months, I'm worried about him." Kyle Fletcher has to be this year's most improved by a lot (fitting I thought the same about Skye last year). Everything about him screams main event and he's carried his weight in matches with Swerve, Ospreay, and now Okada this year. Loved the finishing stretch where Kyle was always ready for rainmaker, so Okada tricked him with the cock-knocker instead. Side note that I feel for Jamie Hayter having to come up with a new finisher now, but her arm-trap lariat looks great. I'm all for being gaslit that it was always the Hayter-ade. Garcia cut a nice promo, but as per usual with MJF segments, the right moments didn't get to breathe. Then the level of hate in Hangman/Swerve made it look like these two were fighting over a parking space anyway.

I meant a stiff promo similar to being a stiff worker. He's not necessarily trying to hurt guys on the mic, but he wants it to look good and his quick wit and way with words can be pretty rough for guys who can't keep up. The Rock is probably the king of stiff promos, but guys like HHH, Shawn, and Cena would fall into that category too. When those guys are verbally sparring with someone one their level, it's like the Kobashi/Sasaki chop exchange, but when it's someone who isn't, it's like Vader vs. a local guy on Saturday Night.

This segment and that worst promo of the decade candidate with Bill/Jericho/Kenny (aka the segment so bad it gave Kenny diverticulitis) was a real 1-2 knockout of his "good live promo" reputation. Copeland is one of the all-time "stiff promo" guys, though.

I am stunned Swerve didn't want to leave the company that had him main-eventing 50k person show for a company that decided he was the most expendable member of a stable with Ashonte thee Adonis, Top Dolla, and B-Fab. HHH's whiny corpo speak might actually be more embarrassing than Huckster/Nacho Man and Fake Razor/Diesel.

Ricky Starks is like the AEW Dolph Ziggler. Certainly capable and reasonably charismatic, but he has to try so hard to get himself to a level that's like 80% of a true top guy. Someone that when things break right can convince people that they have all the tools and are so close the next level, but inevitably fail to deliver at that top level for consistent stretches. It takes many years of this cycle before most people finally realize this is as good he's getting. Starks probably also needs to look in the mirror because a guy who was in the exact same booking situation as him 8 months ago is doing quite well now just by virtue of embracing his next opportunity. If Starks takes that attitude to WWE, he'll end up more like Pillman than Cody.

Perry is about as filler as it gets, but it is probably the best time to get some use out of him. He'll get heat in Chicago, he can have 20 good minutes with Danielson, no one will care if the match ends with a ridiculous amount of bullshit, and it only takes up 10 days of our time. Very interested to see Mox and Marina team up and how that plays with BCC. Okada vs. freaking Brother Zay for the honor of Mercedes is such a bizarre meld of sports entertainment and "only in AEW" weird match combos. I love it.

Christian continuing his legacy as AEW's Kane by being Danielson's first defense seems right. The "who's the better father" angle is right there, and the main thing would be Luchasaurus finally turning. Perfect for a 2-week program. Swerve/Hangman in a super violent gimmick match could carry the drawing power, although I'm not sure what's left after the TDM. Exploding barbed wire or some kind of 3 stages of hell I guess. MJF/Garcia is a near lock. Since they're running Ricochet/Fletcher this week on Dynamite, that could set up Ricochet/Takeshita pretty quickly. Agreed that the Bucks really need to drop the straps and quietly end the EVP nonsense if Kenny isn't getting back in a timely manner. Why not run a tag team turmoil match here? It's a generally fun concept and there are at least 8 viable teams to mix in serious wrestling and comedy.

Darby is probably at the bottom of the list for "wait for the perfect moment." Aside from the obvious fact his physical health and ability to work anywhere near the level he can now could vanish on one bump, he's also dangerously close to that Jack Perry/Sammy Guevara missing of the boat, where his window is just closing because of all the dudes coming behind him. Swerve and Ospreay are already passed him. Okada's reputation is better and it won't take much of a nudge to get him over as an AEW main event mainstay. Garcia is coming in hot and just re-signed. Hangman's gonna get another go. No reason to think Ricochet isn't gonna get a decent push. It's not quite now or never for Darby, but it's pretty close. Also, I don't really want to see Danielson get Old Yeller'd by someone like Okada, MJF, or Hangman. Giving a rub to someone who's just about there with a close loss in a 50/50 match and handshake after is the way to go. Darby is right there, and is also perfect to get slaughtered by either of those three heels at Full Gear or World's End and they can go on a decent run before Ospreay gets crowned at All In or Forbidden Door UK.

I kinda think they should have Darby knock off Danielson at Grand Slam. Darby needs a big singles win, especially after getting kinda squashed by Jack, and it's probably the only time in Danielson's reign that everyone won't be expecting him to lose. Darby as underdog champ for a couple months would be pretty fun and Danielson has some flexibility for his semi-retirement match at Wrestledream.

The retirement stuff is all on Danielson, and the "no contract" thing never passed the smell test for me. TK isn't putting the belt on someone (even someone as upstanding as Bryan) without some kind of agreement in place. I thought the show was pretty good for a 6 hour mega show. The pre-show tags should've been consolidated into a battle royal. The effort to get everyone on in front of the big crowd (filing in) was admirable, but too much going on. Stokeley got way too much offense on Ishii, even if most of it was no-sold. Opener was a standard TLC spotfest, but there were a couple good spots. They seemed to go out of their way to give Nick Wayne a lot of shine, but his dive destroyer on Malakai was pretty sick. Juice took an epic crotching too. Pac just acting like he's always been in the BCC is kinda weird, but it's not like I'm gonna turn down Pac/Claudio/Wheeler 15-minute TV defenses. Storm/May was a bit low on the card which I think subconsciously triggered the expectations of a BS finish because the crowd wasn't quite into it at first. Took a little bit for the realization to set in that this would be violent continuation the feud deserved. 3-way tag overstayed its welcome and adding GYV to the mix doesn't make things significantly more interesting. TK must have an ouija board to contact Patterson, because the gauntlet was a very well laid out fake-rumble type of match. Okada at 2 and Nigel at 3 was genius, followed by the better midcarders who all came out with purpose. Hangman/Jarrett stuff was well done. Ricochet and ZSJ made their marks. Christian was a good swerve, although I don't know about doing the exact same Luchasaurus tease that they did a few months ago. Guess it's ok if Lucha waits until the cash-in to cost him. Super fun match. Ospreay/MJF was exactly what it needed to be. Good to see Garcia back, and ending the TD91 side-plot. Britt/Mercedes was in a bad spot and ended up being a mediocre match. They were working faster than they could handle and other than the slam reversal, none of the big spots really hit. Even the finish looked like they had to improv. Jack/Darby was quick, and I guess it was a creative subversion that tying Darby up and putting him in a bodybag actually kept him in the casket. This only seemed to exist for a Sting pop, which was fine. The main event ruled. I was pretty take it or leave it on Bryan winning here, but I'll be damned if these two didn't work a match that made me really want to see Bryan win. The spot where he was looking at his family to get fired up taking the kicks damn near made me tear up. Swerve brushing off the first knee was a beautiful story point too. They busted out some big main even movez here like the avalanche tiger suplex, vertebreaker, and Regal-plex, but they were all hit with purpose of building up the story of whether Bryan was going to accept being put out to pasture or find that old Dragon. They did a good job differentiating this from his WM 30 win, but still made it feel nearly as satisfying. Swerve's work shouldn't be overlooked here either, and he's totally got that forever main event credibility now.

Is the casino gauntlet actually for their MITB-equivalent chip? I thought it was just for an unspecified "future title shot" which would likely be at All Out.

I think is WWE-brain. TK is smart enough to understand that this is a huge moment for Danielson one way or the other, and making it about Nigel would be stupid especially in a place where he's likely to be cheered. Nigel shouldn't even be on commentary for the match, but I doubt we'll be that lucky. One possibility is Swerve wins and Nigel takes a victory lap on commentary for a couple weeks, before Danielson returns and says his wrestling career may be over, but his will to fight isn't. This leads to a lights out unsanctioned match at Wrestledream where Bryan can get a proper hometown send off.

That segment was a nice touch of "pure sports build" to program that has been all sports entertainment so far (but will no doubt be completed with a top tier wrestling match). The program with Swerve and Danielson has been very well done, where it just started as the top 2 guys meeting at the biggest show for the title, but with enough time in between that both guys gradually started to resent each other and the narratives surrounding the match. I know people were kind of second guessing if this match was the right one for the show, but I think it definitely feels "top show main event" now.

I thought the MJF/Ospreay segment had one great idea where MJF had a "Colonel Jessup moment" about being jealous of Ospreay, but it was surrounded by 15 minutes of try-hard MJF. If they had built up the promo to that moment and mostly ended it there (or gone straight to the cheap shot), that would've been some great character development and explained why he really turned out of the blue. Instead they blew past it for more cheap heat. Danielson coming out dropping main event F-bombs and telling Will to kill people with TD91 ruled, though. The wide shot of the whole arena doing the Yes chant brings back pleasant memories from 10 years ago.

Surprised to see no Nigel matches on the list. Their match at the ROH 6th anniversary show was one of the best story-telling and character work matches of all time. My best Danielson memory was being at WM 30. Enough said. Dream matches are numerous, but ultimately Danielson is always best against guys who are stiff as hell but can still work the mat. So Walter, Finlay, and yeah... Benoit would top my list there. Prime Shawn, Malenko, and crazy old-man Flair would be my less common picks.

Card is feeling very early 2000s WM-ish, trying to cram everyone onto the card while still having some epic top matches, except nowadays it isn't good form to tell the undercard guys to keep it under 6 minutes. This is gonna be like a 7-hour show, isn't it?

The Top Flight makeover is super weird. I kinda shrugged my shoulders at Leila Grey tagging along in the sexy pilot Halloween costume, but this week the whole team went full mid-90s WWF. I suppose there is some kind of off-ramp where all this is Lio's idea to drag them down or something, but I'm not sure what the end game is. Maybe TK is going to create the new "comedy tag team titles" with Top Flight, MXM, Outrunners, etc leading the division.

They could always use the Casino Gauntlet winner for the All Out main, if it's someone decent. Ricochet or Omega vs. Danielson or Swerve would work. MJF vs. Garcia in some type of hardcore match if Garcia re-signs. Stat vs. Willow in some type of hardcore match. Ospreay/Fletcher vs. Takeshita/Rush. I feel like Okada vs. Claudio could've been saved for this one, but I see the appeal of it on the first Euro Dynamite. Also, they teased Okada/Hangman in Blood and Guts. Even though they haven't followed up on it, some interaction with those two in the gauntlet could heat that right back up for All Out.

Is the triple threat for the #1 spot or the 21 spot? I can't make it out. I also can't remember if the "Casino gauntlet" is a regular battle royal with groups of entrants and the joker or the first pinfall type of match that Ospreay always wins.

With all the heated promos between FTR and the Acclaimed recently, it would make more sense for the Acclaimed to win the belts (quickly and decisively) and defend against FTR at All In. Outside of Blood and Guts, the Bucks have just been pseudo-authority-figures since Double or Nothing.

I mean no disrespect to Mark Davis and I liked Aussie open, but this sorta feels like asking "what about Stevie Ray" during Booker's TV title run.

No one resents his over-push and can evaluate his work objectively. He was a good stooge-y midcard heel in WWE and WCW, but no one ever wanted him as a top guy. By the time Angle and Sting rolled in to do more heavy-lifting at the top of TNA, he had a good upper-midcard run there too.

Just watched Collision, and my main takeaway is MXM is going to be the next big thing in AEW. Not like "faces of the company" big, but that niche act that is massively over with the core audience, kind of like Danhausen. Neither guy is gonna set the world on fire in the ring, but Mansoor is a decent enough technician and Madden is definitely imposing while still being goofy. A little sports entertainment can go a long way in AEW.

Yeah, there better have been a lot more to the story if Britt is the only one suspended. The "simmering animosity" was from a tweet last year where she complained MJF's TV time relative to hers. Maybe not the most professional thing to put that on Twitter, but a laughably small deal in the world of wrestling politics.

Jeff Jarrett is an insanely good babyface, much better than a heel I'd argue. It's just the majority of national TV career has been as an over-pushed top heel that left him with years of lingering go-away heat.