Bryan

I generally agree on AEW’s angles but I think you’re missing the point with FTR and SCU. The entire reason that FTR gave SCU a title shot was because they hadn’t been teaming. Next week they’re giving Jack Evans and Angelico a shot. They’re intentionally avoiding the teams at the top of the division. So you’re mad that JR didn’t say that Brit Baker had been working on her in ring skills when the announcers had started the match talking about how ring rust could give Red Velvet an advantage? Commenting on the changes to a professional athletes body is common, to the point that he added 20 lbs of muscle in the offseason has become a cliche. And you’ve the lost the plot with he needs to be more effusive in his praise of the winless, unsigned jobber—and that calling her athletic is some sort of racist dog whistle line of thinking.

This might be recency bias but I think that’s the best any of AEW’s big men have looked in a singles match. I hope he gets some wins on Dynamite soon. I liked Cody’s promo and the brawl was pretty good. The Brandi part was awkward and not good though. FTR is such a good tag team. The most coherent tag match on Dynamite in a while. I really don’t understand why the Young Bucks are doing the bully heel thing. The Jericho MJF thing is intriguing. I’m pretty sure this will lead to MJF eventually screwing over Jericho at some point but it’ll be interesting to see when and how.

Having your top guys beat credible challengers is one thing. Bringing in a new guy to dominate jobbers and underneath guys only to lose their first big ppv match is another. If these guys had gone on months long tears of going through established guys so they actually looked like unstoppable monsters the top guys’ victories over them would mean more and they’d potentially be established as draws when they did lose. There’s probably a reason the match with Moxley wasn’t scheduled for the next ppv. Beating up jobbers, Colt Cabana (no offense to him), and then losing to Cody isn’t the recipe for creating a star. They rushed it but maybe they don’t care and felt they had to because of how much inexperienced talent and how many guys have no shot at becoming stars they stupidly signed.

Yeah, Taz was thickly built and he actually didn’t look that small in ECW. It wasn’t until he got to WWE that I was like “wow, he’s short.” And we saw how that went there. But if Matt and Nick were ripped and jacked like Pac (I think they’re similar height) I’d have less of an issue because they’d look physically intimidating despite their height. But they just don’t look physically impressive at all, so it’s hard to suspend disbelief and buy them as bullies.

Middleweights are actually pretty big especially considering the weight cuts. I think featherweights is probably a more apt comparison. And while it may make sense in kayfabe, visually it still looks ridiculous. If they’re going to be heels (which I don’t understand why they would be doing that when FTR are the top heels and we’ve never had Young Bucks vs FTR) they have to be cocky, chicken shit heels. That’s the only way they can be believable as heels. But they shouldn’t be heels at least not before the match with FTR.

Yeah, but even with Cage why give him the FTW title before the match with Moxley? He could’ve gotten his heat back from that finish and having Taz award him the title to save his job and Cage acted like he was an actual champion. The way they did it, Cage just looked like a failure and the FTW belt means nothing. There have been so many things in AEW were if they’d just thought through things better and done a little differently they’d be in a much better place.

Miro made everyone else look like children in that match. Kip Sabian and Sonny Kiss should be in a developmental system learning how to work (Joey Janela is a lost cause). Their timing on spots was absolutely abysmal and made everything look incredibly fake. I hope to be pleasantly surprised but pairing Miro with Kip seems like a really terrible booking idea so far. I agree with the guy above about the Cody/Brodie thing. Why was Brodie so mad? He didn’t touch him and just beat up the jobbers he treats like garbage anyway. The Young Bucks temper tantrum attempt to be bullies thing is lame and unbelievable. And FTR are the heel champs, so why would they want to alienate any fans with such stupid antics before they have that match. The booking on AEW was really good to begin with but I think it’s kind of fallen apart the last few months. “Hey, here’s a big guy that we’re going to make it to be a monster only to lose his first big match against an established star” strategy is really bad. The highlight of the show for me was Eddie Kingston’s sports entertainer promo.

You don’t have a very good memory then. And while Mysterio is obviously short he was thickly built and back in the early 00’s he came to a gym my friend worked at and he was benching 315(!) so he’s strong as f. Also, the moves Rey was doing in the late 90’s weren’t done by practically everyone as they are today because of how many wrestlers grew up watching the first hour of Nitro. I don’t think PAC is more than a few inches taller than Rey but people don’t say that because how thickly built and jacked he is. You can’t say the same things about people Riho or Marko Stunt whose existences are always justified by Mysterio. They don’t do moves nobody else does and there is nothing else physically impressive you can point to.

JR having witnessed garbage in the past doesn’t magically make the AEW women’s division good or entertaining. Make me. @AxBDifferent strokes I guess but most of Riho’s (at 90lbs) offense on a close to 200lber wasn’t believable and Nyla was and is still green and sloppy. Thunder/Serena was crisper and more believable. Also, it being the second best wouldn’t be much better for disproving that AEW’s women’s division is a dumpster fire.

Red Velvet doesn’t even ring a bell but I would say that Brandi Rhodes is really the only one on your list that is conventionally attractive—in the sense that you could imagine seeing her in ad for guess jeans or whatever at a mainstream place like Target or something. And she’s his bosses wife. Also, AEW has the worst women’s division in wrestling by far. What do you want to comment on...how sloppy and unbelievable looking they are? If you have a problem with JR treating some of the AEW women like Divas then maybe AEW shouldn’t put on so many women’s matches that look like two divas from 2003 were suddenly transported to AEW trying to have a modern wrestling match. It’s usually embarrassing and unwatchable. JR stumbled over himself praising how good Serena Deeb vs Thunder Rosa was because neither of them are under contract. The best women’s match in the history of Dynamite was between two women not even under contract. You should be bitching about that.

I was there for that! Seems like it was a hundred years ago.

I don’t think he’ll win it and I don’t think they’re waiting for a WWE or Impact guy to be released. I think they’re just waiting on the right heel. I don’t think Archer is hot enough as a heel. AEW badly botched him early on. He’s a monster but Marko Stunt is getting offense in and staggering him hurt him. Not to mention he was fine the next week. Stunt should still be in a neck brace selling the ass beating he got. And then in his first major feud he loses—His entire reason for being in AEW was supposedly to dethrone him but he failed so he looks like a loser. Then he beats a bunch of jobbers and wins a gimmick match and is going to be the next champ? I don’t see that. But him losing his second major feud in the company will pretty much permanently bury him as being believable monster and main event player going forward.

I’m not cranky and I’m definitely not JR. I just find Excalibur to be an annoying announcer and didn’t miss him at all. I never felt the need to document every mistake Excalibur makes despite not liking him and just got fed up with every one always attacking JR every week.

Saying nobody kicks out of the falcon arrow when literally everyone kicks out of the falcon arrow isn’t detrimental to a casual fan’s understanding of what is going on (since everyone kicks out of the falcon arrow) but referring to a wrestler from another period is? Yep, detrimental like when NBA announcers reference Wilt Chamberlain, Bob Cousy, or Larry Bird (All were referenced during these playoffs). Wait... And I guess it’s great that PWG guys have contacts in major promotions but none of them are stars and Wrestling shows either draw less than a Million viewers or struggle to say above that for established shows that used to draw several million viewers, so... JR’s references might be a little dated but the point is always to get someone or something over—and according to the guy above AEW fans are smart and can google things they don’t immediately pick up on. On the other hand, the purpose of Excalibur’s “catch phrase” is to wink at the fans of PWG, or in other words to get himself over. You like it and him because he’s winking at you but does him doing that actually make the wrestler seem more impressive or make the move more impressive or does it kind of turn the falcon arrow into a kind of joke?

JR’s line about at least there not being pineapple on the pizza was hilarious and the line of the night. Of course you’d be an Excalibur fan. Excalibur sounds like an insurance salesman doing commentary and makes lots of references to a niche indy promotion that most people have never watched, so it’s confusing to casual fans of a national promotion trying to grow into something big that lasts. Also, just SMH at being thrilled about a reference to 15% (In PWG in 2014 the Young Bucks did...) and bitching about JR making Ray Stevens’ references. The JR hate is getting to be clownish.

Zack Ryder got put in a wheel chair, had John Cena steal his girlfriend and then had Kane push him off the stage in that chair and he never got revenge. I can’t even think of 30 examples of a company making it that blatantly obvious that someone the fans cared about was actually a loser that they should not care about anymore.

He didn’t even cut a promo, he just beat up some jobbers to save Cody. He hasn’t had a match and wasn’t out there for even two minutes, and you already understand what he’s trying to convey with his new character? I think you’re projecting some preconceived notions onto him. Also, he got over on his own and was buried worse than anyone I’ve ever seen get buried. It’s also not like matches on Main Event and getting squashed by Braun Strowman or whoever are great opportunities to put on clinics. On multiple occasions he’s gotten the fans behind him despite the WWE only wanting him to be a jobber. Also, he hasn’t always looked like that. He got jacked because he wasn’t getting opportunities and HHH and Vince are body guys. You don’t just wake up in phenomenal shape, you have to work at it. I don’t know how hard Arianne worked but I know she tried to pin someone who was on their stomach and hasn’t wrestled since 2016, so...I guess at least she’ll fit in with all of the other inexperienced women on the AEW roster.

To be fair, basically every tag match in AEW devolves into a sort of tornado tag at some point, so I can understand him forgetting they’d actually bothered to make the stipulation.

They said Brian Cage was facing Moxley at Fyter Fest which would be roughly two months away. Plus, the entire point of the match was that the person who won could jump to the front of the line. Would kind of defeat the purpose if someone already in line for the title shot won it—especially in the first occurrence of the match. And MJF didn’t compete for two months because of the pandemic while Brodie Lee wrestled almost every week. Hard to build a good feud with no physical interaction until the week of a ppv. That also wouldn’t be consistent with their rankings since you move down when you’re idle and others aren’t. Plus, it would probably seriously hurt MJF’s momentum to lose now and if he is to win you’d want it in front of a crowd for the reaction.

Brodie Lee was in the top 5 of their rankings because he was undefeated since his debut in March. And Cody who was ahead of him can’t ever wrestle for the title again. So him getting a title shot was consistent with their rankings. Cage won a match for a title shot but they said it wasn’t taking place until Fyter Fest. So they have time to introduce him as a threat and build him up before that match.

They beat up the fat guy in the woods because his motivation for joining was that he just wanted friends. Brodie Lee beat up the jobber for losing. Jobbers are recruited for strength in numbers but weakness is unacceptable.

The inner circle attacked him in the crowd and then in the hall and then he was power bombed off the stage on the show after Revolution. That doesn’t seem like a responsible way to handle a guy that needs to recover from a concussion. And that would also be inconsistent with how AEW has treated talent so far.

Well, if they were number 2 when they did it, it demonstrably wasn’t bad business considering they put their competitors out of business. And it wasn’t my best argument, I was merely countering your argument that it was bush league because TNA did it. I think it makes logical sense for former WWE employees to have an axe to grind and mention some things if they want. It’s realistic and pushes the envelope a little bit. Cody didn’t just smash HHH’s throne, he went out and had one of the best matches of 2019–a match that the WWE had and didn’t care about. He took a shot and delivered. It’s no different than an NBA player getting traded or not re-signed and then taking shots at his old team in the media and then dropping 50 on them. As long as AEW guys continue to deliver with the storylines and matches the little shots they take are fine. It’s only a problem if their product sucks because then when you do it looks like you’re desperate for attention. But right now, AEW has been consistently better than the WWE and they’re the new upstart taking on the stodgy corporate behemoth.

Then they think he’s a crazy cult leader that doesn’t like people to eat while he eats and hates people sneezing. The whining about AEW occasionally taking random shots at WWE and being Bush league and a #2 thing is ridiculous. The WWE took numerous shots at WCW when they were going head to head. And HHH and DX joked with Billy Gunn at the hall of fame about AEW and everyone being an EVP. Subtle shots that wink to the audience are a part of modern wrestling. Doing it every week when you’re intention is clearly to get the attention of the big guy in town to provoke a response would be pathetic but that’s not what they’ve done. Pointing out that there is no invisible wall is true (and kind of funny), having a cult leader character based off or taking some influence from an alpha male figure that is known to be surrounded by sycophants actually makes some sense. And again the WWE was more aggressive doing these things when WCW existed, DX literally showed up outside of a an arena WCW was performing on and tried to get in on live WWF tv. And they won the war, so obviously mentioning and mocking your competition isn’t a fatal error and something only a #2 does.

His primary finish for the past couple of months has been the Double Cross (Cody’s cross Rhodes) not his submission which I think is fine—except the first time he tried it. Anyway, looking forward to the Dynamite from the Hardy compound or whatever will happen.