Bryan

What is confusing about that…?

She’s not going to have a rematch with Baker anytime soon and they only have 3 hours of tv time as of last week, so it’s not like there is a lot for her to do. And Dr. Britt Baker is by far the most over woman on the roster ever, so should unquestionably be the face of the division right now. And with all due respect, it’s extremely unlikely Shida would have main evented the inaugural Rampage as a champion. And if she did it wouldn’t received the reaction Baker did.

I was just thinking about this too. You’d think they’d want to build some anticipation before the big return everyone is expecting, especially since it’s unlikely that anything done in the ring tops CM Punk’s return. Will the crowd even be up for the matches after Punk returns? But you can also envision matches being drowned out with CM punk chats if you don’t start with him. Kind of an interesting conundrum.

Thought this was a much better show than last week. The multiple instances of guys getting jumped from behind was a little excessive but it kept it exciting. Sting taking a bump through a table was both frightening and exciting. Wow. The Moxley and Miro promos were great. Moxley running down the top baby faces and talking about people wanting to join now because they think it’s easy was interesting… The main event was great and Jericho losing by tapping out was really surprising to me and a great way to put over MJF.

That’s a really good way to put it. I’m also definitely more excited for something big to happen than for Punk himself.

Except he didn’t actually even insult Julia. You could tell where he was going based on the rhyme but Bowens snatched the mic and yelled breath. And forming a tag team that people actually care about isn’t as easy throwing guys together. There is an element of chemistry and needing to see matches similarly for it to work. 10 out of 10 random guys on the roster being thrown with Bowens aren’t going to make as good of a tag team as the Acclaimed were.

Not sure “safe” is a word I’d use to describe a promotion that brings in a convicted bank robber and former (?) drug addict to cut up one of your biggest stars with a pizza cutter and light tubes (costing you a blue chip sponsor) on national tv. Never mind letting Joey Janella wrestle one of your top babyfaces right before a ppv. Also, not sure why they would have hired Caster and approved his “edgy” promos if they wanted to avoid that. I’d just say AEW is really sensitive to criticism. And unfortunately a small but vocal portion of their fan base consists of those people that pretend to be upset about things they’re not actually fully aware of. See e.g. The numerous people that didn’t know the outcome of the Duke Lacrosse situation. As far as Caster to WWE goes, I vaguely recall Tony Khan mentioning they had WWE offers but chose to stick with AEW after he signed The Acclaimed. That was before the reported edict to go back to the young juiced up looking guys, so I don’t know if they’d still be interested but they apparently did at once.

It sucks if they actually suspended him without pay and demanded he do sensitivity training for doing an in character promo in line with what they hired him for. They threw him under the bus…Again, if this was actually a problem, why wasn’t the person responsible for Dark while Khan was outside fired or suspended and sent to sensitivity training, or the person that was editing the show? If nobody saw it as an issue and Tony Khan genuinely believes it’s a problem then there is obviously a culture problem since nobody flagged it when it happened or when it was being discussed on the internet before it aired. If he refused to be the scapegoat and actually got a job with WWE, good for him.

Yeah, and just booking the United Center a couple of weeks before running 3 shows there and calling it, “The First Dance,” all imply he’s going to be there.

I actually don’t know about that, NWA has been pretty protective of its title.

I don’t think so, and unless Tony Khan wants the United Center burned down and to never be able to run a show in Chicago again, Punk is appearing on Friday.

I sure didn’t. And I’m not not sure how anyone could offer praise for the train wreck that the commentary was in the first match. Hopefully, they’re much better next week, so they don’t diminish CM Punk’s return like they did the opening match. Anyway, Christian beating Omega makes even less to me now. It now seems like it was just a spur of the moment decision to generate interest in a new show and to build to a rushed ppv match they haven’t built towards. The build towards All Out is starting to very WWEish and I don’t like it.

Ah, I see. I just don’t think they would have had Christian go over Omega if they weren’t wrestling at the ppv.

At the ppv in November…and after he beats Christian at All Out?

I guess they’re trying that but personally I didn’t want or care about this as the title match on a ppv, and this did nothing to change that. I know they won’t but the small percentage of toxic AEW fans that call for JR to be fired for every mistake he makes should apologize since commentary is apparently not that. See e.g. Mark Henry talking about Christian dominating Omega when he’d been on offense for 30 seconds. I thought the commentary improved when it went to a three man booth and Jericho toned his screechy rock star character and actually provided analysis. The Miro squash match was booked smartly. I don’t regularly watch Dark, so I don’t really get why the fans cared about a jobber like El Fuego getting a contract but the fans seemed to like it so I guess it was a good idea. I actually thought Britt Baker vs Red Velvet was the best match of the night. I really liked how Red Velvet finally went after the wrist before the finish. I have no idea who Jaime Hayder is and it didn’t really seem like the crowd really did either, so that’s a weird surprise debut. And I absolutely hate it when AEW debuts people who aren’t big names like this. Ok show, but after seeing the first one, if I didn’t expect the CM Punk debut next week, going forward I think I’d probably just record this.

Different personal preferences, I guess. Beating someone at the end of their downward spiral just seems less impressive than sending them on that downward spiral to me. And in sports, when a team goes on an insanely long win streak, it’s the team that ends the streak that leads to a big story and lots of interest, nobody really cares about the next team that beats them after that.

Yeah, I think Omega Christian is an interesting match but more in a tv sense. And I really don’t think seeing Christian win the impact title is going to make me want to drop 60 dollars or whatever is now on a ppv. And at least for me personally, CM Punk’s promos and character work have always been more interesting than his in ring work. Maybe I’m in the minority there but if not banking on him selling the ppvs seems like it might not be the best strategy to sell ppvs. I also don’t like Omega losing before Hangman takes the title off of him, as I think that will diminish that win a little bit. As it’s not beating Kenny at the peak of his belt collector powers. And the audience will have already seen him lose a title.

Except his job is to put over the talent and it would actually be insulting to the talent to not mention improvements to their physiques which they worked their asses off to achieve.

The problem is the Twitter mobs aren’t actually reflective of public opinion. The majority of AEW’s audience doesn’t even watch Dark. And of the people that do watch only a small percentage complained. The majority of Twitter users don’t actually tweet. The Twitter mob is just really vocal. What has happened to the few companies or people that refused to back down to these Twitter outrage mobs? Nothing because don’t get their dopamine rush and move on to the next thing. And again, my issue is just scapegoating the talent. If Tony Khan genuinely believes that that the promo was problematic why isn’t it an issue that AEW apparently has a culture that thought that promo was acceptable? Shouldn’t his management team be sent to sensitivity training too?

Is there really a way that in talking about a woman’s weight he could have communicated that, that wouldn’t have irked you when it was coming from JR? For instance, IMO, if he had said an “acceptable weight” that would have been far worse since that would have been a judgment on her previous weight. Whereas appropriate can at least be viewed (and I’m certain what he meant) as a reference to her decision to compete at the weight. Not sure there is a way you can communicate that a woman lost weight and it being better for her professional prospects without risking offending someone.

The problem with all of this is that his promo was taped. So obviously no one in the company had a problem with until the outrage mob came after him. He’s being scapegoated when he was just doing what he always does. The company should either have been honest and stuck with what they had no problem with, or punished and publicly blamed the person responsible for editing the show. Putting the public blame on the talent and disappearing him when performing edgy raps that go after low hanging fruit is what he always does is wrong. Also, that outrage mob consisted of an alarming amount of people who didn’t know the outcome of the Duke Lacrosse case but were super upset about the reference. So the outrage was not sincere and driven by sheep following each other with the hopes of getting a dopamine rush from helping take down someone more successful than them.

The fact that she moves better in the ring and is choosing to wrestle at this weight would indicate that she think it’s the appropriate weight for her, no?

Yeah, it totally makes no sense to bring up an athlete having noticeably lost weight as a means of praising them for their commitment to being better at their profession.

Maybe but I don’t think they’re going to beat Omega on tv (that would diminish the win of the person that eventually beats him, IMO)and either way, I’m not confident they’re going to have a rematch on a ppv three weeks after the original. That’s very unlike AEW. Nicko—Nick Jackson saying Luchasuarus’ block was a foul was hilarious. Anyone that played basketball knows that guy.