Niners Fan in CT

You brought up some of the points I raised. First, let me look at a random WrestleMania. WrestleMania XIX. Not a WrestleMania that people talk about as being the best WrestleMania, not to say it isn't held in high regard but I've never heard anyone say it's the best. They had The Rock vs. Stone Cold III and Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar and Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho and Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon street fight, I mean that's four matches that were the absolute best shit they could put out there for the live audience and the viewers at home. If you asked me what's the best 4 matches AEW could run right now, I don't think they are doing that. I agree that MJF vs. Adam Cole is the right move for the main event and I like that they are doing a tag match to play into the story later that night. No issues there. Young Bucks vs. FTR is probably the best tag match they can do but the build to it has been nonexistent. That's my issue with it. CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe could be very good, agreed. But why do the match a few weeks before? Also, is it the best match they could have did with CM Punk? I would argue no it's not. The women's title match is a thrown together mess. You said that yourself. And then there's Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, Jay White, Ricky Starks... none of them are going to have a big singles match? I don't think it's the best card they could do and I don't think the build to most of the matches has been good. I like the Sting/Darby vs. Fox/Swerve on the undercard, they've done a good job building that. I'm advocating for a better build and for them to put the best show out there they can do.

Lol @ "a 2 match show" when you're talking about the BIGGEST pairing in Hogan and Andre the business had ever seen. So big that the rematch did 33 million viewers on TV.

My logic is this is by far the largest attendance AEW has ever had and might ever have. So yeah maybe it should be a special event.

Sure, but who says they don't need to though? I was ecstatic to hear the tickets were selling like crazy. I thought 50,000 would be an unbelievable achievement. They are up to 80,000. It's an insane number. It's going to be a historic live gate. Does that mean they should forget about the PPV audience? I don't believe so, it's bad enough they still haven't moved away from B/R in the U.S. You'd think there would be some new eyeballs on this show too, why not try to capitalize on a new audience? Whether Tony views it that way or not this is their "WrestleMania" because it's 80,000 people.

80,000 tickets sold so "fuck it, we don't need it to be special and we don't need to sell PPVs" is a choice. Good work everyone.

Then they could have did Mox vs. O.C. for the title and Omega vs. Takeshita in a grudge match. Sorry if it feels like I'm biased towards trios but I kind of am biased because they've run them into the ground and a singles match feels more important and more personal. I do LOVE the idea of Cole/MJF tagging on Zero Hour though and I'll tell you why. It serves two purposes. First, it is setting up a story later for the night. Second, it's some last minute hype for the PPV. It reminds me of how WWE at one time would use Heat to setup some angles heading into the PPV on Sunday night.

And that's the problem. You can't say "biggest show of all time!" and have it legit be 80,000 fans and by far their largest gate ever and then book it like any other show. If they want it to be BIG then they need to book it that way. Also, how many times is this going to happen? There's no guarantee that they are ever going to fill another stadium. There's only one chance to make a first impression.

No, trios matches are worse by a wide margin. First of all, who said Kenny had to be in a singles match without stakes? Ospreay is right there and if they don't want to do that now then Takeshita is right there as well. Those are both rivalry matches and singles matches with some hate behind them are much better than trios matches where it's just, ok you do something to get your shit in and now you and now you. These 15-minute go go go trios matches have been done to death.

"Biggest show of all time" Let's put one of our biggest stars Kenny Omega in a Road to Dontaku match. Makes sense.

I don't have an issue with the participants it's more so how they've gotten here.

Cole vs. MJF was the way to go for the title. Definitely the hottest angle in AEW. FTR vs. Bucks feels thrown together. I'm sure it'll be a good match. Women's title, yeah it gets Saraya on the card but it's pretty random and honestly Toni Storm vs. Shida one on one they had a couple weeks ago could have been saved for All In. Still have questions on Omega, Hangman, White, Starks, not sure why they ran Punk/Joe at a Collision

Yeah dudes, largest gate in AEW history, one of the largest gates in pro wrestling history, one of the largest paid crowds in wrestling history but Tony should just book it as a "whatever" show and let it be forgotten about a week later.

The PPV is three weeks away. If this was WWE leading into WrestleMania everyone would be saying "Where's the build? why all the rematches? This is supposed to be a special event..."

I'm not going to name Punk vs. Elite because that's another situation where Tony should have stepped up and said 'do it'. It's his company. What's best for the company is these people to be facing each other but I'm not going to say that needed to happen. Omega vs. Ospreay III definitely should be happening here. It's in London. Ospreay is the hometown hero. They are 1-1 over the past 8 months. One match was held on a New Japan show. The other match was held on a co-promoted event. You would think Tony would want the rubber match to happen on his turf? And what better place to do it than in front of 80,000 fans screaming for Ospreay? Punk vs. Joe is going to be a good match but if they are doing it here then why do it a month beforehand on TV? So what is Omega doing? Maybe he's facing Takeshita but why isn't it being built on TV currently? What's Hangman doing? He's a big name. What's Jay White doing? Maybe they could fight each other.

We got time but other than MJF vs. Cole (which I'm assuming leads to something for Punk at All Out? maybe?) the rest of the card or rumored card is looking like a glorified Dynamite. Yeah, the tickets are already sold. Yeah, it's gonna look cool with 80,000 fans. But shouldn't Tony be trying to put the best card he can out there?

They could have and who knows where Cody would have gone from there but the thing about the WrestleMania aftermath is that ratings are up and they are selling tickets like hotcakes so it proved that The Bloodline story had a lot of legs left in it. So now we are in a situation where they might be afraid to kill it.

I remember these discussions. It wasn't so much that I and others thought Jey would win, it was that we thought The Bloodline would come to a head because it all started with Jey Uso and that is where they went with it. I just don't think they have many ideas left to get all the way back to WrestleMania. Sure they can play up the "jealous brother" angle or whatever with The Usos but Jimmy shouldn't be aligning with the people who just nearly crippled him so we'll see where it goes but it feels like it's going in circles now.

No reason for the show to be that long and I think they lost the plot on The Bloodline story. It just doesn't make any sense now.

So, I love that they are going with MJF-Cole but neither turned on the other (yet). Let it simmer. Hey, maybe neither will turn at all. But the funny thing is both of them are such pricks that I fully believe they are both up to some shit. I also find it funny that they are completely ignoring Punk. Like he's over in a different country somewhere. Looks like Punk may have to do something drastic to catch their attention. The Kenny Omega tease was cool, hope it happens. Shida vs. Storm was awesome. The Moguls beating the ever loving shit out of the kid and then calling Darby was some wild shit. Loved that angle. Need this blood feud at ALL IN also.

And you're also the guy that continues to watch things you hate. Some life you have for yourself. LOL.

Aren't you the guy who judges wrestlers by how many muscles they have?

Starks likely has to get screwed over somehow so he can go on the chase. He can win a match at ALL IN or something that gets him a future title shot. Or maybe even at Grand Slam.

MJF/Punk at All In for the "Real" World's Championship and the winner faces Adam Cole at All Out? Am I crazy?

I don't think they'll wait that late but I do feel Tony believes for some odd reason that building up matches ahead of time doesn't make a difference.. when clearly it does. Everyone likes good matches but to be invested in the promotion and keep coming back to it every week and to buy the PPVs it needs to be more than that. Some will say well I just want AEW to be like WWE... no. There's a happy medium between the way WWE does things and the PWG model and I think AEW is far too close to PWG where it's just like "here's a guy who can wrestle and here's another guy who is good too, let's put it together!" That's not really how things work.

There's 4 episodes of Dynamite before All In. I'm not concerned much about the Collision side of things because Punk probably has a decent enough idea of what he'd like to do for the show (assuming he will be there) and then FTR will likely have a good match lined up. It's more the Dynamite side where I'm like, okay what are they doing here. Why are we introducing more guys who do flips when they already have a dozen of those types who don't get air time and why are we still pushing Britt Baker front and center to have bad matches with Taya at the 9 o'clock hour.