AEW - April 2023

[John from Cincinnati]

17 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I mean, I remember arguing with my sister when I was in high school in 1998 about how interesting all of the backstage machinations of the Monday Night Wars were and that's why I was so into wrestling. This has been the point for at least the entirety of the internet and this board.

Certainly. In no way am I presenting anything as a revelation. Rather, I'm just praising a perspective that seems to be increasingly unpopular in the the larger online wrestling space. I don't post on Twitter or Reddit, so I feel like I'm responding here to nonsense I see elsewhere which is... not productive behaviour on my part, but I felt the need to say something. 

I think my problem is I see people poo-pooing this stuff elsewhere and it's glib and empty in a way that makes me only want to hear it if it's coming from our very own @Gordlow (the board won't let me tag him, someone else please do it for me) with some real naval-gazing and thoughtfulness and perspective. Hope Mania weekend didn't hurt him too bad. 

[Octopus]

The dumb behind the scenes story about MJF buying a ticket got me to last minute buy that PPV. The wildness of Brawl Out was absolutely wild with the memes and bits on here. Knowing vague behind the scenes news added to Cody’s WWE return. Some of it can get annoying and kill the buzz, but in certain areas it actually increased my interest. 
 

16 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

I think my problem is I see people poo-pooing this stuff elsewhere and it's glib and empty in a way that makes me only want to hear it if it's coming from our very own @Gordlow (the board won't let me tag him, someone else please do it for me) with some real naval-gazing and thoughtfulness and perspective. Hope Mania weekend didn't hurt him too bad. 

I shall evoke him.

*goes into bathroom and turns out the lights. Stares into the dimly lit mirror*
 

…

 

gordlow

 

…..

 

GORD….low

 

…

 

*gulp

 

….

 

@Gordlow

 

[Craig H]

I swear this is probably the 5th or 6th time Ospreay has talked about retiring because of how badly he’s banged up.

[Craig H]

Regarding splitting the rosters, like a hard split, I think it’s fucking dumb. That’s just my quickest take on it without thinking about it further. The one benefit is that I guess the roster has a better idea of when and where they’ll be needed. Otherwise, you can spin it however you want, but a bunch of these people are going to feel like they’re being put in one camp or another when they were probably neutral.

I get punches were thrown, but for fucks sake, it’s wrestling. They’re lucky it’s not 40 years ago where someone would have been knifed or had rat poison put in their blow. All of these people, Punk, the Bucks, Kenny, etc need to stop acting like high schoolers and realize that these changes will hurt more than it will help. 

Jesus Christ, some of these dudes need to come at this from a standpoint of, “I don’t have to like this person, I don’t have to go to dinner with them, we don’t have to spend holidays together, and working one or two nights a week is easy compared to all of that.” 

And as much as I like the Bucks, I have to laugh at these Christian motherfuckers seemingly not willing to move on and do business if all of the reporting is to be believed.

[Dolphman 3000]

7 minutes ago, Craig H said:

And as much as I like the Bucks, I have to laugh at these Christian motherfuckers seemingly not willing to move on and do business if all of the reporting is to be believed.

Isn't Papa Buck a preacher - have to imagine his advice to them would be "protect the grift at all costs"

Meltzer makes it seem like Montreal II is going to happen and Tony is going to help Punk push The Elite out of the company. No chance, but if Tony grew balls and said "the money's with Punk, lay down for him on your way out the door" I'd actually be impressed

[HarryArchieGus]

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

Yeah, if anything I'd say that it made more sense for me at age 16 than it does at age 41. Now I'm partially back to watching for Lance Archer to kill jobbers on elevation like watching Sid in early 1992?

Wait a second, gimme an example of Lance (currently) looking anywhere near as impressive as 92 Sid? I've had Archer squash fatigue for awhile. I like squashes, but they gotta be creative or interesting in some way. I can get down with the BCC bludgenoning folks. That match with Nak/Cutler was fantastic. And I can get down with Athena crushing whomever she damn well pleases (tho most of hers aren't squashes), but the art of the exciting murderous squash is lacking for me from Big Lance in particular. I don't say that as a Lance-hater I've just been displeased with his monotonous Dark squash run (at this point I skip passed his bouts). All that said, I actually really dig big weirdo Lance and am kinda excited at the potential of the big Archer-man getting an Honor-able run. I just really wanna see Lance booked against worthy challengers (like he was asking for in his most recent Dark promo) or big hosses at least. Feed him Comoroto for fuck sake (or did I miss that match?). Or how about that Dark jobber 'Big' Ben Bishop (do I have that name right?). Or maybe the bigger Bear er Savage? All that said, @MattD what have I missed on this squash run? Any names or dates of particuarly good Lance kills? 

[porksweats]

We should get Punk/Jarrett for Punk's return. Punk pops a rating, Jarrett pops a rating. Built in storyline of FTR trying to save Mark Briscoe from Global Nonstop Action

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Wait a second, gimme an example of Lance (currently) looking anywhere near as impressive as 92 Sid? I've had Archer squash fatigue for awhile. I like squashes, but they gotta be creative or interesting in some way. I can get down with the BCC bludgenoning folks. That match with Nak/Cutler was fantastic. And I can get down with Athena crushing whomever she damn well pleases (tho most of hers aren't squashes), but the art of the exciting murderous squash is lacking for me from Big Lance in particular. I don't say that as a Lance-hater I've just been displeased with his monotonous Dark squash run (at this point I skip passed his bouts). All that said, I actually really dig big weirdo Lance and am kinda excited at the potential of the big Archer-man getting an Honor-able run. I just really wanna see Lance booked against worthy challengers (like he was asking for in his most recent Dark promo) or big hosses at least. Feed him Comoroto for fuck sake (or did I miss that match?). Or how about that Dark jobber 'Big' Ben Bishop (do I have that name right?). Or maybe the bigger Bear er Savage? All that said, @MattD what have I missed on this squash run? Any names or dates of particuarly good Lance kills? 

I mean Archer vs Comoroto happened!

As for his kills in general, I'm thinking of Q1 2022 which had a Fuego match and some other things, but a lot of him switching it up: menacing kids one week, dragging the opponent out from the back the next, doing chops that the fans wanted and then denying them it, faking dives, with Justin really playing it up with stuff like "With a time limit of hopefully less than two minutes.." and things like that in the announcing. Or he'd do one match where he just clotheslined a guy over and over again instead of doing any of his normal stuff. He's just a guy who has been around forever (closer to 50 than 40!) and is capable of having fun with it.

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

6 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Certainly. In no way am I presenting anything as a revelation. Rather, I'm just praising a perspective that seems to be increasingly unpopular in the the larger online wrestling space. I don't post on Twitter or Reddit, so I feel like I'm responding here to nonsense I see elsewhere which is... not productive behaviour on my part, but I felt the need to say something. 

I think my problem is I see people poo-pooing this stuff elsewhere and it's glib and empty in a way that makes me only want to hear it if it's coming from our very own @Gordlow (the board won't let me tag him, someone else please do it for me) with some real naval-gazing and thoughtfulness and perspective. Hope Mania weekend didn't hurt him too bad. 

 

5 hours ago, Octopus said:

The dumb behind the scenes story about MJF buying a ticket got me to last minute buy that PPV. The wildness of Brawl Out was absolutely wild with the memes and bits on here. Knowing vague behind the scenes news added to Cody’s WWE return. Some of it can get annoying and kill the buzz, but in certain areas it actually increased my interest. 
 

I shall evoke him.

*goes into bathroom and turns out the lights. Stares into the dimly lit mirror*
 

…

 

gordlow

 

…..

 

GORD….low

 

…

 

*gulp

 

….

 

@Gordlow

 

Cheers, lads. I'm honestly not even watching AEW/ROH right now. I'll be back for Forbidden Door, though, most likely. Not into the changes in how the "product" is being booked and presented recently. Need time to adjust to the new reality of AEW/ROH being just another "Sports Entertainment" brand rather than a genuine alternative. (I think honestly bringing up the idea of a brand split, Goldberg being brought in, Punk returning... I'd rather not be around for any of that, even in theory). I'm sure I'm missing a lot of good to great matches, but really I have seen enough good to great pro wrestling to last most people several lifetimes. Also, there is other stuff going on that requires time and attention. I'll definitely be back though. I enjoy watching and discussing pro wrestling too much to ever walk away for good. Still going to live shows/events/drinking parties over here. I can get my fill of what I personally want out of wrestling that way for now. Except for the in-depth discussion that you can really only get here. (Although I get some of that with my real-life gaijin in Japan friends Rod, Chris, and Juan. But we mostly agree with each other). I'm pleased so many people seem to be tickled by the Member Berries/WWE Lite version of AEW that we're getting now. I'm kinda surprised that No Fists seerms to be the only other person freaked/bummed out by it. Don't see much point in my posting about it right now. Don't want to repeat myself every week. Don't want to rain on the parade.

[southofheavy]

3 hours ago, porksweats said:

We should get Punk/Jarrett for Punk's return. Punk pops a rating, Jarrett pops a rating. Built in storyline of FTR trying to save Mark Briscoe from Global Nonstop Action

100% down for a Punk/Jarrett match. 

[Octopus]

1 hour ago, Gordlow said:

 

Cheers, lads. I'm honestly not even watching AEW/ROH right now. I'll be back for Forbidden Door, though, most likely. Not into the changes in how the "product" is being booked and presented recently. Need time to adjust to the new reality of AEW/ROH being just another "Sports Entertainment" brand rather than a genuine alternative. (I think honestly bringing up the idea of a brand split, Goldberg being brought in, Punk returning... I'd rather not be around for any of that, even in theory). I'm sure I'm missing a lot of good to great matches, but really I have seen enough good to great pro wrestling to last most people several lifetimes. Also, there is other stuff going on that requires time and attention. I'll definitely be back though. I enjoy watching and discussing pro wrestling too much to ever walk away for good. Still going to live shows/events/drinking parties over here. I can get my fill of what I personally want out of wrestling that way for now. Except for the in-depth discussion that you can really only get here. (Although I get some of that with my real-life gaijin in Japan friends Rod, Chris, and Juan. But we mostly agree with each other). I'm pleased so many people seem to be tickled by the Member Berries/WWE Lite version of AEW that we're getting now. I'm kinda surprised that No Fists seerms to be the only other person freaked/bummed out by it. Don't see much point in my posting about it right now. Don't want to repeat myself every week. Don't want to rain on the parade.

No shame in taking a well earned break, Former United States Secretary of State - Gordoleeza Rice. As a Minnesota Vikings fan, I’ve learned the painful reality of being brought joy by something that can regularly bring me pain. I’m with you on some of the storylines and characters not being up my alley, but I’m still yearning for more great matches and that’s the main reason to be an AEW fan. I’m a short period of time we got Omega vs Vikingo, Danielson vs MJF, Samoa Joe vs Darby Allin, Danielson vs Thatcher, Danielson vs Rush, maybe I have a crush on this Danielson guy! I don’t have Honor Club but I can have but assume Athena will likely had a Dax Harwood like year of excellence. Speaking of, FTR is back and hopefully they run the gamut of neat matchups. 

I respect your opinion and also wish I had a friend named Rod. You wanted a wrestling alternative and you don’t feel it’s living up to your expectations. Very fair! 

I agree with everyone that the brand split is dumb, but it’ll likely happen and I will joke endlessly about it.

[username]

So I have thoughts, possibly dumb ones, but I at least want to type them down so that they'll get out of my head.

My gut feeling is that the roster split has relatively little to do with Punk and everything to do with AEW wanting to find a way to make the new Saturday show meaningful and not Rampage 2.0. Making Dynamite weaker to do so is a pretty dumb way, but committing to "well you like wrestlers X and Y, now you can only see them by watching the new show" is an effective if let's say risky way to accomplish that goal.

The thing is that it's likely not going to be received well even if it works. I expect a bunch of grumbling and negative energy around this decision, a decision that I believe has nothing to do with Punk that most will end up blaming Punk for. The thing is that Punk's history shows him to be someone who reacts to such situations poorly, if he has convinced himself something is not his fault (possibly because it actually is not, don't want to re-litigate stuff) he seems incapable of abiding it. TBF much of this has come out due to other wrestlers or media saying something like this rather than fans, but there is a non-zero chance we'll get the equivalent of some random AEW wrestler going "lost having my weekends off to spend with my kids, thanks Punk" and accidentally triggering world war III.

Basically... I totally understand why they would conceivably make this move but the potential for it to backfire spectacularly has gotta be up there.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Anything airing on Friday night AND after 8 or 9 p.m. ET is in the death slot. I don't expect it to be Rampage on the strength of that.

I saw that Meltzer was curious as to why they would pick Saturday since you got major combat sports shows and possibly pre-emptions. Name a day that has NOTHING airing on TV. I will wait. Any day during the week you can argue is a bad choice. News is going dominate. Sports is going dominate. You cannot run from either one. 

The only thing AEW could do is make it where each show feels different and the presentation is different much like the first handful of years after the initial brand split (2004 notwithstanding cause Smackdown had some terrible shows light on anything redeemable and definitely didn't feel like the "wrestling" show). 

[Octopus]

Who are the Collision Six going to be?

[Elsalvajeloco]

5 minutes ago, Octopus said:

Who are the Collision Six going to be?

It's going to start with six people and then everyone will try to shoehorn their way in since they cannot be one of the "pillars". 

In ten years, Aaron Solo is going to be doing interviews talking about how he was part of the Collision Six.

[TheVileOne]

If The Bucks refuse to work with Punk then everything he said about them was right. 

[Dog]

If they get a two-hour "A" show on Saturday, they should really just dump Rampage. Unless it becomes like a recap show where they can play all the cool packages that currently only see the light of YouTube.

[Octopus]

47 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

It's going to start with six people and then everyone will try to shoehorn their way in since they cannot be one of the "pillars". 

In ten years, Aaron Solo is going to be doing interviews talking about how he was part of the Collision Six.

Collision Sixty

[Elsalvajeloco]

7 minutes ago, Dog said:

If they get a two-hour "A" show on Saturday, they should really just dump Rampage. Unless it becomes like a recap show where they can play all the cool packages that currently only see the light of YouTube.

I doubt that happens. Plus, recap shows work less in a live TV era where all your shows are on national TV. I would love someone to steal the pre 1991 Prime Time Wrestling format/Action Zone where you mix in unaired matches, but that's not really an option anymore for a show that's still in primetime. If it was on in the morning or early afternoon, probably.

The issue is you cannot have multiple "feature" matches on a one hour show. At some point, you're going have to integrate storytelling on that show same as you would Dynamite.

[ExcellenceofAirPollution]

I remember Tony doing some interviews before all the Punk stuff went down talking about how he loved all the blurred lines and work/shoot stuff from the 90's like Bret/Shawn and wanted to have more of that in AEW.  I didn't like hearing that at the time because I pretty much feel the opposite.  As a teenager in the 90s, with the internet being a new thing, I found all the gossip between the 3 big promotions fascinating.  I ate up the little shooty comments taking shots at the competition (at least until WCW went off the rails and Russo ran that type of stuff into the ground), Nash/Hall shouting out HBK on Nitro, talent constantly jumping back and forth etc.  But it was also a finite window in time where I think this stuff actually worked to the benefit of the talent and the promotions

Nowadays it's not something that adds to my enjoyment of the product.  I don't go on twitter but the stuff gets around obviously and IMO it just makes people look petty, thin skined, lame or whatever.  I haven't listened to Dax's podcast but seeing all the stuff out of that and on twitter from him has made me less of a fan.  I thought it was easy to see through all the 'should we stay or should we go' stuff and found it kind of insulting to my intelligence.  I didn't really see any evidence of it working like they intended either.  I can't say I'm that interested in Punk-Jericho based off whatever back and forth there has been between them.  Jericho has been one of my favorite wrestlers for like 25 years now but the more he talks about AEW backstage/creative the less interested I am in watching him these days

I just want to see AEW put out a good product and be successful.  All the backstage drama is a distraction.  I think a lot of today's wrestlers struggle to handle the blurring of lines and it leads to morale problems, especially if people start feeling the promotion is working or manipulating them.  Plus I haven't seen any proof that it's really drawing younger fans in or anything.

I am kind of curious to know what teens/20 somethings feel about this kind of stuff.  If you're a newer fan who didn't live through the 90's maybe the backstage/online stuff is much more compelling than to someone older and kinda jaded like myself

Edited April 18, 2023 by ExcellenceofAirPollution

[The Natural]

NSFW.

[Matt D]

7 hours ago, username said:

My gut feeling is that the roster split has relatively little to do with Punk and everything to do with AEW wanting to find a way to make the new Saturday show meaningful and not Rampage 2.0. Making Dynamite weaker to do so is a pretty dumb way, but committing to "well you like wrestlers X and Y, now you can only see them by watching the new show" is an effective if let's say risky way to accomplish that goal.

The roster's big and the Door is open and the roster is relatively healthy compared to a year or two ago. There's no reason to think that Dynamite won't be stacked every week even if you move some people off of it. To me this all hinges on whether or not Tony's booking problems (when it comes to the consistency of a push and following up on things and not slow burning them so long that they lose meaning) are because he has too big a roster or because he's unfocused. This could be a real blessing for him if it's the former and not the latter.

[Just Adam Bay Bay]

Isn’t the one major positive of a brand split more in ring time for people that aren’t getting enough? I doubt we only see Darby wrestle once a month once that happens (which I definitely want to see Darby wrestle weekly or bi-weekly), and MJF should have to wrestle more than once every ten months as a result of this too. There’s no logical way to have two smaller rosters and not put him in matches. 

Before anyone says that’s what the competition does with Roman at least they have more well established names, and Roman isn’t on TV weekly either. Max is on TV every week, and should be wrestling at least once a month (even if it’s beating jobber of the week types to hype his next big defense).

[Krone]

4 hours ago, ExcellenceofAirPollution said:

I am kind of curious to know what teens/20 somethings feel about this kind of stuff.  If you're a newer fan who didn't live through the 90's maybe the backstage/online stuff is much more compelling than to someone older and kinda jaded like myself

I'm 32, so the height of the Monday Night Wars I was about 7-9 years old and wasn't really into wrestling the way I would be until about 2002. One of the first things that I was introduced to was rajah.com which led me to all the backstage rumors, gossip, etc and I loved reading about that stuff. Now a days, I don't have to go to any specific website to see it because it'll pop up in my Twitter feed relentlessly (without even following said people, thanks Musk) so I will just read it and graze over it. The problem I have with this backstage shooty stuff is that it seems like everyone is doing it which makes it seem less... cool? I can imagine seeing the fallout from Bret/HBK at SS '97 was interesting to some people, but now if you want to know the full story you got Sean Ross Sapp or someone else tweeting it out 5x a day. It's much more in your face than I can imagine it was back in the 90's when you really had to search for that stuff which I don't think makes me feel as much "in the know" as before. Everyone knows the backstage happenings now unless you aren't on the internet. YouTube will share backstage gossip, Facebook has the pages that'll randomly pop up and show you the backstage stuff, it's just so much easier to see now.
 

I got to imagine it's like finding out how a magician does a trick. When you first figure it out, it's pretty cool; but by the 100th time it's just sort of like "yeah okay". Strictly speaking off the cuff, I think a big part of this was Something to Wrestle With - which was the first podcast I really listened to that broke down a lot of the backstage happenings and kind of uncovered the magic of the business somewhat. Maybe I'm being naïve, but Conrad Thompson and his litany of podcasts IMO really broke down that barrier to a broader audience of "exposing the business" if you will and it's just continued to grow with time. It started with Prichard, but now you can listen to Foley, Jarrett, Bischoff, Arn, you name it break down and go behind the scenes like you couldn't before. For instance, young me was enamored with the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD. Loved that shit. But I've tried to go back and watch it, and it's like if I really want to hear the unfiltered true story I can find a bunch of that stuff just on YouTube alone. Social media and the rise of technology has led to literally everything being way more available and it just makes the fun of being "in the know" not as... fun anymore? I mean how many wrestling "journalists" are there now compared to back in the 90s? Seems like there's one for every five fans.

Couple that with wrestlers being a lot more accessible now and you kind of took the veil off of a previously pretty shrouded business. Everyone's exposed now. Imagine if Punk didn't have Instagram to keep everything going and we were just left in the dust wondering what was going to happen. Or Dax updating on a weekly basis.

 

[HarryArchieGus]

11 hours ago, Gordlow said:

 

Cheers, lads. I'm honestly not even watching AEW/ROH right now. I'll be back for Forbidden Door, though, most likely. Not into the changes in how the "product" is being booked and presented recently. Need time to adjust to the new reality of AEW/ROH being just another "Sports Entertainment" brand rather than a genuine alternative. (I think honestly bringing up the idea of a brand split, Goldberg being brought in, Punk returning... I'd rather not be around for any of that, even in theory). I'm sure I'm missing a lot of good to great matches, but really I have seen enough good to great pro wrestling to last most people several lifetimes. Also, there is other stuff going on that requires time and attention. I'll definitely be back though. I enjoy watching and discussing pro wrestling too much to ever walk away for good. Still going to live shows/events/drinking parties over here. I can get my fill of what I personally want out of wrestling that way for now. Except for the in-depth discussion that you can really only get here. (Although I get some of that with my real-life gaijin in Japan friends Rod, Chris, and Juan. But we mostly agree with each other). I'm pleased so many people seem to be tickled by the Member Berries/WWE Lite version of AEW that we're getting now. I'm kinda surprised that No Fists seerms to be the only other person freaked/bummed out by it. Don't see much point in my posting about it right now. Don't want to repeat myself every week. Don't want to rain on the parade.

Totally disagree on the WWE lite theory, but totally respect anybody taking hiatus rather than regurgitating angry arguments weekly. That said, you're missed Gordy! I wonder if we can all band together to WILL @Gordlow back to enjoying the AEW 'brand'? 

Psst, let's get the straps on the Iron Savages ASAP! Wait, and under the moniker 'Bear Country'! And Big Nick's due a little TV time here and there. We'll also have to sacrifice Jarrett. No, sorry, we can't do that. He'll just have to become better acquainted with the FFWD button.