All In II - 8/27/2023

[JLowe]

1 minute ago, Matt D said:

Maybe I've just been watching a ton of trios matches with either Jumbo and Tenryu or Jumbo and Misawa up against each other or Taue and Kawada... or the entire history of Lucha trios where the captains are feuding.

Wrestling is big and varied enough to make it work. Takeshita can tease an encounter with Omega at the start of the match and immediately tag out to Juice and the place will go nuts booing. Then when they finally face off later in the match... the place will go nuts again. It's wrestling.

I think we've seen so damn many random trios matches the last year or so that we forget that, when done right, it's a perfect format for a boiling hot match that furthers a feud/angle.

[The Natural]

I greatly preferred Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay at Wrestle Kingdom 17 to the Forbidden Door rematch. I hope the third match is more the former than the latter. I thought it would be here. Rather see that than Chris Jericho vs. Will Ospreay.

[Dolphman 3000]

22 minutes ago, Casey said:

My only problem with the show so far is MJF & Cole wrestling twice, but I’m willing to trust the process and ride out that story.

"MJF and Cole wanted to have a banger tag match before they broke up"

It's understandable, but putting it on at the last-minute is telegraphing the turn

[twiztor]

27 minutes ago, Casey said:

Because this show is WrestleMania caliber and should only have dream matches or whatever bullshit fans have arm-chair booked themselves into believing should happen.

even the actual WrestleMania doesn't exclusively feature dream matches and never has. ditto for Crown Jewel (the "new Mania")

[Dolphman 3000]

[Shartnado]

As an anecdote, there is a precedent of running Wembley and having a large portion of the card being quite different to what was going on on TV and house shows at the time. If you watch Superstars from '92, the SummerSlam'92 card is pretty surprising. Not that it was dream matches for everyone, but not the feuds featured on TV at the time. I'm not saying that's the way to go, necessarily, but this is big, so make it BIG! If some big matches take place there with very short build-up, that's definitely the price I'm willing to already have paid.

[Jrag]

It is their biggest show ever. Dream matches isn’t the right word for what I’m looking for necessarily. They have so many fresh unexplored matchups right now that they could have been building to I guess is my overall point. 

It’s not that I think Takeshita/Omega has been some hot feud that deserves a big pay off over a trios match. It’s more that we are in a place leading into their biggest stretch of shows ever where Omega should be working a different program all together.

To me it feels like Tony couldn’t decide what direction to go for some of these guys and stalled a bit too long while figuring it out. A lot of that is All Out being a week later (a problem of their own making). A lot of that is surely the weird dynamics with Collision being almost in its own universe. Joe/Punk was a great choice for my personal taste, but is Jay White being a bit directionless on the road to All In a side effect of Tony keeping his Punk options open?

I think the mazy type booking where a bunch of feuds connect and then separate, start and then stop, can be great at times, but can also cut the legs out of the build up to these bigger shows.  

Again love what has been announced already. I’m obviously very excited about the show overall, but the rumored direction for the remainder of the card in uninspired. Tony has some big weaknesses as a booker in my opinion and a show of this size puts those weaknesses in the spotlight. 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Jrag

[HumanChessgame]

MJF and Cole having two matches on the show is stupid, considering how big a deal the card is and how they should be filling it out in as interesting a manner as possible. I don't think the match is going to be bad or anything, but its purpose is probably them losing to add some potential "are they going to have heat with eachother for one of them getting pinned?" story in the main event. Aussie Open are good and could have a fresh, quality match with just about any other team. They haven't had a match against just the Lucha Bros and I'd much rather see that.

[Matt D]

7 minutes ago, Jrag said:

It is their biggest show ever. Dream matches isn’t the right word for what I’m looking for necessarily. They have so many fresh unexplored matchups right now that they could have been building to I guess is my overall point. 

It’s not that I think Takeshita/Omega has been some hot feud that deserves a big pay off over a trios match. It’s more that we are in a place leading into their biggest stretch of shows ever where Omega should be working a different program all together.

To me it feels like Tony couldn’t decide what direction to go for some of these guys and stalled a bit too long while figuring it out. A lot of that is All Out being a week later (a problem of their own making). A lot of that is surely the weird dynamics with Collision being almost in its own universe. Joe/Punk was a great choice for my personal taste, but is Jay White being a bit directionless on the road to All In a side effect of Tony keeping his Punk options open?

I think the mazy type booking where a bunch of feuds connect and then separate, start and then stop, can be great at times, but can also cut the legs out of the build up to these bigger shows.  

Again love what has been announced already. I’m obviously very excited about the show overall, but the rumored direction for the remainder of the card in uninspired. Tony has some big weaknesses as a booker in my opinion and a show of this size puts those weaknesses in the spotlight. 

I'm sorry for posting so much but this stuff is interesting.

So this is a different argument than just "Omega needs a singles match!" when I don't think Takeshita vs Omega is any different from a trios match.

I know there are injury issues (Danielson, Hayter, PAC, Mercedes Mone). I know plans have changed for multiple reasons. I know Collision was a surprise. I know that Punk probably led to some instability.

But, I just don't think Tony ever saw this as his Wrestlemania. I think he saw it as a great show, another initiative like Forbidden Door, something where they'd get 50K or even 60K and it'd be a  huge success and homecoming of sorts for him and a big celebration. I don't think he was expecting it to be potentially the biggest wrestling show of all time.

It feels like a big deal, but it's also going to be a middle of the day Sunday PPV for the US East Coast and even earlier on the West Coast. Summerslam 1992 aired a couple of days later in the US at US times. Clash at the Castle felt like a sort of extra thing. Chicago and All Out matter a lot to him.

I'm trying to think how to express it. I think he saw it as the All Star Game or an "Annual" for a comic book that comes out every month or a Christmas Special for a UK TV show. Something with spectacle, something that may get more eyes and more casual eyes on it than usual, something with a great gimmick and great profitability, but not their Wrestlemania, let alone the biggest attendance of all time.

[dragonzombie]

Wonder who debuts on this show, if anyone does at all.

[Dolphman 3000]

2 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I know there are injury issues (Danielson, Hayter, PAC, Mercedes Mone). I know plans have changed for multiple reasons. I know Collision was a surprise. I know that Punk probably led to some instability.

Yeah I think Mercedes was a big "wait and see" - last I heard she was still walking with a boot on her leg

Not that I wanted to see Mercedes vs. Saraya at Wembley, but at least it would have made sense

[Dolphman 3000]

TNA's dime-store Forbidden Door is looking more fun than All In at this point

 

[John from Cincinnati]

48 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

MJF and Cole having two matches on the show is stupid, considering how big a deal the card is and how they should be filling it out in as interesting a manner as possible. I don't think the match is going to be bad or anything, but its purpose is probably them losing to add some potential "are they going to have heat with eachother for one of them getting pinned?" story in the main event. 

The purpose is also probably to give people the tag act they've been responding to while also delivering a world championship match. 

[AxB]

So, Brian Alvarez suggests that a good finish for Cole vs MJF would be Cole hitting MJF with a roll of quarters.

But I only know this because Bix has decided that this means Alvarez is endorsing a Nazi Hate Crime:

https://vxtwitter.com/davidbix/status/1689682001488486404

Meanwhile, I'm out here wondering why none of them realise that Wembley Stadium, which is in London, which is in England, isn't in America. There are no rolls of quarters in England. There are no quarters. This here, this doesn't exist in the UK:

This exists in the UK:

Perhaps someone can hit their opponent with a bag of 2p pieces.

[peachchaos]

As a general principle, I'm not a fan of someone wrestling mutiple times in one night unless its a tournament or gauntlet situation. Then again, WM30 and the Georgia Dome Nitro were some of the best nights of wrestling so apparently I allow for exceptions. 

59 minutes ago, Matt D said:

But, I just don't think Tony ever saw this as his Wrestlemania.[...]I think he saw it as the All Star Game or an "Annual" for a comic book that comes out every month or a Christmas Special for a UK TV show. Something with spectacle, something that may get more eyes and more casual eyes on it than usual, something with a great gimmick and great profitability, but not their Wrestlemania, let alone the biggest attendance of all time.

This might be the only sensible and probable take on this show I've seen so far, including my own reservations. And even regardless of intent when the show was booked, there's reason to book this show as their big annual event since the odds of drawing a crowd this size again are almost nonexistent. The idea was to put on a great show in front of a hot new audience with the biggest crowd possible. There was no way they imagined this, but they all get to have their cake and eat it too. The "smart" wrestling decision is obviously to save the biggest dream matches to help attendance in the states. Not just All Out and Grand Slam, but for every Collision, every Dynamite. Obviously there's no money in doing CM Punk-Kenny Omega at Wembly when all the tickets have been sold. But the seeds are slowly being planted as always in AEW.

There is certainly an argument to be made that nothing Tony is booking is happening in a vacuum and the overwhelming negative response to something like Ospreay-Jericho has been quite loud. One of the strongest complaints against Vince is that he rarely gives in to what the audience demands. (Which isn't really accurate but that's a different section of the board.) Would there be something to gain by pivoting to something like Ospreay-Omega at this point? Assuming it could happen politically, I think there's way more to be lost there story-wise. But guess what? If they do have the balls to try Wembly 2024, they have a match they know people want to see.

[Craig H]

It feels like the tag match with MJF and Cole on Zero Hour is a setup to break MJF down for the main event and then have Cole turn heel on MJF in the main event itself. I'm not a huge fan of that setup because it ruins my fantasy booking of Eddie winning the title at Grand Slam from MJF, but that's why they call it fantasy booking. 

I could also see a scenario where MJF overcomes the odds if Cole does turn heel and sneaks out with a victory.

It's very weird when you hear or see people discuss MJF and Cole and how they want it to play out longer. And then at the same time, those people complain that storylines in AEW take too long. I think we're now at the sweet spot where you could have Cole turn on MJF or vice versa and we can get to the final stage of the feud to move onto whatever is next for MJF, which to me should still be Eddie or another option is OC. 

[Dolphman 3000]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

So, Brian Alvarez suggests that a good finish for Cole vs MJF would be Cole hitting MJF with a roll of quarters.

But I only know this because Bix has decided that this means Alvarez is endorsing a Nazi Hate Crime:

I, for one, am shocked that the unsightly man who shit his pants at a wrestling show and has devoted his life to ruining Dave Meltzer is extrapolating a hate-crime from a proposed wrestling finish to try and tarnish Meltzer's staff

Edited August 11, 2023 by Dolphman 3000

[Dolfan in NYC]

Not to spin off too far from the show itself.  But take yourself out of the wrestling bubble for a moment.  

Imagine having to explain to a person who has never watched wrestling before, why a guy is throwing coins at another guy in a wrestling ring.  And then think of their reaction when you tell them the religion of the person who's having the coins thrown at.

Now look...  this is clearly an angle that they're setting up, and it's probably going to happen.   But... advocating that it does?  Eh.  That's at least a little sus, to say the least.  

[Niners Fan in CT]

4 hours ago, Matt D said:

Re: Cassidy, I can see why someone would want a title match.

Re: Omega, I don't get the big deal why having a sort of trios dream match on a big supershow like this is all that different from a singles match without any real stakes. There's nothing inherently worse about a trios match. A triple three or a four way is worse. A trios match adds in new possibilities. Just Omega teaming with Ibushi and Page at the same time is interesting.

Again, I think doing them vs Takeshita/Jericho/Ospreay would have been ideal since it would have tied together a bunch of stories and could set up the Jericho vs Ospreay match at All Out if he was still available, but Jericho's probably not seeing the big picture there.

But I don't really see what the big difference between a Takeshita vs Omega match and a Takeshita vs Omega trios "dream match" is.

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. 

[Matt D]

I both agree to disagree with Niners and probably disagree to agree too, depending on how he deals with that. I'm mostly avoiding the coins issue (as someone with some personal experience with such a thing in elementary school, too), as to whether MJF should even be working that into his character as a heat-seeking heel (which is how he used it last time). I, as much as anyone, can appreciate the notion of chekhov's gun, but... let's talk about MJF/Cole vs Aussie Open.

1. I think Khan, for as much as we all know he just wants to stick to the perfect plans within his notebook, is actually adapting to the success of MJF/Cole.
2. I think he kind of regrets taking the ROH belts off of the Lucha Bros at this point (just as he regretted ever putting the belts on them due to their lack of availability on Saturdays), as MJF/Cole vs the Lucha Bros would be a more marketable and appropriate All In match.
3. Despite it being too early to take the ROH tag belts off of Aussie Open, it becomes very interesting if he does. I'd argue that he usually makes the conservative booking decision though. Jericho winning the ROH belt was an exception but I can't think of a ton of others. Maybe Mox beating Punk so quickly.
4. It's the Pre-Show match! The Pre-Show match for Double or Nothing was Hardys/Hook vs Ethan Page/Gunns.
5. It's part of an overall story for the night, just like WM 20 and 30 were. We can guess what that story looks like, but we don't know yet. We don't even know the main event of All Out yet! The finish of MJF/Cole vs FTR was MJF saving Cole but failing anyway. Will they invert that? Will the Kingdom/Roddy be involved? Will a turn happen in the match itself? Or...
6. Like I said with 3, it's not outside the realm of possibility that MJF/Cole win. Then what happens, right?
7. Yes, there are lots of people on the card and they can do more matches but with Hayter, Danielson, Mone, PAC all out, and with another PPV the week later, they're stretching their hottest act into both starting and ending the show.

[Dolfan in NYC]

I mean, I think there's something to be said about taking a step back and thinking about how that promotion that started 20 years ago in front of a few hundred people in a public park gym, is now having one of the titles defended in front of 80,000 people in one of the premier stadiums in the world.  

That's pretty cool. 

[peachchaos]

8 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

I mean, I think there's something to be said about taking a step back and thinking about how that promotion that started 20 years ago in front of a few hundred people in a public park gym, is now having one of the titles defended in front of 80,000 people in one of the premier stadiums in the world.  

That's pretty cool. 

The legacy of the Briscoes in full effect. Hadn't considered this yet.

[odessasteps]

12 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

I mean, I think there's something to be said about taking a step back and thinking about how that promotion that started 20 years ago in front of a few hundred people in a public park gym, is now having one of the titles defended in front of 80,000 people in one of the premier stadiums in the world.  

That's pretty cool. 

Kingston is bringing back the Grand Championship? 

[Zimbra]

13 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

I mean, I think there's something to be said about taking a step back and thinking about how that promotion that started 20 years ago in front of a few hundred people in a public park gym, is now having one of the titles defended in front of 80,000 people in one of the premier stadiums in the world.  

That's pretty cool. 

I've been thinking a lot about Prince Nana working that first ROH show back then and now managing in front of 80000 people.

Pretty, pretty, pretty cool.

[peachchaos]

Sorry if the following valid and interesting point is actually from this thread, it's nearly impossible to navigate but who's complaining? I think it was someone on X/Twitter that brought up the fact that opening the show with Cole and MJF is a brilliant way to give the press what they need in terms of photography since the reporters likely won't last until the end of night.