AEW - NOVEMBER 2023

[Coletti]

Since the big reveal is likely not until December 30th, there's a non-zero chance that The Devil will be somebody like Nick Nemeth. Just putting that out there. 

Actually, it would be interesting (not necessarily great, but interesting) if this tied into The Bucks' "sabbatical." Them, Wardlow, and the brothers Nemeth all together would be something different at least...

[Cobra Commander]

2 hours ago, Jenalysis said:

As for the Devil- I'd love it to be Hammerstone.  He's visually impressive enough to make a good first impression, there's the obvious history, and gives you a choice of goons.

There was a news blurb about Hammerstone being released from MLW to join the “World Titan Federation”, which is of course a thinly veiled fictional group inspired by MLW’s current lawsuit against the WWE. So unless MLW is made up of total blockheads, I suspect Hammerstone is sticking around.

But you know which member of the Dynasty is not employed by MLW anymore?

Richard Holliday.

Holliday, whose MLW valet is MJF’s current lady friend

[porksweats]

8 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

There was a news blurb about Hammerstone being released from MLW to join the “World Titan Federation”, which is of course a thinly veiled fictional group inspired by MLW’s current lawsuit against the WWE. So unless MLW is made up of total blockheads, I suspect Hammerstone is sticking around.

But you know which member of the Dynasty is not employed by MLW anymore?

Richard Holliday.

Holliday, whose MLW valet is MJF’s current lady friend

Never underestimate how stupid MLW leadership can be.

[TheVileOne]

This is the beginning of the end of AEW.

[Cobra Commander]

From a people-watching POV, watching people float “AEW’s problem is the former WWE people they have working backstage” or “AEW has went downhill because they strayed from what they used to do” is fascinating.

I suspect a big part of the equation is that AEW was better prepared to face Vince than Hunter and now that the WWE is hotter and the boss isn’t in his 70s and they're cutting valuable guys loose less often than they did in 2021, it’s a little tougher.

Some of the “AEW is too sports entertainmenty now” feels like an ideology thing where if things go badly, it gets blamed on drifting from the shining path. Like if your party loses an election and it gets blamed on not catering enough to the base.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Cobra Commander

[Go2Sleep]

Swerve would work just because it's Swerve and people are ready to see him get the belt.

I like the idea of Britt Baker being the devil over Cole, but I don't trust AEW creative or announcers to pull it off.

33 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

This is the beginning of the end of AEW.

If this is about Punk, lol, no it's not. Just as he didn't vault AEW past WWE, he won't widen WWE's lead or shrink AEW's base either.

[TheVileOne]

53 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

Swerve would work just because it's Swerve and people are ready to see him get the belt.

I like the idea of Britt Baker being the devil over Cole, but I don't trust AEW creative or announcers to pull it off.

If this is about Punk, lol, no it's not. Just as he didn't vault AEW past WWE, he won't widen WWE's lead or shrink AEW's base either.

They've now lost three of their top stars to WWE. They build their Saturday primetime two-hour TV show around CM Punk. They built an entire title around Jade Cargill. Cody was their poster boy and face of the brand and the spokesperson. 

[Go2Sleep]

Cody was the only one of those three that mattered and he's been gone for nearly 2 years and AEW is trucking along at the same pace. Punk was on TV for like a month of his last year with the company and everyone was ready to move on from him. Jade was pushed hard, but was never a key piece of anything. Stat did more for the secondary belt in a few months than Jade did in her whole 60 match streak.

If there's one thing that's become abundantly clear over the last couple of years, it's that WWE is the clear #1, AEW is a healthy #2, and no amount of talent movement changes that.

[TheVileOne]

20 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

Cody was the only one of those three that mattered and he's been gone for nearly 2 years and AEW is trucking along at the same pace. Punk was on TV for like a month of his last year with the company and everyone was ready to move on from him. Jade was pushed hard, but was never a key piece of anything. Stat did more for the secondary belt in a few months than Jade did in her whole 60 match streak.

If there's one thing that's become abundantly clear over the last couple of years, it's that WWE is the clear #1, AEW is a healthy #2, and no amount of talent movement changes that.

I mean the whole Shaq match was built around Jade Cargill's in-ring debut. To say she was never a key piece of anything is a misnomer. They aren't trucking along at the same pace anymore. 

[Octopus]

2 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

From a people-watching POV, watching people float “AEW’s problem is the former WWE people they have working backstage” or “AEW has went downhill because they strayed from what they used to do” is fascinating.

I suspect a big part of the equation is that AEW was better prepared to face Vince than Hunter and now that the WWE is hotter and the boss isn’t in his 70s and they're cutting valuable guys loose less often than they did in 2021, it’s a little tougher.

I feel similarly about NXT vs AEW when that was more of a thing. As a concept it was more successful as an Indy killer with ROH and other hot independent talent. AEW across more like a bigger deal. I saw Reddit posts dunking on HHH and saying NXT was a failure which was downright laughable.
The AEW honeymoon of excitement and earned good faith was maybe up to Double or Nothing 2022. At least for me, when AEW had something that maybe wasn’t working they usually found a way to turn it around and I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Even the criticized Codyverse was almost entirely pointed at Cody instead of the booker/ owner.  After or around that point we started seeing interim titles, added belts, ROH, injuries and highly talked about backstage drama. I feel they’ve returned to mostly good television but I’m much more critical and less likely now to assume something I don’t like will work out in the end.

I’m interested in a similar 3 year period of potential good faith for TKO-WWE-HHH. Compared to when they were the only major game in town, there is a lot more die hard fans that really really love this product. Will the eventual transition away from the Bloodline maintain an era of prosperity? I think so, but I also thought AEW could do no wrong a little over a year ago.

2 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

 

Some of the “AEW is too sports entertainmenty now” feels like an ideology thing where if things go badly, it gets blamed on drifting from the shining path. Like if your party loses an election and it gets blamed on not catering enough to the base.

This is fair. I look at AEW as an alternative to things I don’t like. I understand that caps them as a forever #2, but I’m a dumb consumer that likes dumb things and has dumb thoughts. I’m very uninterested in Cope in AEW. Toni Storm’s gimmick is going too far into parody for me. What the fuck are the Righteous? These are things that can grow them as a company so maybe I wouldn’t listen to me. But I went from a buy all PPVs and see the live shows to not going to Dynamite next week. 
I’m not mad or anything. I’m just a consumer with tight money and making a choice on what I can spend on.

3 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

This is the beginning of the end of AEW.

eh. I think if there is a spiral downwards it’s already been in place. If not, then it all is what it is. Although fun, it is impossible to actually have this conversation until in retrospect with much more available information. No disrespect though.

[Eivion]

27 minutes ago, Octopus said:

Will the eventual transition away from the Bloodline maintain an era of prosperity?

If they continue on their current path they should be fine post Bloodline. A year or two back they would have been in a horrible position because the Bloodline story was carrying the main roster. Now they have a good chunk of acts who are working well in their own right both mid card and upper card wise.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

33 minutes ago, Octopus said:

I’m not mad or anything. I’m just a consumer with tight money and making a choice on what I can spend on.

I think for me, I don't personally feel as though AEW respects my time as a viewer. The breakup of Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland is probably the best example of this. They were building tension between the two, they lost the titles, they stayed together for nearly three months after, then they just... did nothing. Swerve started his own group, but there was never a match between him and Keith Lee to play off of the tension that they had.

If the story they wanted to tell was that Swerve turned and as a result Keith drifted away from him, fine. If it was a health thing from one of them, fine. But we didn't get a true conclusion to their story, it just sort of ended, and to me, I struggle to see why I should have gotten invested in Swerve and Keith as a team or in the tension they had because it was all just thrown away to move onto the next story. All it takes is one angle someone really enjoys being blown off with an unsatisfactory conclusion to completely tank someone's interest.

The primary hook a lot of people fall on is "but there are great matches", but there are great matches everywhere. What's the incentive if you want more than that?

Not only that, but there's six hours of regular TV each week. How do I know which show will have my favorites, if any? I don't.  AEW used to be really good about advertising what matches would happen the next week, and nowadays you might not get an announcement of what's happening on each show until the day before. It's almost as if AEW relies on their audience to just watch each week and they don't need to say what they're going to be delivering. You can't try and sell as much product as AEW does while also not saying what's inside the package.

[HarryArchieGus]

I sense there's a reason beyond simple Creative Blunder that prevented the Keith Lee-Swerve match. Nonetheless, for whatever reason they needed to switch direction the audience needed and deserved some sort of explanation. 

[TheVileOne]

What is the reason they built up a match between Keith Lee and Shane Taylor on AEW TV and the match never took place? 

[HarryArchieGus]

1 hour ago, Sparkleface said:

The primary hook a lot of people fall on is "but there are great matches", but there are great matches everywhere. What's the incentive if you want more than that?

Not only that, but there's six hours of regular TV each week. How do I know which show will have my favorites, if any? I don't.  AEW used to be really good about advertising what matches would happen the next week, and nowadays you might not get an announcement of what's happening on each show until the day before. It's almost as if AEW relies on their audience to just watch each week and they don't need to say what they're going to be delivering. You can't try and sell as much product as AEW does while also not saying what's inside the package.

The primary hook for me is great matches featuring great performers. AEW's roster of talent is a huge part of that primary hook. For any of it's shortcomings/growing pains, I continue to feel generally satisfied with the product. For a down period there's still been plenty to enjoy week to week. That said, your final paragraph rings true for me too. The lack of line-ups with slapped together matches does seem to indicate that TK is clearly juggling way too much right now.  

Edited November 26, 2023 by HarryArchieGus

[Just Dave]

30 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

What is the reason they built up a match between Keith Lee and Shane Taylor on AEW TV and the match never took place? 

I get the sense that Keith Lee getting medically cleared from week to week isn’t a given. Covid did a number on him.

[Octopus]

I’m sure @Sparkleface was using Keith Lee as an example of the something we’ve seen a few time now of the trigger not being pulled on feuds or moments and getting caught up on the specifics of his injury misses the point Sparkleface was making. Pre-Hayter injury we saw the same thing with the assumed Baker feud being shelved for a Paige debut (assumption on the reason but twice it seemed like a split was going to happen and was pushed back). Sammy Guevara splits with Jericho and then doesn’t and before that was derping between face and heel. Andrade not with Rush I guess. Red Velvet randomly turning heel explained by announcers. RIHO PUSHING YUKA NAKAZAWA NOT LEADING TO THE MOST VIOLENT TEXAS DEATHMATCH EVER.

[zendragon]

@Octopus I feel the righteous are supposed to be dark side of flower power ala The Manson Family, not sure how much legs that has though. As for being a wrestling alternative while I certainly think the 2006-2007 ECW revival shows showed that there's is an appetite for something other than Vince's McMahon's vision of "sports entertainment". However, when you are running a national promotion, you have to respect that WWE has established what wrestling looks like on this level for 20 years. I liken it to this I've been to a few of Joey Ryan's Bar Wrestling shows, you want to do "dick flip" wrestling your gonna draw your wrestling neck beards but not much beyond that. PCW Ultra is a bigger indy and runs a much more traditional show and they get more people and more families at their shows. 

@Sparkleface I've long thought that one of Tony's weakness as a booker is overly relying on "special guest star". This week its Jeff Cobb, next week it Will Osprey!. I can watch NJPW on AXS for good matches, I could watch Impact in 60, when I go to AEW I want to get sucked into stories. It used to be we had a variety of characters and a handful of guys who could really work. But in an era where everyone can go, I need more than a great match for the sake of a great match like 96-98 Nitro.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

26 minutes ago, Octopus said:

I’m sure @Sparkleface was using Keith Lee as an example of the something we’ve seen a few time now of the trigger not being pulled on feuds or moments and getting caught up on the specifics of his injury misses the point Sparkleface was making. Pre-Hayter injury we saw the same thing with the assumed Baker feud being shelved for a Paige debut (assumption on the reason but twice it seemed like a split was going to happen and was pushed back). Sammy Guevara splits with Jericho and then doesn’t and before that was derping between face and heel. Andrade not with Rush I guess. Red Velvet randomly turning heel explained by announcers. RIHO PUSHING YUKA NAKAZAWA NOT LEADING TO THE MOST VIOLENT TEXAS DEATHMATCH EVER.

That's correct, and thank you for providing other examples of where things were started and then dropped for whatever reason. It's fine to have to abandon something, but it seems like they do things just to get through this week and then drastically reverse course. Sammy's constant splitting/reuniting with Jericho was another one, to where it completely ruined the impact of the actual final split.

7 minutes ago, zendragon said:

 

@Sparkleface I've long thought that one of Tony's weakness as a booker is overly relying on "special guest star". This week its Jeff Cobb, next week it Will Osprey!. I can watch NJPW on AXS for good matches, I could watch Impact in 60, when I go to AEW I want to get sucked into stories. It used to be we had a variety of characters and a handful of guys who could really work. But in an era where everyone can go, I need more than a great match for the sake of a great match like 96-98 Nitro.

Guests can be great when used sparingly, but I'd agree there's too much of a reliance on them. AEW also has a bad habit of assuming that anyone they bring in is automatically known by their fanbase and don't need introductions to their audience, which then gets supported with "well, if you don't know who [non-AEW wrestler here] is, do your own research" along with how it's respecting the intelligence of the audience to just drop these names with no information on people's laps. There's a difference between respecting the intelligence of the audience and being an unapproachable show to watch, and it's possible to be both respectful and approachable. Just saying "this is a dream match" only goes so far, as evidenced by how much they've spammed "HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!" to the point where it means literally nothing (and was probably killed with the "huge announcement" of "in a month, you can buy tickets for a show in August!").

[zendragon]

I'm interested to see what if anything happens with ROOOOSH and Andrade as both are still doing the Tranquillo pose

[Octopus]

@zendragon, make no mistake, I like McDonalds and with the app sadly get my breakfast there twice a week. WWE is magic and when they’re hitting on all cylinders they make a fantastic product. 

It seemed AEW at the start had two different mission statements. To create a sports based product (whatever that actually means) with the idea there was a larger audience for that on a National level And to regain the fans that were lost when WCW folded. I’ve heard Tony mention that multiple times. Maybe they’re both doable and maybe it’s one or the other.

If Tony wants to be very successful, DON’T LISTEN TO ME. I have a proven traken record of not being good with money and running a very small film festival that caters to a very niche audience. My booking or company would be trash to a lot of people.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

6 minutes ago, Octopus said:

@zendragon, make no mistake, I like McDonalds and with the app sadly get my breakfast there twice a week.

We can all enjoy an Egg McMuffin from time to time.

[Octopus]

3 minutes ago, Sparkleface said:

We can all enjoy an Egg McMuffin from time to time.

I’ll either do a morning deal where I get get a Sausage Egg and McGriddle for $2 and a sausage McMuffin that’s $2 ORRR if I’m cheap I can do 2 of the Sausage McMuffins that’s buy one get one for a Buck. So I’m either spending $4.44 after tax or less

[zendragon]

What if Tony Shiavone is the devil with his history of hating MJF (and he wants frame Adam Cole as well)

Spoiler

It could be the greatest swerve of all time!

 

[peterien]

I think (and hope) what happened over the weekend lights a fire under Tony and AEWs top players asses. Just go balls out and make the product as hot as it was a year and a half ago, there are some things they can’t do on the same level as WWE but if they focus on what works for them it should make it a great time for fans.