AEW TV - 4/17 - 4/23/2024 - Spare the Rod, Spoil the Kyle

[Phantom Lord]

This was a good episode of Dynamite. Loved the opening promo by Moxley. Lots of rah rah AEW in it. Didn't expect him to challenge Powerhouse Hobbs but that should be a fun match next week.

The mixed tag was what it was. I personally do not like mixed tag matches with the rules of the men can only fight the men and women fight the women. Copeland vs. Brody was fine on it's own though. I'd like to see more of that.

The Elite vs. Penta/Garcia/Pac was a fun match. I liked the spot where Matthew was doing his own commentary with the microphone and he says to the ref "I'm not gonna hit him with it".  The Bucks are become good in their roles of corporate assholes. But's not quite there yet. Needs involvement from Hangman or Kenny but who knows when either of them will be back.

The Hook/Jericho thing was dumb. I like Jericho, but he needs to go away for an extended period of time. Instead we get him and Hook at the PPV. Man if he wins the FTW Title they should just retire it.

Shane Taylor vs Orange was a good match. But does Ooggo do anything other than hitting guys with body shots? He's been training for two years or so. I wonder if there is any upside for him. Personally I thought he was dead in the water after that disastrous Cody feud and match. Post match nice to see TRENT attack everyone so Orange Cassidy could get beat up some more.

Osprey vs. Claudio was a really good match. I really hope Callis turns on Osprey soon because it makes no sense to have him with Don Callis. Osprey should be feuding against The Callis family just so we can get more of him vs. Takeshita and Fletcher.

The ending with Joe and Swerve was all right. They should have made this a chain match for the ppv since it feels like this match is missing something. I hope Swerve wins, but I could see someone costing him the title so Joe hangs on.

Overall a good episode of Dynamite.

[Craig H]

Moxley challenging Hobbs in Jacksonville is a cool callback to the early days/covid days of AEW when Hobbs first hit the scene and looked to be aligning himself with Moxley.

[Sex Machine Gun]

Kind of underwhelming for a go-home show, had some highlights sure but meh. Then again that's pretty much how I'd describe the product as a whole the last 6-8 months. Swerve damn near stomped on the heads of the security dudes when he jumped off the top onto them outside the ring so that was cool.

[The Green Meanie]

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

Moxley challenging Hobbs in Jacksonville is a cool callback to the early days/covid days of AEW when Hobbs first hit the scene and looked to be aligning himself with Moxley.

This. I mentioned that I was curious to see if they were going to reference when Mox picked a young, upstart Hobbs to be on his team for a big six man tag match, I'm glad Excalibur referenced it.

Hook says what we've all been thinking! Why is Jericho still Lionheart Jericho?

After saying "Who's going to save Orange?" my guess was actually going to be Trent, but not for the obvious reasons (no one else could attack Orange but him). Why exactly would Daniels and Sydal do it?

Rosa looked like she was cosplaying as Statlander.

Claudio remains the man.

[Cobra Commander]

1 hour ago, Sex Machine Gun said:

Kind of underwhelming for a go-home show

i'm guessing they're gonna try to make the Colli-page 3 hour show the go-home show, even if more people will have watched Dynamite than their Saturday shows, sorta like how it felt when they had both shows back to back the night before the PPV in LA which I forgot the name of

[HarryArchieGus]

16 hours ago, Coletti said:

Naaaah, Liger seems to have a spectacular sense of humor, and since he's already retired at it's not like we were going to get a match. I'm happy to agree to disagree though!

Nobody is questioning Liger’s sense of humour. He’s a terrific comedy worker when called upon. Also, interesting to see a fan of Starks/Liger and their 6 seconds on screen together. No, like you, and everyone, I didn’t expect a match with the retired legend. Seeing as Liger was a Stampede guy, and they were in Calgary, I was just hoping he’d get a proper intro and fanfare. And a proper disrespect following it. That segment played out so fast they might as well have had somebody dressed in a Liger costume. Further, Starks wins the tournament and rushes off screen rather than selling the win. Just a bit disappointing, but to each their own.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

12 hours ago, Matt D said:

… what if Chuck hugs Shane? 

Ok you totally see what my brain did there, right? Apologies for the confusion! (For the record, I also wouldn't have hated this, either).

10 hours ago, StevieNippz said:

I love HOOK but the only promo of his I ever liked was when he just did the throat cut move accompanied by a menacing whistle. 

That was a great one, but the one where he ends it with "Who the fuck am I?" after that dumb Jinder/twitter thing was awesome. He reminded me a ton of Taz in that one, back when Taz would close ECW TV with one of those alone-in-a-dark-room-rocking-the-towel promos. Tangentially related: part of me was waiting/hoping for a Tazmission on Jericho right there, it seemed like we were a split second away - to the point I was wondering aloud whether Ex would go with the old "KATA HAJ IME!!" call

Edited April 18 by Zakk_Sabbath

[HarryArchieGus]

Mercedes Mone’s promo this week was very good. One step at a time. Bryan Alvarez shitting on this and especially his weekly burial of the women’s match, in this case a pretty damn good match, makes one wonder what his deal is? 

[Craig H]

8 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

This. I mentioned that I was curious to see if they were going to reference when Mox picked a young, upstart Hobbs to be on his team for a big six man tag match, I'm glad Excalibur referenced it.

Hook says what we've all been thinking! 

It’s honestly one of the best things about AEW where their history matters even if it takes years to get a payoff. Sometimes it would be nice if those payoffs would come sooner because not everyone watching is going to have an encyclopedic knowledge or memory of AEW’s history.

Also, earlier when someone posted that Jericho trademarked “Jericho Vortex” I thought it was a joke. And then he said it. Like…Jericho is smart for wrestling. The Jericho booking vortex isn’t a good thing. He should know this. And this Lionheart shit does nothing for me. I honestly miss Judas.

30 minutes ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Mercedes Mone’s promo this week was very good. One step at a time. Bryan Alvarez shitting on this and especially his weekly burial of the women’s match, in this case a pretty damn good match, makes one wonder what his deal is? 

I didn’t think the match was that good. To be honest, Deonna has kinda sucked in AEW. Part of me wonders if she works better in a smaller pond like TNA, similar to Brian Cage. And the Mone promo wasn’t bad, but this smoke and mirrors bullshit with her only talking is death by a thousand cuts. Look, if she can’t wrestle, then there was no reason to rush her debut. That is another unforced error in a litany of them for AEW. The toothpaste is out of the tube though, it’s just what they’re doing now with her talking every week isn’t working. The other thing that really, really, really sucks is that the dream was Mone and Britt and Britt’s back sounds beyond fucked up. Second place would be Mone and our queen and savior Jayme Hayter, but she’s also on the shelf with a fucked arm. In a perfect world, this would have worked so much better if Mone could have dueling promos with Britt or have some battles with Hayter. Instead we get…this. So I get Alvarez’s frustration. It’s also hard when you watch WWE and see similar things to be frustrated about there where you have the greatness of one or two particular women’s programs and the rest is just filler. 

How women’s wrestling turned into a thing where the top two promotions can only afford the bandwidth to have one to two good programs each when both promotions have hours of TV is kinda bullshit. I’m not expecting either to become Stardom lite, but damn, you can do more.

[JLowe]

I’m a low voter on PAC and the Bucks (although been enjoying their recent heel work and shift in ring). I know it’s weird to complain about choreography and scripting in a choreographed, scripted “fight” but damn their in-ring work last night was so rote and “don’t look at the strings” stuff I’ve seen. Soft-ass forearm “strikes” done to, I don’t know, look like actual fighting to set up acrobatics that look fancy and have almost no meaningful impact? Openly walking to the location of the next spot with no concept of having a reason to be there other than it’s the next mark in the script? Awful stuff.

Edited April 18 by JLowe

[Jamal]

1 hour ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Mercedes Mone’s promo this week was very good. One step at a time. Bryan Alvarez shitting on this and especially his weekly burial of the women’s match, in this case a pretty damn good match, makes one wonder what his deal is? 

I agree. This was a good promo from Mone. And I thought the match between Mariah and Deonna was perfectly fine and I especially liked the post match action with Thunder coming in and taking out everyone while still getting a chance to further her issues with Deonna. 

[tbarrie]

9 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

After saying "Who's going to save Orange?" my guess was actually going to be Trent, but not for the obvious reasons (no one else could attack Orange but him). Why exactly would Daniels and Sydal do it?

Because they're decent people. Excalibur even explained that on commentary.

Honestly, given that it's Orange Cassidy, the real question is why the entire babyface locker room didn't empty to save him. Who wouldn't like that guy?

[Zimbra]

Daniels and Sydal were two of the first people out for the CMLL invasion so I think they're just canonically about that life.

[porksweats]

12 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

Daniels and Sydal were two of the first people out for the CMLL invasion so I think they're just canonically about that life.

Sydal is also ready and willing to replace anyone in a face storyline (see his insertion into Top Flight)

[Zakk_Sabbath]

9 minutes ago, porksweats said:

Sydal is also ready and willing to replace anyone in a face storyline (see his insertion into Top Flight)

I made this after Rampage the other week but forgot to post it

[Technico Support]

I haven't finished the show yet but here's some random stuff:

Excalibur left out the best parts of the "Brody King broke his jaw wrestling" story.  He broke a tooth wrestling and the dentist, when pulling it, didn't notice a small jaw fracture under the tooth.  So when he pulled it, he broke Brody's jaw.  His jaw wired shut, Brody took to pureeing steaks in a food processor to keep his protein up.

Loved the Willow/Brody stuff.  Someone should have yelled "you can't do that in Oklahoma!"

Mercedes came out with a chair, ready to fight, and didn't do her signature pose or dancing.  That made her presentation 12,000% better.  Her promo was still somewhat forced and wooden but hey, baby steps.

I loved Garcia's low effort clip art shirt.

What ever happened to FTRcia?

How much of Matt's commentary happened during picture in picture?

Jericho and Hook is a battle of two guys whose theme music is on my gym playlist, which is weird.  Who here knows the answer to where the quote at the start of Electric Head, Part 2 comes from without Googling?  (I  JUST SAID UP YOURS, BABY)

The need to cover brand labels meant that Hook was eating duct tape brand chips

Swerve's purple eyeshadow gets bigger every week. 

 

Edited April 18 by Technico Support

[Zakk_Sabbath]

3 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

His jaw wired shut, Brody took to pureeing steaks in a food processor to keep his protein up.

Dude if you told me this was a line from like an early '80s Dr. D promo id have totally believed it. That's tremendous

[Technico Support]

2 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Dude if you told me this was a line from like an early '80s Dr. D promo id have totally believed it. That's tremendous

Dr. D was too busy with homophobia to get into the finer points of nutrition, and that's a damn shame.

[Cobra Commander]

29 minutes ago, porksweats said:

Sydal is also ready and willing to replace anyone in a face storyline (see his insertion into Top Flight)

“Matt Sydal: he’ll do anything (in the ring) for an extra buck”

[HarryArchieGus]

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

I didn’t think the match was that good. To be honest, Deonna has kinda sucked in AEW. Part of me wonders if she works better in a smaller pond like TNA, similar to Brian Cage. And the Mone promo wasn’t bad, but this smoke and mirrors bullshit with her only talking is death by a thousand cuts. Look, if she can’t wrestle, then there was no reason to rush her debut. That is another unforced error in a litany of them for AEW. The toothpaste is out of the tube though, it’s just what they’re doing now with her talking every week isn’t working. The other thing that really, really, really sucks is that the dream was Mone and Britt and Britt’s back sounds beyond fucked up. Second place would be Mone and our queen and savior Jayme Hayter, but she’s also on the shelf with a fucked arm. In a perfect world, this would have worked so much better if Mone could have dueling promos with Britt or have some battles with Hayter. Instead we get…this. So I get Alvarez’s frustration. It’s also hard when you watch WWE and see similar things to be frustrated about there where you have the greatness of one or two particular women’s programs and the rest is just filler. 

How women’s wrestling turned into a thing where the top two promotions can only afford the bandwidth to have one to two good programs each when both promotions have hours of TV is kinda bullshit. I’m not expecting either to become Stardom lite, but damn, you can do more.

Deonna Purrazzo is a natural heel. There is nothing about her that says babyface. That is her issue, and not anything she is doing wrong. Her in ring skill set and especially her mic skills seem pretty apparent. Further, she came in as an awkward babyface to challenge a heel champion who is seen by at least 98% of the audience as a babyface. None of that is on Purrazzo. I do sense from her promos that Deonna will be an official heel shortly, so no sweat.

Fair enough you didn’t like the match, but Alvarez’s reaction was unnecessary as per usual. His weekly burial of the Division has become plainly obvious for awhile now. Im not sure I understand agreeing with him but seeing ‘More’ as the solution. I like the efforts of many in the Womens Division, but what or who is lighting the world on fire in need of more segments? This argument has been going on since the beginning. Does hindsight tell us Big Swole and the rest of the original division just needed more time? More time should be advocated for performers killing their segments and making the  most of their minutes. If you’re clamouring for more from the Division, try ROH on Honorclub. So too anybody in the first three years wanting more - all your favourites are there - Nyla, Diamanté, Velvet, Kiera, Shida, Hirsch etc.

I totally agree they should’ve waited on Mone’s debut. But… it is what it is, and we move on, and Mercedes promo was pretty clearly much improved on the previous weeks. That’s a positive sign no matter what the previous folly. If you, very fairly, have disliked much of Mercedes talking like the rest of us, are you sure you have a want for promo battles with Baker? That'd require as big a carry job as the match, but vice versa. No reason to fret, let's just be patient for the healing, and Hayter v Mone will be as wonderful as we both suspect.

Edited April 18 by HarryArchieGus

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 hour ago, HarryArchieGus said:

you, very fairly, have disliked much of Mercedes talking like the rest of us, are you sure you have a want for promo battles with Baker? That'd require as big a carry job as the match, but vice versa. No reason to fret, let's just be patient for the healing, and Hayter v Mone will be as wonderful as we both suspect.

The last time we saw Hayter on TV I think she and DMD were still aligned - maybe a situation where Britt talks that shit, and Hayter backs it up for her could be the best of both worlds? At least until Baker is healthy. I didn't even know she was hurt until someone mentioned yesterday, I thought she was just taking a break and possibly aiding in Cole's rehabbing and so forth

[HarryArchieGus]

Fantastic way to spend an early Thursday morning. Mox promo to open was pretty on point. Big Will v Mox, sign me up! Mercedes Mone promo was a huge improvement and easily earns my thumbs up. Copeland/Willow v Brody/Julia was a whole lotta fun. Willow's interactions with Brody were particularly great. Cope's consistency is second to none. Dude brings his working boots every time out. Samoa Joe promo was excellent. Swerve's retort was fair. I have questions whether Strickland's mic work is at the level of a World Champion. Not saying it isn't. The camera work during these promos was a bit ugly, but who's counting. I loved the hijacking of the Bucks/FTR package into the pre-match Bucks/Okada promo. I like seeing them poke at the boss. Bucks/Okada v Garcia/Penta/Pac was wonderful television. Garcia's t-shirt was terrible/great! La-la-loved the Superkicks into the Rainmaker finish. Okada continues to look like a king. The post match beatdown and save added nicely to the quarter hour. I felt a lot softer on the Jericho/Hook/Taz promo. I'm pleased middle of the road/jeered babyface Jericho is going towards his proper heat now. He was good here. Unfortunately, this segment kinda reminded how green Hook still is. Mariah May v Deonna was really good til the kinda lame if passable finish. Deonna's mat work is sensational. I love May's offense. I wish they toned down the Toni switches to black & white. It's great for the entrance and promos, but the switches during the match look so silly. Loved seeing Rosa smash Luther. Then Toni. The whole post match angle was spot on. White/Asses promo was terrific. Jay has come a long way with his mic game. Nice flow. The Assclaimed promo that followed smelt foul. Billy outing himself as an abusive father was an interesting choice. This is a sad, sad act. OC v Shane Taylor was strong in-ring, but this multiple cornermen bullshit is awful. At least Matt Taven wasn't out there mugging for the camera and chewing up the scenery. Spandex Taylor was great here. I loved the post match hooded Trent chair attack. This OC/Trent angle is building some nice heat. I'm All in for what will no doubt be a pretty awesome bout. Or selection of bouts. Ospreay v Claudio was a goddamn dream come true. Nothing but love for this beautiful violent artwork. So many great counters! The post match Callis Family/Ospreay/BCC angle was terrific. Glad to have Mox back in the fold. Look at that incredible line-up for Dynasty. The Joe/Swerve angle to close was one of the better go home angles they've ever done. The Swerve stomp on the Job Squad made for an excellent visual. Superstoked for the PPV. And Collision. And Rampage baby. 'Tickle Him' indeed! AEMFNDub roolin' the world! 

Edited April 19 by HarryArchieGus

[Technico Support]

I just noticed one of the security guys was Calvin Tankman.

[caley]

22 hours ago, Craig H said:

Moxley challenging Hobbs in Jacksonville is a cool callback to the early days/covid days of AEW when Hobbs first hit the scene and looked to be aligning himself with Moxley.

But got a middling reaction because of one of my most hated of wrestling tropes: the babyface announcing a big match...next week...somewhere else. 

It makes perfect sense when a heel does it ("I'm not giving this away in front of you rubes!" "Like I'd wrestle in [insert town name here]!" etc. etc.), but when a babyface, like Mox, says "I'm going to wrestle Will Hobbs [Yay!]...next week in Jacksonville!" why would the crowd cheer for it?! WWE does this too, but AEW does it all the time: 

Hot Crowd: We love you!

AEW Face: I'm going to defend my title...

Hotter Crowd: Yes!

AEW Face: ...next week...

Lukewarm Crowd: Wait what?!

AEW Face: ...somewhere other than here!

Deflated Crowd: But...why not here?!

AEW Face: See ya later, I'm done for the night

AEW: Coming up next...Chris Jericho hosts a symposium with Hook

Dead Crowd: Oh...goody

[Niners Fan in CT]

13 hours ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Mercedes Mone’s promo this week was very good. One step at a time. Bryan Alvarez shitting on this and especially his weekly burial of the women’s match, in this case a pretty damn good match, makes one wonder what his deal is? 

He's an idiot?