Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

AEW TV - 4/24 - 4/30/2024 - Who's House? Gunn's House!

Dolfan in NYC
 Share

Recommended Posts

Zakk_Sabbath

Zakk_Sabbath

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Is Jericho just where AEW feuds go to die when they start petering out? "And here it lay, at home in its grave, at the feet of the reaper... the Widowmaker..."

I have been a fan of his since the first time I saw him on f'n Worldwide at 2AM in the white gear, but MY GOD he needs a 6-12 month Fozzy world tour in the worst possible way. He's always been great at reinvention, but I think part of why it usually worked well in WWE is that he would take these stretches of time off to make the audience actually miss him.

I fully respect and appreciate the fact that he wants to try and use what gravitas he has remaining to further elevate the shows/promotion. I think anyone who enjoys AEW, whether a fan of his or not, is sort of "indebted" in that way. But he has missed something like one Dynamite a year this whole time since day 1 - I think he's wrestled the most AEW matches of anyone on the roster besides Mox (someone fact check me please). Plus he's in the booth on Rampage!

All I'm saying is: lets take a breath or two before we go ruining Big Bill - why not slot Hager in that role and tie up some loose ends with the IC/JAS stuff??

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites
porksweats

porksweats

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I have been a fan of his since the first time I saw him on f'n Worldwide at 2AM in the white gear, but MY GOD he needs a 6-12 month Fozzy world tour in the worst possible way. He's always been great at reinvention, but I think part of why it usually worked well in WWE is that he would take these stretches of time off to make the audience actually miss him.

I fully respect and appreciate the fact that he wants to try and use what gravitas he has remaining to further elevate the shows/promotion. I think anyone who enjoys AEW, whether a fan of his or not, is sort of "indebted" in that way. But he has missed something like one Dynamite a year this whole time since day 1 - I think he's wrestled the most AEW matches of anyone on the roster besides Mox (someone fact check me please). Plus he's in the booth on Rampage!

All I'm saying is: lets take a breath or two before we go ruining Big Bill - why not slot Hager in that role and tie up some loose ends with the IC/JAS stuff??

Hager's really the only one who didn't get anything going on with him after the IC/JAS breakup! I mean yeah he saved Orange Cassidy once but that's it.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Zakk_Sabbath

Zakk_Sabbath

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, porksweats said:

Hager's really the only one who didn't get anything going on with him after the IC/JAS breakup! I mean yeah he saved Orange Cassidy once but that's it.

Right?? And even that was just a bone thrown cause they were in Oklahoma - was hoping the nice hometown pop would lead to something more substantial. I'm surprised they don't use him at least in a similar capacity to your Brian* Cages and Archers and Wardlows as a gatekeeper monster (especially after hyping up his undefeated shoot record so much in the early days).

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
I mean people prob know I don't mean Christian but just for clarity
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

Posted
Posted

I missed pretty much all of Collision but that was a HELL of a Rampage. "Let's take it to the parking lot!" by Tony cracked me up, so they took it to the parking lot... oh did they ever. The wrench spot at the end was probably super safe but looked nasty and everything prior was the good stuff. Rosa looks to have her mojo back and, as they knew was the only way, they're turning Deonna into the heel. Then there was a perfect TV main event. The dancing along to the elbows in the corner has to be a gif. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
DreamBroken

DreamBroken

Posted
Posted

Awesome night of wrestling.

Fenix vs The Beast MORTOS ruled. I know it was Fenix's grand return so he had to win but man there were a few spots there I wanted to see Mortos pull the upset, he's been killing it every time out for awhile. Speaking of returns, welcome back RUSH! Andretti & Top Flight vs Bang Bang Gang also had some nice near fall moments. 

Claudio vs. Swerve was epic. Similarly to Fenix/Mortos, obviously Swerve's gotta retain but there were definitely some spots here that made me think 'what if'.  Catching the Swerve Stomp into the Pop Up Uppercut looked perfect, that ruled. I loved the eventual finish coming back around to Swerve countering the pop up in to the Stomp this time (one of the better uses of the Stomp) and then setting it up perfectly for the often better looking House Call for the finish. Great stuff here all around. 

Rampage kept things going with more excellent action. The Parking Lot Fight, while maybe not as epic as the previous, delivered the blood and violence for sure. Thunder/Deonna was good stuff and cemented the anticipated Deonna heel turn afterwards. And the main event ruled, love the 'from enemies to partners' story of Garcia & Shibata teaming up after their previous rivalry. Shane Taylor's another who has been killing it pretty much every time out for awhile now too.

I'm personally kinda hoping they move towards maybe taking Rampage off Friday at some point, I think it works very well paired with Collision like here this week or paired with Dynamite as they are going back to next week. I think being live adds a lot to it overall. Really good week of wrestling at Daily's Place, one of the best unique atmosphere venues they have. Loved the closing shot tonight of Garcia celebrating out in the crowd. I hope the much talked about NBA lead in did them well.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
JLowe

JLowe

Posted
Posted

I remember liking some Black Taurus matches when I would catch TNA but holy hell Mortus was amazing! He absolutely should have won and came out looking super legit. Fenix definitely has a little rust to shake off, but glad to see him back.

Never have seen Grizzled Young Vets before but they very much could fit right in on the AEW tag team scene and I wouldn’t have minded at all if they had pulled an upset. Caster needs to do less sexual stuff and more old school diss rhymes.

Thinking about how Top Flight has had two major injury setbacks that have kept them from making it to the top, while Gunns have gotten over thanks to a Danhausen song and getting hooked up with Jay White, who desperately needs to break out in singles. Anyway, match was fine, I think I’m done with trios titles period. Darius-Switchblade could be a great match.

Mariah May might be almost as big a ham as Toni Storm, they are both just killing it right now. Loving Toni rocking the super old school gear and continuing to find ways to be the inappropriate aunt during her matches.

It’s RUSH! I want to see him and Mortus go at it for 10-12.

Main event really clicked, and given Claudio’s decades of experience, comfort with lots of styles, excellent basing, and sheer strength it wears an excellent call for Swerve’s first defense. The giant swing just went on and on, and actually sped up at the end! I don’t love the Swerve Stomp, but they did great working it into the story of this match. I knew Swerve was not going to lose, but honestly I wanted Claudio to win after that performance.

Didn’t see Rampage yet, but the spoilers seem promising.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Natural

The Natural

Posted
Posted

Said this for Will Ospreay vs. Claudio Castagnoli and will here for Swerve Strickland vs. Claudio Castagnoli. Claudio Castagnoli is one of the best wrestlers of all time, he's also one of the best bases ever. Amazing how strong he is.

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Green Meanie

The Green Meanie

Posted
Posted (edited)

What a night of wrestling! Mortos was definitely the breakout star of the evening, I'm looking forward to seeing more of him. Claudio again showed why he's one of the best currently and possibly of all time.

Serena is a gifted storyteller! Literally nothing she mentioned in her promo actually happened. It was almost as if she was reading a post from r/thathappened.

Nigel is such a scamp! He had the best lines of the night, but I was worried he was going to get fired later on in the night (during the Shibata/Garcia vs. STP match).

Speaking of which, who was that new interview lady? I don't think they even told us her name.

Edited by The Green Meanie
Words
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
AxB

AxB

Posted
Posted

Collision started earlier than Fite was expecting it to, because the Basketball went short. So it randomly got a 7 minute overrun (that was actually an underrun if you think about it).

Swerve getting the opening segment makes sense with the NBA lead-in. Basketball fans might see Swerve with the World title and think it's cool that he's World Champion and give the company a chance. Bit less embarrassing than that one year when they sent Jericho out there first, and thousands of NBA fans thought it was funny that he had gained weight.

Jay White was a heavyweight in NJPW, and he wrestles more like a heavyweight weasel than a flier. But it's still jarring to see that he's physically smaller than the Brothers Martin. On the other hand, the Brothers Gunn hopping the railing at Daily's to pay tribute to their previous AEW life as the pandemic era superfans was a lot of fun. There is a reason (beyond nepotism) why they're the only guys from that era who are still here. Godspeed Pineapple Pete et cetera. Tony Schiavone saying move names that were originally in Spanish is unlike Excalibur saying the same words. Feels like Tony has only ever heard them said by English speakers.

Fenix's comeback match being dominated by Beast Mortos' offence, and Rey barely keeping his head above water, that was a nice touch. There's a lot of narrative potential in a guy coming back from injury and being a step off, being rusty, not being able to put things together right away, but it's often a thing that commentators talk about but isn't incorporated into the actual match story. This time it was, really well. 

Martin Stone (Danny Burch in NXT) showing up in AEW as a jobber was unexpected. He was underutilised in WWE. If he and Biff had hit the indies as a tag team, they would have made waves, but Martin had a lot of injuries to recover from, and Biff went back to WWE*  before Martin was back in the ring. I can see him potentially doing things as a singles guy, but AEW've already got two Martins, and it's hard to establish your own identity as your own man when you have Bobby Roode's exact face.

Mariah May comes to the ring, and soon thereafter Tony Schiavone says "Settle Down, Nigel McGuiness-etico". 

Spoiler

He didn't really add the -etico

And then the match went longer than most AEW Women's matches on TV go, and was much the better for it. I have seen people saying that Anna Jay hasn't progressed as a worker and is still the same rookie she was 4 years ago; If that's the case, then this was a hell of a carry job from Toni Storm. Which is good, because although she is a wrestler with a really strong gimmick right now, we shouldn't allow that to let us forget that she's a great bell to bell worker. The fact that she can incorporate her character into the story of the match, without making it a schtick match that consists of the fans waiting for her to hit her character spots so they can pop for them (which there's nothing wrong with that, some wrestling fans LOVE that style), it gives a whole other dimension to the work. This might have been Anna Jay's best match, actually.

If the Grizzled Young Veterans are unsigned and available, AEW should pick them up. This match hits two recurring themes from things I've already written about: British Wrestlers being underutilised in NXT, and gimmick based wrestlers who have signature spots they want to get to. The Acclaimed had fallen into that trap... they had those handful of tag spots that were over, and they would just do those and go home. Here, they didn't. This was the best Acclaimed match in months, and I'm not attributing that to it being a simple Caster/Bowens tag with Billy back to standing ringside instead of being on the apron, awaiting the tag. I'm attributing it to Gibson and Drake being such good wrestlers, and such great heels, that they dragged The Acclaimed out of the comfort zone and into a great match.

Claudio vs Swerve was great too. There wasn't a bad match on the show, the opening trios might have been the least good one, and that was still excellent. Claudio's great strength and athleticism means he can do things in the ring that most wrestlers simply cannot; Swerve is similarly a guy who can move unlike most other humans can move. So they probably could have created something especially esoteric out there... which they didn't. They had a really good, solid match, started Swerve's reign off with a great defence against a great opponent, established him as a fighting champion who'll take on all comers right off the bat (as opposed to one of those babyface champions who only defends against heels, or vice versa).

You spend all of your life waiting for a wrestling show in which someone stands on top of someone else head (who is also standing up) and it never happens, for years... and then it happens twice on one show. Incredible.

So yeah, Collision was really good. On to Rampage!

* That was confusing, he had a couple of indie matches where he made the "I'm so glad to be back where the real action is, working for WWE messed with my mental health & motivation, finally I feel like myself again" promo, and then re-signed immediately. Perhaps the rah rah indies promos are a work; Perhaps he's willing to live with Depression if it brings financial security with it. Who knows?

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
AxB

AxB

Posted
Posted

So, the Parking Lot Fight, it went short (10 minutes) and was the least impressive of the three, but the way it ended made it pretty clear why. Chuck is still injured. So they did this as a way of explaining why he's not around to make the save for Orange for the next few months. So bearing that in mind, it was super impressive they did as much as they did. Bloodiest match in AEW since Swerve vs Hangman maybe? Certainly the bloodiest match on TV in a good while. But just when it was getting ready to kick into a higher gear and go from good to great, it ended.

It does have me wondering, did they delay/ cancel Kris Statlander turning heel on Willow because they needed her to be the other babyface voice in this feud? Or are they going to set up Willow vs Kris as a face vs face match, where she admits to having felt jealousy, but says that seeing how devastating Trent's actions have been, she's NOT going to go down the same path?

Deonna vs Thunder, again it got a little bit more time than AEW usually gives the ladies, and was all the better for it. Thunder looked rusty in her first couple of matches back, but having matches like this is a great way to work herself back into form. And Purazzo going heel is pretty much where she should have started. If the Mariah/ Deonna double debut had happened anywhere but New Jersey, perhaps both would have been on the more fitting sides of the face/heel divide.

Daniel Garcia's selling of the big Shane Taylor chop, that was a thing of beauty. Getting hit by one of them and immediately slipping into a raging, uncontrolled fury (but then losing control of the offence right away), that's exactly how people should be reacting. His facial selling of moves, of damage, of who he is and where he is in the match, that's an underrated aspect of his game. So he made a hell of a Ricky Morton in this match. I'm loving how much Shane Taylor we've been getting on AEW TV lately. When he was first picked up with the ROH acquisition, it felt like there wasn't really a place for him in the company. The fact that he was the only member of STP that they kept says it all. But now, he's become one of the real workhorses of the company. It certainly seems like Shibata and the BCC guys can't get enough of him as an opponent.

All in all, 3 hours of fantastic Wrestling television. AEW rules the fucking world et cetera.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Log

Log

Posted
Posted (edited)

Funny enough, @AxB, seeing Stone got me wondering about Biff, too. Last I recalled seeing him was I. His AMAZING. Bloodsport match with Mox. Looked him up and was also surprised to see he’s currently employed by WWE. However, I think he’s a coach in NXT, and his wiki says he’s retired from the ring. 

Edited by Log
Oops. Stone, not Storm.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
SovietShooter

SovietShooter

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, JLowe said:

Jay White, who desperately needs to break out in singles.

I thought AEW was going to give a big push to White & Juice as a tag team. I thought that had a ton of potential, but in the end it was just keeping FTR busy. I would revisit that team when Juice is good to go.

Speaking of which, I liked Shibata & Garcia as a team.  They should keep them together, and push them. And, I keep seeing folks saying they want to see Mortos vs Killswitchasaurus... give me them as a tag team running roughshod over all these smaller guys Road Warriors style.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson

Posted
Posted

Nights like last night are why its so confusing to me there are so many anti-AEW people. I'm not saying everyone *has* to love and watch AEW, its not going to be for everyone, but I mean those that literally want the promotion to go away as if fans having an alternative (and wrestlers having more options) is a bad thing. Fenix/Mortos and Swerve/Claudio were two of the more entertaining matches I've seen all month and I thought everything on Collision delivered. Even the Trios Title match I thought was better than the Zero Hour match last week, it was just a great night of wrestling. And over 70 minutes of bell to bell wrestling on Collison (38 more minutes on Rampage), and its FREE. To those with cable/streaming TV options. I'll never judge or disrespect anyone that prefers one promotion over another, as WWE, AEW, New Japan, the Joshi promotions, CMLL, etc. all offer something different to match a fan's tastes but anyone that argues AEW isn't GOOD for the wrestling landscape is either just a troll or an idiot.

(I'm legitimately not calling out anyone specifically on this board as the anti-AEW gimmick trolls have mostly been banned, just a general statement mostly pointed at those on social media)

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Matt D

Matt D

Posted
Posted

Mortos should save the dives and agility spots either for bigger opponents or just hold them back for really important moments. He already stands out with the look, size, and power offense. Just hold the rest back for when it means the most.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
The Natural

The Natural

Posted
Posted (edited)

Tony Schiavone: "He could have broken his hand."

Nigel McGuinness: "I guess he'll have to use the other hand tonight."

Settle down, Nigel McGuinnestico.

Edited by The Natural
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, AxB said:

It does have me wondering, did they delay/ cancel Kris Statlander turning heel on Willow because they needed her to be the other babyface voice in this feud? Or are they going to set up Willow vs Kris as a face vs face match, where she admits to having felt jealousy, but says that seeing how devastating Trent's actions have been, she's NOT going to go down the same path?

Maybe she is that rarest bird in wrestling: an actual kayfabe friend that's not gonna turn on you. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...