AEW TV - 9/4 - 9/17/2024 - Look At This Hologram, Everytime I Do It Makes Me Laugh

[SovietShooter]

I like Deeb well enough, maybe more than most, but that match last night was a turd. Lots of awkwardness.  Since this was taped, I'm curious how edited down it actually was.

[Jenalysis]

9 hours ago, Jamal said:

Mariah May plays unpleasant so well. Once Toni returns to face her again, the crowd is going to explode.

Glad to see Deeb back as a heel. It's where she shines IMO. Her vs Aminata should be fun. 

Toni's going to be in Japan for a bit- she's Mayu's next IWGP challenger.

[Craig H]

Wheeler Yuta fucking rules. 

[HarryArchieGus]

A terrific B show caps off a strong week of AEWTV. And a good rebound week for the Tag Division. FTR v GYV was very solid. The Outrunners big save provided a nice close to the show. The Outrunners video was tremendous and closes out a great week for Truth and Turb. The future is neon bright. The Jack Perry v Daniels opener was a nice showcase for Perry. What a piece of shit - idiling a dirty old engine, littering. Asshole! The Yuta promo was fine. Even if it's a touch hammy, young Wheeler's doing as well as can be expected with the acting he's being called upon for. Briscoe/O'Reilly/Hologram v Nese/Ari/Beast was rocking. O'Reilly has looked really good in these showcases. I love seeing some attention on the Beast this week. The CMLL video was very good. I'm overjoyed to see this as they often fail to properly acknowledge the international and extracuricular work of the roster. Haha, loved the Stokely video with all the pirated DVDrs. The Mariah May promo was her usual excellence. Yuka's a little much to take, but I will. Yuta v Henry was pretty good. I was kinda dreading watching Wheeler work sad, but he did a helluva job. Henry is a great hand. His cousin Beef, judging from his sensational Rampage performance, might help elevate deserved Anthony's status as a team. Well executed segment. The Deeb/Aminata promos were excellent. Simple effective storytelling. Bravo! I really, really needed Deeb to go heel, and the Queen continues to impress at every turn. The Anna Jay video was also very good. The mic work could've probably used a second take. Great to see the talented Anna getting reps in Japan. Privates/Komander squash was really good. I like how Komander fits in with Quen/Kassidy. Their promo was good prior. And FINALLY the Quen/Kassidy got some ring gear that isn't so embarrassing. The Nigel video and promo were fanfuckingtastic. Nigel is incredible. I'm glad he was able to spell that story for all the loud critics who missed the logic on Wednesday. Sakazaki v Deeb was fine. That paradise lock is the worst thing in Wrestling. WHY!? Mariah totally killed it on commentary and in the post match angle with Yuka. I somehow even liked the Top Flight segment. I liked everything about it. Cage/Gates v Ass/Juice seemed fine from a sideglance. Austin Gunn is really good, and Colton continues to get better. These guys are a solid trio. The Gates should drop Cage and go on a good solid run. Queen v Renegade was a fun stiff little contest. A lot of fun had across the 120 minutes of this program. Good week for shows A B and C. 

Edited September 16, 2024 by HarryArchieGus

[DreamBroken]

I love seeing Robyn Renegade go three in a row this week with matches on ROH, Rampage, and then Collision for a nice little hometown pop. One of my top favorites to watch.

Enjoyed all things Yuka and can definitely get behind a Serena/Aminata feud. Dug the Anna Jay Stardom highlights video, I hope she benefits greatly from her excursion. 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

On 9/15/2024 at 8:35 AM, SovietShooter said:

I like Deeb well enough, maybe more than most, but that match last night was a turd. Lots of awkwardness.  Since this was taped, I'm curious how edited down it actually was.

We watched last night (instead of watching Diggs screw my fantasy week) and as badly as I wanted to be able to have a "Oh, cmon it wasn't that bad" post ready to deploy, I gotta agree - not a great outing. My expectations might've been a bit too high, but I'm still confident they've got a better one in 'em. There were a few nice moments where I thought the gelling would start, like the armdrag thing, but they never fully got there for whatever reason.

I'll say this: I bitch and moan about Dark/Elevation all the time not just because I enjoyed having something to watch on Mondays/Tuesdays, but because of stuff like this match and the Baker/Mercedes match at All In - both women were coming off long injury layoffs, and probably should've/could've had 3-4 weeks of warm-up bouts on there to shake the rust before being put on TV/PPV. Without a house show circuit, or like a warehouse somewhere to just set a ring up (like WWE did in Stamford pre-PC), I see few other ways to get those reps in - it's one thing for a midcard or lower guys to pick up an Indy date or two or whatever it is, but you don't wanna take the shine off your TV or PPV by having a top star like Britt or Yuka make their comeback in front of 150 kids at my old high school or whatever. So, you get what we've got here today, which is the way he wants it. No I'm not sure why I ended with GNR either.

[Technico Support]

It’s sad that Rampage and Collision have become such afterthoughts.  I still haven't even finished Collision from Saturday yet.

Edited September 16, 2024 by Technico Support

[Zakk_Sabbath]

14 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

It sad that Rampage and Collision have become such afterthoughts.  I still haven't even finished Collision from Saturday yet.

You won't get your All-Elite Fleet card taken away as long as you get to it within a week and contribute to the Live+7 number

(On the real, I agree, but as is well-documented, I also think the weekend B/C show is almost a lost art unto itself. I would expect either a renewed focus on that, or a more clear delianation of tiers/importance once the TV deal's announced and we get more of an idea of what the future looks like re: FOX & Shockwave, TNT possibly combining Rampage/Collision into a three hour block, what the deal is with ROH, and things like that).

[SovietShooter]

I think it is also important to remember that Collision is going up against College Football, and the numbers will be markedly down until the season is done & dusted (so, until December, mostly).

It would not surprise me if Collision any kind of storyline progression is left off the show until CFB wraps up.  It may just me Dark-esque matches for the sickos.

[Technico Support]

I feel like TK might want to take some time off from booking to recharge his batteries and figure all this shit out.  The whole nonsensical dickdance with the Grand Slam title situation/Mox/Darby/Nigel/Danielson is a huge and embarrassing unforced error, so bad they had to do a pretape with Schiavone and Nigel to try to salvage it.  This wasn’t a situation where someone was injured and they had to change all their plans.  They legit blew up the whole thing for reasons completely unknown.  Between that and having three TV shows but only one where anything of consequence happens, I don’t know, man.  I can watch only so many JTTS six man matches before I start asking existential questions about the meaning of my life.  That’s not a good place to be for something I should theoretically be enjoying.

Edited September 16, 2024 by Technico Support

[NoFistsJustFlips]

There's too many first run products right now. With not enough differentiation on them. So what should we do? Add another show on the pile!

Things need restructured in a bad way. I still contend that's the main contributing factor to Dynamite ratings being down. Product fatigue. Collision & Rampage & Battle of the Belts & ROH. And potentially another Fox show. It's too much and watering everything down.

[Technico Support]

Battle of the Belts has no purpose.  It’s supposed to be analogous to Clash or SNME, but those shows existed at a time where 98.2% of free tv matches were jobber squashes, so it was novel and exciting to get name guys vs name guys on free tv.  Now that we get that on every weekly show, it’s pointless.

[Matt D]

As a viewer, it's math.

Let's say if there was less TV, all of the TV would be 15% better because they could plan ahead more and things would be more focused. I like 65% of the roster and that's not all top guys by any means.

Because there's so much more TV currently, and even more so on Battle of the Belts weeks, there's a much, much higher chance that stuff I actually want to see makes TV as opposed to the stuff I don't actually want to see actually being a bit better (But not nearly better enough that I want to see it).

I'm way happier with more TV that I can pick and choose from after the fact than I would be with less TV. It's not even close.

Edited September 16, 2024 by Matt D

[HarryArchieGus]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I feel like TK might want to take some time off from booking to recharge his batteries and figure all this shit out.  The whole nonsensical dickdance with the Grand Slam title situation/Mox/Darby/Nigel/Danielson is a huge and embarrassing unforced error, so bad they had to do a pretape with Schiavone and Nigel to try to salvage it.  This wasn’t a situation where someone was injured and they had to change all their plans.  They legit blew up the whole thing for reasons completely unknown.  

I thought the Nigel video, and promo from the desk, were some of the best AEW TV of this year. So too Nigel's Wednesday promo, and everything Darby and Moxley did. Embarrassing seems a bit strong, no? The last few months it's hard to complain about the booking. At least on the A/A+ shows. The weekend shows are certainly debatable, but this past weekend felt like good booking of the undercard. I thoroughly enjoyed both B/C. 

[Technico Support]

56 minutes ago, HarryArchieGus said:

I thought the Nigel video, and promo from the desk, were some of the best AEW TV of this year. So too Nigel's Wednesday promo, and everything Darby and Moxley did. Embarrassing seems a bit strong, no? The last few months it's hard to complain about the booking. At least on the A/A+ shows. The weekend shows are certainly debatable, but this past weekend felt like good booking of the undercard. I thoroughly enjoyed both B/C. 

Mox told Darby that Danielson wouldn’t be at Grand Slam, and then challenged him for his title shot.  Later, Nigel said he’s challenging Danielson since Danielson no longer has a match at Grand Slam.  WUT.  Yeah, I’d call that an embarrassment.

It makes no sense and if the only way to make it make sense is that asspull on Saturday (“Mox was just assuming/Nigel might be challenging an injured man”) then that’s so needlessly convoluted and makes Darby look like a dumb shit putting his title shot on the line for nothing.  If the idea all along was Nigel/Danielson, have Nigel win the Casino Gauntlet instead of boring-ass Christian.  The whole thing makes no sense and strikes me as TK changing his mind and rebooking on the fly.

Hangman/Swerve has been great and this Mox/BCC thing is intriguing, but that doesn’t make up for this confusing mess.

 

Edit: thinking more about this, all they had to do was have Darby come out and say “I don’t know if Danielson will be there and either way I don’t want him if he’s not 100%.  And I want to kick your ass, Mox, because I looked up to you and I can’t abide what you did.”  Then the road is clear for Nigel without two conflicting stories being told.

Edited September 16, 2024 by Technico Support

[SovietShooter]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

The whole nonsensical dickdance with the Grand Slam title situation/Mox/Darby/Nigel/Danielson is a huge and embarrassing unforced error, so bad they had to do a pretape with Schiavone and Nigel to try to salvage it.

Yeah, there is a reasonable chance some of this is pivoting, but I think more than anything they made an assumption the fan base would connect the dots that Nigel was only challenging Danielson because Danielson is not cleared to wrestle on that event, and they did not. 

[Technico Support]

53 minutes ago, SovietShooter said:

Yeah, there is a reasonable chance some of this is pivoting, but I think more than anything they made an assumption the fan base would connect the dots that Nigel was only challenging Danielson because Danielson is not cleared to wrestle on that event, and they did not. 

That’s a great point and yeah, they should have made that a little more clear.  But that still makes no sense because Nigel didn’t just go pop off and challenge Danielson.  He got it cleared by Christopher Daniel’s.

Edited September 17, 2024 by Technico Support

[SovietShooter]

Yeah, what they should've done, before the Mox/Darby confrontation, is have Daniels or someone announce that because of the attack, Danielson was not cleared to wrestle at this time.  That would've cleared the way for Darby to put his title shot up against Mox, because he wanted to wait until Danielson was healed up. 

Then they could've just had Nigel do his bit, but lean a little more into saying that he knows Danielson isn't really that hurt, he is just a coward. 

[HarryArchieGus]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Mox told Darby that Danielson wouldn’t be at Grand Slam, and then challenged him for his title shot.  Later, Nigel said he’s challenging Danielson since Danielson no longer has a match at Grand Slam.  WUT.  Yeah, I’d call that an embarrassment.

It makes no sense and if the only way to make it make sense is that asspull on Saturday (“Mox was just assuming/Nigel might be challenging an injured man”) then that’s so needlessly convoluted and makes Darby look like a dumb shit putting his title shot on the line for nothing.  If the idea all along was Nigel/Danielson, have Nigel win the Casino Gauntlet instead of boring-ass Christian.  The whole thing makes no sense and strikes me as TK changing his mind and rebooking on the fly.

Hangman/Swerve has been great and this Mox/BCC thing is intriguing, but that doesn’t make up for this confusing mess.

 

Edit: thinking more about this, all they had to do was have Darby come out and say “I don’t know if Danielson will be there and either way I don’t want him if he’s not 100%.  And I want to kick your ass, Mox, because I looked up to you and I can’t abide what you did.”  Then the road is clear for Nigel without two conflicting stories being told.

I didn't need Darby to spell it out. 

Quote. First, why would anybody assume Mox is correct about Danielson not coming back or being ready for Grandslam? Do we also believe him when he says 'I'm gonna need you to hand that title shot over to me' as some sort of 'Fact'? He's a heel who believes he's put Danielson on the shelf for longer than he will be (it's a pretty regular heel trope). Further, Darby Allin has been hearing Mox call him out for weeks. Darby logically assumes Danielson couldn't possibly be 100% by Arthur Ashe. Of course he doesn't wanna win that way. It's no leap that he wants to avenge the Danielson attempted murder and take out Mox. He'd take the Moxley challenge without it. He admires him, or did, and knows if Jon challenges him then he has to accept. To Darby, Mox is definitely A, if not thee, measuring stick. Then we go to the back, Daniels reiterrates what a risk this is for Darby followed by Nigel, the heel-weasel that he is, taking advantage of the situation. A couple quarter hours later, he comes out with a contract and annouces a match that couldn't possibly be signed... yet. Excalibur on commentary says 'will Danielson even be able to compete?' Nigel closes with 'will Bryan Danielson join me or have we seen the last match of the 'American Coward'. Balls in your court'. It seems to me the match awaits an inevitable signature and doctor's clearance. Unquote.

Have I missed something?

Edited September 17, 2024 by HarryArchieGus

[Go2Sleep]

7 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

There's too many first run products right now. With not enough differentiation on them. So what should we do? Add another show on the pile!

Things need restructured in a bad way. I still contend that's the main contributing factor to Dynamite ratings being down. Product fatigue. Collision & Rampage & Battle of the Belts & ROH. And potentially another Fox show. It's too much and watering everything down.

Turner should've learned this lesson with 26 years ago with Thunder. They have not, plus I'm sure WWE running 2 weeklies for 25 years (20 or so of which they were the only game in town) broke some brains.

[username]

I hate to bring this up as it is both kinda WWE and also... harkens back to the end of the bad times, but AEW would probably benefit from a soft roster split between Dynamite and Collision. They already have some of it to a degree (House of Black only work Saturdays, I think Hologram has been a Collision exclusive as well), and I say soft because having a few people appear on other shows from time to time is useful, but I've seen enough people go "I don't understand what's going on with X" only to be met with "well if you watched Rampage/Collision..." to pick up that a good portion of the audience only catches one show and AEW doesn't catch them up well enough. If you only have to watch Dynamite to know what will be going on on Dynamite it'll probably straighten out some of the lingering issues they have in this area.

It'll never happen as deep down it is a dream match promotion (they just try to attach stories to them when possible) and I don't think Tony could live with not putting a match he wants to see together for such arbitrary reasons.

[AxB]

I dunno why the NFL has so many televised games a week. How are people supposed to keep up with the league when there's games on Thursday Night, Sunday Afternoon, Sunday Evening, Sunday Night AND Monday Night? It's too much! That's like 15 hours of live matches a week!

[The Green Meanie]

On 9/15/2024 at 1:55 PM, Craig H said:

Wheeler Yuta fucking rules. 

That was some god damn heart-wrenching television there. Yuta as a man just GUTTED legit tore at my heart. The BCC situation as-is is just so messed up right now, I don't want them to fight, but it's also damn compelling television.

[SovietShooter]

7 hours ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Have I missed something?

No, I think you got it.  I think most of us on here understood this.

But I think to people that are used to their angles being spoonfed, they can't wrap their head around something just being heavily implied.

[Craig H]

4 hours ago, AxB said:

I dunno why the NFL has so many televised games a week. How are people supposed to keep up with the league when there's games on Thursday Night, Sunday Afternoon, Sunday Evening, Sunday Night AND Monday Night? It's too much! That's like 15 hours of live matches a week!

What wrestling needs is a special service that just shows you the finishes for all matches happening at one time.