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AEW - DEC 2019


Brian Fowler

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I really didn’t miss the ratings wars the first time they went away.  Not sure who wanted them back but studying quartet hour breakdowns makes me want to stick my head in a blender.  

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Current line up for Wednesday (and thoughts!)

* Hikaru Shida vs. Kris Statlander

This seems to be booking themselves into a corner.  Either Statlander goes 0-3 or they cut Shida off before she peaks.  AEW Women's division is booked by dart board and Kenny should be locked out of the writer's room.

* Trent vs. Rey Fenix

* Christopher Daniels vs. Pentagon Jr.

Will the trend where Trent beats the Lucha Brothers continues?  I think its odd to mix that angle with Daniels trying to get revenge because it lessens the Lucha Bros to have them elevate Trent at the same time.  If Christopher Daniels comes out in a disguise as Christopher Daniels only to be unmasked as Don Knotts... I will buy all the SCU T Shirts.  ALL OF THEM.

* Jon Moxley vs. Joey Janela

What?  Why?  DEAR GOD WHY?  I saw this promoted as the main event.  It should be about as long as that match with Nakasawa.  Moxley is one of the big stars on the show and spending time with Janela is such a waste.

* Dustin Rhodes and The Young Bucks vs. Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz

This is what they should be doing if its me, Inner Circle is the Dangerous Alliance and you mix and match them with the guys they are feuding with.  Hopefully Dustin can corral everyone into a match more than a mess.

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20 minutes ago, Goodear said:

Current line up for Wednesday (and thoughts!)

* Hikaru Shida vs. Kris Statlander

This seems to be booking themselves into a corner.  Either Statlander goes 0-3 or they cut Shida off before she peaks.  AEW Women's division is booked by dart board and Kenny should be locked out of the writer's room.

* Trent vs. Rey Fenix

* Christopher Daniels vs. Pentagon Jr.

Will the trend where Trent beats the Lucha Brothers continues?  I think its odd to mix that angle with Daniels trying to get revenge because it lessens the Lucha Bros to have them elevate Trent at the same time.  If Christopher Daniels comes out in a disguise as Christopher Daniels only to be unmasked as Don Knotts... I will buy all the SCU T Shirts.  ALL OF THEM.

* Jon Moxley vs. Joey Janela

What?  Why?  DEAR GOD WHY?  I saw this promoted as the main event.  It should be about as long as that match with Nakasawa.  Moxley is one of the big stars on the show and spending time with Janela is such a waste.

* Dustin Rhodes and The Young Bucks vs. Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz

This is what they should be doing if its me, Inner Circle is the Dangerous Alliance and you mix and match them with the guys they are feuding with.  Hopefully Dustin can corral everyone into a match more than a mess.

Guess they’re just not going to give a shit till the new year. ? 

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They've had some finishes recently that have gotten them out of some questionable match booking (PAC/Page and PAC/Omega are what come to mind). Shida/Statlander and Mox/Janella don't seem like good calls now but I'm willing to let it play out. Statlander's bad record will be wiped clean in a month anyway.

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I'd rather them lose the ratingz war for a bit here (will NXT sustain its rating or revert back to where it was or something in-between?) than start hotshotting stuff. I'm not in love with this week's lineup but it's not bad either. Gimme tags and top guys vs. midcarders over what Raw has been for the last 10-15  years.

Edited by Oyaji
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On 12/2/2019 at 6:53 PM, Niners Fan in CT said:

I think they had a bump from the PPV for sure but I also have a theory..    that the older demographic that usually watches NXT stayed home on Thanksgiving Eve while the younger demo that watches AEW..  went out that night.    Just a theory. 

Yeah, I think a lot of AEW watchers were travelling to NXT watcher's homes, based on demographics. They need to stay the course, add some marquis women to the roster (Tessa, Tenille, Kaitlyn/Celeste), and keep adding pieces in 2020. The Revival guys, Brodie Lee, Rusev, Brian Cage, Killer Kross, whoever they think can help. Fresh faces are never bad. 

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We've talked a lot about the women's division and needing talent but I think the men's singles division needs a few pieces too.  

They have a really good top 6 or so but there's a steep drop off.  

I would start pushing both Lucha Bros. as singles stars as well as teaming.  

I would also attempt to upgrade the Shawn Spears/Joey Janella part of the card.  

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My big takeaway from this last AEW Dark is that Nyla Rose has more personality than I realized. That personality is big, snarky and queer, turns out. Effective and entertaining, albeit unpolished, and I'd like to see more of it. I don't know how it works with my understanding of a monster heel character but this is 2019 going on 20, so figure it out, AEW.

Edited by John E. Dynamite
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Brandon Cutler looked like a goof in his new gear.

Brandon Cutler is a doofus the second biggest doofus in wrestling next to Seth Rollins.

Seriously, his reaction to getting a staple in his forehead was “what the hell dude” not swinging on Jimmy Havoc which I believe is the proper response.

A quick aside: They are making Havoc getting fined for using the staple gun an angle aren’t they? What’s the pay off gonna be? A death match division? Who wants a death match division?

Edited by Web Conn
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Nyla was quite good on commentary.

I think Havoc's thing is likely just to give him something to do, eventually leading to a Moxley match. After that, I assume he's programmed with Marty in some way.

 

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52 minutes ago, Web Conn said:

A quick aside: They are making Havoc getting fined for using the staple gun an angle aren’t they? What’s the pay off gonna be? A death match division? Who wants a death match division?

Jon Moxley loves deathmatch wrestling, so probably him.

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9 hours ago, Casey said:

Jon Moxley loves deathmatch wrestling, so probably him.

Cool, I was hoping for more permutations of Moxley-Janella-Darby-Havoc...

?

Regarding Dark...

I watched on mute so I have no thoughts about the commentary.  I'm wasn't a fan of the set up with Rose powerbombing Shanna through a table.  This was mostly because the extras seemed to react by slightly stepping aside and no one seeming to react to it.

Cutler as a D&D wizard is a character that doesn't translate into his work in any way.  My gimmick sensibilities are offended. The match with Havoc was okay for opening match fodder for a house show but there's no reason to include the staple gun bit EVERY match he's involved in no matter what. How about you just tease it? 

Spears squashing Kiss was fine by me.  I don't see why they needed the spike piledriver exclamation point to be honest but I guess if you want to get some heat, its not terrible.  BTW, I guess the Sonny Kiss-Dustin Rhodes team they teased was a one off.  Which in my mind... good.

Jurassic Express v Pride & Powerful (or is the other way around?) was sort of a mixed bag.  It was close to working the Southern tag formula but the hot tag didn't thrill me.  I would have preferred Jungle Boy doing more of a babyface fire run through of offence off the tag.  It felt too truncated before they brought Marko back into the match after the heat segment.  P&P are a bit too cute for their own good and come off as silly rather than vicious with the tiger style poses and goofing around. The post match seemed overly long with too many twists.  Sammy needs to learn to stomp with some authority, Orange Cassidy would tell him to tighten it up.

I really think they should let Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy run as the team rather than having Stunt in there. It feels like they were on the verge of something and rather than giving them time to do that, we are already trying to transition Saurus to a single.  I get they need the singles depth, but I think you'd get more shine on Jungle Boy as well that way rather than making him team with Stunt which has been booked as a forgone conclusion that they won't be winning that match.

Edited by Goodear
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17 hours ago, Zartan said:

Guess they’re just not going to give a shit till the new year. ? 

They've been on television for two months.  If they are out of ideas, they should give Khan all that money back and bring in new creative.

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20 minutes ago, Goodear said:

BTW, I guess the Sonny Kiss-Dustin Rhodes team they teased was a one off.  Which in my mind... good.

Dustin was asked about this at Starrcast and he said they'll definitely team up again.  So I wouldn't be surprised if they team up again on an eventual Dark episode.  And I honestly like them as a team though it makes more sense to have Dustin focus on Inner Circle than anything else.

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I disagree about putting Spears over Sonny Kiss. I think Spears' best chance to be any kind of draw has passed him by already, and he should really be the number two guy in Tully's stable, behind... someone else. Whereas Sonny could potentially be a big deal down the line, because he can do spectacular things on offence, and get a lot of sympathy while selling. A modernised Ricky Morton type, basically.

I can see Brandon Cutler joining the Dark Order down the line. Guy actually has some skills in the ring, but between losing all the time and having a geeky gimmick (and being too tall to have that Underdog you can root for factor), he needs to change up somehow. 

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53 minutes ago, AxB said:

I disagree about putting Spears over Sonny Kiss. I think Spears' best chance to be any kind of draw has passed him by already, and he should really be the number two guy in Tully's stable, behind... someone else. Whereas Sonny could potentially be a big deal down the line, because he can do spectacular things on offence, and get a lot of sympathy while selling. A modernised Ricky Morton type, basically.

Kiss is more of a project to me and needs more time to work up to beating Spears since Shawn should be gatekeeping the midcard right now.  In my opinion, Kiss would have to be where Darby Allin is to earn that win.  Kiss should build that up against maybe Jimmy Havoc?

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I really don't know what is dumber.  The AEW commercial on TNT that mentions NXT three freaking times and how you are killing them or the fact that you started the commercial the week that NXT actually beat AEW in the ratings.  

At least when WCW would mentioned winning the ratings war for 83 weeks people knew who the WWF was.  You think people watching the NBA game or the 500th running of a Batman movie knows what NXT is

 

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Is that AEW's commercial, or TNT's? Because I can see how the TV network might not be in on Tony and Cody's whole We're Not Competing concept. Also, every mention of NXT is a quotation from a review, so it's not like they're slagging off Papa H's baby boys & girls directly. They're just acknowledging that other people have compared the two and declared AEW winners. Not that different from a tv spot for a movie boasting of it's five star reviews.

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16 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I would start pushing both Lucha Bros. as singles stars as well as teaming.  

 

I agree.  They're on the "move down the card" portion of the cycle right now as a team, having lost their title match.  Both are great singles wrestlers and can add something to the division, and can freshen up the tag division sometime down the line. 

I don't care how much Moxley loves garbage matches.  Keeping him in the Janela/Allin/Havoc orbit is a waste.  He can be a dangerous competitor without making  it so that every program he's in culminates in a geekshow. 

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