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AEW - AUG 2020


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Scorp cut a really good promo on Dark, still think he gives away too much in his matches but Hobbs is a big guy and the match was quick so it didn't hurt this time around.

Austin Gunn is certainly Billy Gunn's kid.

The Initiative are a goofy jobber team, Janella and Kiss are a goofy mid-card act, this was an entertaining little match. Janella/Kiss are putting together good sequences (even if Joey is still trying things he shouldn't) and they have personality to spare, not sure how far they can go with a tag roster this stacked but a fairy tale title shot against a team like FTR would be cool. Schiavone made me legit LOL during this match, the guy is doing his best work these days.

Abadon has such a different presentation from anything else on main stream wrestling right now that she gets points just for that. At the moment, her matches are essentially a series of horror spots and a sloppy rana but a female version of the Fiend, or at least a Bray Wyatt type, may have legs and that means a lot less is a lot more. Could be she's not much of a talker but some vignettes from that former deathmatch producer guy would go a long way to keeping her special. Hide the negative, highlight the positive.

QT/Evans was a good return from both guys. Looks like they're picking up the Allie program where they left off which is great because I don't need much story from Dark but a little something to give the matches more stakes is appreciated. QT may be a good instructor but as a wrestler he's all over the place; one power spot, one dive, and a number of moves that don't really focus on anything and aren't working towards a particular finish, like a low rent Seth Rollins. 

FTR/Pillman Jr. and Garrison was a fun squash. Pillman is coming along well. Dax and Cash laid their shit in even in this match.

Private Party/Butcher and the Blade was a fine exhibition. PP have a modern Rockers vibe to me and the new gear is better but so many of their moves barely graze their opponents that all the somersaults in the world won't make their double teams look good. I like B&B, I think they have a great look and don't try things beyond their scope. Solid main event.

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Cash wasn't the legal man when he pinned Griff. Cash was then shushing people after the match. Either they're trying to make that ref look like a chump, or they aren't the tag team experts they think they are. I know their whole schtick is they need rules that people have to follow so they can bend and break them and get an advantage. But this didn't seem like that, unless they turn it into a proper angle where they take advantage of the fact that people are just too stupid to follow who the legal man is. And if they do go that way, I'm kind of excited to see them throw some refs under the bus. 

That's what you get for bigging yourselves up as small details guys. 

Edited by Andy in Kansas
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Nice to see Scorp getting some mic time.  I really hope he puts it all together for a singles run.  He can talk, but I still think a Taz or manager of some sort, and a heel turn would assist in getting him to where he needs to be.  His enhancement talent opponent Will Hobbs has good size and skill. There's potential there.  

Billy! Austin! The Gunn Club!!!  There's actually a chance Austin becomes a pretty good natural heel at some point.  The Gunn Club is no Gun Club.  Jeffrey Lee, Jeffrey Lee, Jeffrey Lee!  

Sonny Kiss and Joey Janela are working hard in there.  That said, their shit feels too much like a weak gymnastics floor routine and not enough like they're trying to actually hurt their opponents. 

I like Abadon. Tweaking the costume might help her look like more of a threat and less of an enhancement talent.  The face is great tho.  Kilynn King looked good, and might be somebody to push.  She looked stronger here than most of her division peers.

QT/Evans was alright, but Jack does a lot of dumb stuff.  QT is not spectacular, but he's really solid.  

FTR are fantastic, and this was as fun a 'Dark' match as I've seen.  Pillman Jr continues to improve.  So to Griff Garrison.  Nice catch on Wheeler illegally getting the pin.  Didn't even really notice.  I think I try to tune logic in these AEW tags out just a little.  

Butcher/Blade-PP I skimmed.  I dug the classic Tony commentary sell of a PP miscue - 'he got him quite well there that time'.  Haha!  I dig the Butcher, but I think they're smart to go slow with him.  He's good but green.  He's gonna be a player down the road tho.  I really think, considering FTR's 'Goodnight Express', they'd be wise to give BnB a more unique finisher.  

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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I did love that they spend the whole match building to Griff getting the hot tag, and when he got it he ran straight into an FTR finisher and was pinned immediately. They really sold like it was going to be a House Afire comeback, and then suddenly he comes in too amped up and gets pinned.

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Further proof that Tony Khan is a huge nerd. It's basically an hour of him talking about his fandom and action figures and the AEW toys with Brian Myers & Matt Cardona.

EDIT: Trading cards are coming according to Khan.

Edited by Casey
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1 hour ago, Casey said:

EDIT: Trading cards are coming according to Khan.

Okay, I have to draw the line somewhere.  Toys?  Sure, I'll likely buy all of them.  Video game?  Fuck yeah.  But trading cards?  Oh, man, I don't collect cards so I don't think that's gonna happen.

I might as well note this is what I'm saying now but since I'm way too deep in this AEW fandom watch me buy the damn things anyway.  How dare they put on something so good to make me consider such things!

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Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but I wonder if Capcom is at least going to be the distributor for the AEW video game. The only reason I say that is that they've partnered with Capcom in the past and now they have those Capcom t-shirts.

As for who actually develops the game, who knows.

Oh, and I would totally be down for Kenny the Cleaner being a DLC character in Street Fighter.

Edited by Craig H
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Just now, Craig H said:

Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but I wonder if Capcom is at least going to be the distributor for the AEW video game. The only reason I say that is that they've partnered with Capcom in the past and now they have those Capcom t-shirts.

Wednesday Night Slam Masters!

The story mode is the Capcom Wrestling Alliance vs AEW. Who doesn't want to see Victor Ortega versus Kenny Omega???

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AEW Heels has an annual subscription fee of $50. People are not so happy about that. Safe space for money does seem a bit dodgy and undermines the idea.

*Warning for people sick of AEW women's division rants*

Those clamoring for more women on AEW TV right now... I just don't think the majority of the women on the roster are ready. I hope the tag tournament is a success to the point they get their own YouTube show so the women have more opportunities to develop. Or, the second show on TNT could be something like AEW Heels the show, where it's strictly women's wrestling (and you don't need to pay $50 for it). I wouldn't want women not on Dynamite but even a cool act like Abadon is so rough around the edges in the ring that anything beyond a 2 minute squash is going to be a negative. Featuring nothing but squashes and only competitive matches with the likes of Shida, Riho (if/when she's coming back), and maybe Statlander/Rose/Ford on their day kinda sucks. The majority of the women's roster has potential but I don't think Dynamite is a good place to be experimenting or learning on the job that so many of the women clearly need to be doing. Britt is incredibly amusing in angles, so this rehab period has highlighted her strengths, but I have little desire to actually see her wrestle Swole. Cody's school can't open fast enough. They have a few men's project that probably need serious reps on a near daily basis, like Anthony Ogogo, but more importantly having some of the women in there training would be great. Then get them some actual matches either on Dark, another YT show, and/or a TV show. This would be less of a problem, as we've discussed ad nauseum, if they had more capable veterans to lead the greener women. That has been a failing of TK and the EVPs... not surrounding the inexperienced and not-ready-for-prime time women with somebody who can help teach them. You can't expect two green workers to go out on national TV and not drag the show down. That's not fair regardless of gender. I get that there are only so many talented vets because women's wrestling was treated as a sideshow in North America for so long but... this is not a good conundrum to be in and that it hasn't been addressed this far into AEW's run is problematic.

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The bigger argument with that is that there's no indication of that the $50 is for?  Is it for full time moderators to keep trolls away?  Is it just to pay the overhead for all the super special Zoom call stuff Brandi advertised?  It says for Women, but out of curiosity I got at least 80% of the way through the registration process with no check on what my identity was (I stopped short of creating a Wonderful Union profile, but a glance at their BBB page wasn't promising).   I mean, I get what they're going for, but if they think a $50 paywall is going to stop trolls and such from getting in and going HAM, well...

 

 

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My take on the AEW women's division is similar. Look, I get people being upset there aren't more women on the show, but the fact of the matter is that most of them suck. Unfortunately, even if there wasn't a pandemic, they don't run house shows to let the women get multiple reps and they don't have nearly the amount of veteran women to lead the greener ones. I've said it a bunch of times, but I couldn't care less about any men that are available. However, if you have talent like Kairi or others become available, you have to at least try and back up the Brinks truck for these women.

Let's look at Nyla Rose. Nyla is positioned as one of the top 3 women in the division, but she's not good. She can be carried to a good match, but if you put her in there with Swole or even someone better than Swole, like Shanna, she's going to look lost. Britt is one of the best characters in all of wrestling, but she's shit at wrestling and all of this time off isn't going to help. To make matters worse, her first match back is going to be against Swole. Penelope looks good in multi-woman matches and looked really good against Shida, but everyone looks good against Shida. Shida could probably carry me to a *** match. Penelope on her own though? Not that good.

So right now you have someone like Tessa who is available. Tessa is a great wrestler AND she has an amazing character. She also has a metric shitload of baggage and she's stuck in Mexico. Do you take the risk of bringing her in, giving her another shot, and hoping for the best, or is that like when the Cubs thought they could tame Milton Bradley? Kairi looks like she's just totally done. Some of the bigger names in Shimmer are likely locked down and there's no one from WWE that's going to become available. So all you're left with is signing women like Conti.

They're stuck in probably the worst position with the women. The tag tournament is a good idea to get the women more experience, you could probably have half of AEW Dark dedicated to women, but they're still looking at, what, 2 matches per week? I just don't know what they do.

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My only hope for Swole/Baker, whenever it happens, is that it's a walk-n-brawl with lots of smoke and mirrors (constant interference, shenanigans, and blood for instance). 

You can't even bring in talented women from Japan to carry the division right now. They should have signed the Mercedes Martinezes of the world when they had the chance. Didn't Sarah Stock/Dark Angel get let go from her role in WWE during those cost cutting measures (lol)? If so, while she's probably a little rusty, she'd be a good choice. Madison Eagles is in Australia and I think she also runs a school there, right? I imagine her and her family have no desire to relocate once things open up again? I wonder if an open-type of deal like what Riho was working before could work there. I don't know. It's fucked that Impact's women's division is leaps and bounds better than AEW's. Where is Ayako Hamada these days? I saw that she was working matches earlier in the year. 

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Man, them letting Mercedes Martinez go is a mind bender. She appeared on AEW or a PPV, right? Then time goes by, nothing happens, and suddenly she's on NXT. You have to seize the opportunity with signing someone like her.

Are Ivelise and Diamante signed? They're both decent for the division, but then Diamante didn't look too good in her match against Shida.

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Diamante ain't the answer. Not even sure Ivelisse is, honestly. Fuck, my memories of her in Lucha Underground are her on crutches yelling at Angelico and Son of Havoc. 

And yeah, Martinez was in the women's casino battle royale. She got the last entrance and everything. 

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18 minutes ago, Jiji said:

They should have signed the Mercedes Martinezes of the world when they had the chance.

13 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Man, them letting Mercedes Martinez go is a mind bender. She appeared on AEW or a PPV, right? Then time goes by, nothing happens, and suddenly she's on NXT. You have to seize the opportunity with signing someone like her.

I think at a certain point and age, someone like Mercedes has a mindset of "WWE or bust". I think before her AEW appearance, I don't think WWE had any interest in signing her. Then, when she appeared in AEW, I think they (WWE) thought it was someone they could keep away from AEW. The woman had been around for decades and WWE just got hip to her? It ain't a coincidence. They were going to make her a better offer than AEW could from that standpoint. 

18 minutes ago, Jiji said:

Where is Ayako Hamada these days? I saw that she was working matches earlier in the year. 

Mexico. The problem with Ayako is she ain't exactly in the best of shape. She tried getting in shape post cocaine bust, but she ain't in match every week shape. I think that's why AAA stopped using her on a regular basis. Plus, she's adopted the old Mexican luchadora style that I doubt many folks want to see on AEW television. If she could start taking care of her body better and get motivated, I think she would be a good veteran pickup. However, I think it's contingent on that.

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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They can run back those money Kong/Hamada matches from all those years ago but at a quarter of the speed! Shit, throw Aja in there, who may be the most mobile of the three, lol.

Sad to hear what's happened with Ayako. She was one of the best on the planet for a while there. Everybody loves a good redemption story. Have her come in and get in shape (DDP!) and base her character as a comeback kid that isn't demeaning but empowering.

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12 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I think at a certain point and age, someone like Mercedes has a mindset of "WWE or bust". I think before her AEW appearance, I don't think WWE had any interest in signing her. Then, when she appeared in AEW, I think they (WWE) thought it was someone they could keep away from AEW. The woman had been around for decades and WWE just got hip to her? It ain't a coincidence.

Martinez was in both MYCs. She went to the semi-finals against Shayna in the first tournament, and had a marquee match against Meiko in the second of the second tournament. She also had a few NXT appearances before being signed. Not saying the AEW appearance didn't push them, but she was certainly in their view long before AEW became a thing. They seemed to like her so it was honestly always odd they didn't sign her until then.

Edited by Eivion
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