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AEW Dynamite - 1/6/2021


Dolfan in NYC

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It's funny how liberal Dave is with giving things 5 stars now. Before it felt like it would rarely happen and now I wonder if he just takes it all less seriously and enjoys himself more. I personally think of 5 stars and above as a nearly perfect match and I don't think Kenny vs Fenix hit that mark, but it was still really fucking good.

Also, FWIW, I didn't think Ibushi vs Naito was as good as Dave thought, but I also would have given Cobb vs Shingo a million stars.

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4 minutes ago, Craig H said:

It's funny how liberal Dave is with giving things 5 stars now. Before it felt like it would rarely happen and now I wonder if he just takes it all less seriously and enjoys himself more. I personally think of 5 stars and above as a nearly perfect match and I don't think Kenny vs Fenix hit that mark, but it was still really fucking good.

Also, FWIW, I didn't think Ibushi vs Naito was as good as Dave thought, but I also would have given Cobb vs Shingo a million stars.

Yeah, Dave Meltzer loves his AEW and NJPW while I think he's been harsh on past WWE matches. The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXV and XXVI should have got **** *, ditto the Wyatt Family vs. The Shield at Elimination Chamber 2014.

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Funny that all of the EVPs (Cody, Bucks, Omega .. am I missing any?) feel like they would be immensely better heels than faces. There’s a sort of cringe worthy earnestness that is perfectly suited. Can’t stand Bucks as face team but think they can work the heel dynamic very well. Has room to be the most effective faction AEW have done so far imo (and there have been a lot of factions).

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Cody should be an excellent heel. Veneer of sleekness, dyed blonde hair, narcissistic entrances & wardrobe choices that feel authentic and organic, a seemingly-rebellious attitude that is really underpinned by a desire to be loved / vindicated (“wrestling has more than one Royal Family”). Positioning himself as a heel-talent that has garnered more mainstream exposure than the rest of the talent combined in 2020 + with the genetic pedigree that much of the young / 1st gen indie-riffic roster could only dream of is material that should write itself. Really missing the boat on that character.

RE: show ending - one thing would say is that a lot of value is lost in not having the Bullet Club name. It’s a cool faction name given how corny factions often be. Given all the money splashed everywhere (how much have they paid Snoop to remix Cody’s theme?!) it’s amazing they can’t come to some sort of commercial agreement on that.

Edited by A_K
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My personal philosophy is that baby faces people actually like are rarer than heels and so they have more value. AEW has Moxley and Page so they aren’t in a terrible face position but they’ve got a ton of heels already and Cody obviously has no issue working other baby faces.

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American Wrestling usually goes for the 50/50 split of Faces and Heels, doesn't it? Whereas WoS was always face heavy, so you'd have a mix of Face/Heel matches and Face/Face matches. And then NJPW has a bunch of different stables, most of which are nominally Heel stables, but all of which have fans...

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40 minutes ago, AxB said:

American Wrestling usually goes for the 50/50 split of Faces and Heels, doesn't it? Whereas WoS was always face heavy, so you'd have a mix of Face/Heel matches and Face/Face matches. And then NJPW has a bunch of different stables, most of which are nominally Heel stables, but all of which have fans...

AEW is starting to get a touch heel heavy, especially with the stables/factions (though I agree with the earlier posters that Bucks alliance with Omega/Callis/Good Brothers could be tenuous and short-term). Now, Mox and Page should cover the face opponent for Omega for two of the PPV's this year, and Double or Nothing feels like the right place to have Blood and Guts main event the show (both from a timing perspective, and with the tradition Stadium Stampede may have started last year for a multi-man match headlining the show).

I think that Cody works well as both a face and heel, and should have a heel run in AEW at some point, but I'd wait for the current Omega run to cool down towards the end of this year before pulling the trigger on the turn (at least for maximum impact). 

Really liked the Bucks working heel in New Japan and the couple of PWG matches I saw of theirs. Also, very much enjoyed them as de facto heels in the Omega/Page tag match at Revolution last year and at the end of The Lucha Bros ladder match at All Out 2019. However, I did not expect them to join the Impact Club alliance (especially after the weird TV build for the FTR match), and worry that if this in indeed another teased turn, their actual heel turn will not have the desired effect when it finally happens. If Omega and The Good Brothers ultimately turn on the Bucks (which is my guess for now), you probably need to postpone any Bucks heel turn for a year minimum.

I came into following New Japan after Omega's great Wrestle Kingdom match with Okada, and he slowly became more of a face through that year (though retaining the cocky outer veneer), with the face turn fully completed with the reunion of the Golden Lovers (and further cemented with OG Bullet Club angle in San Francisco). I'd push back on the Omega face character in AEW being bad, and grew to love the team with Page (not quite Hollywood Blondes level of random partners clicking, but damn good for an initially random pairing). His current heel run and team with Callis is definitely best for his career now, but I do not think that he will be a career heel after this.

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I had an entire "faces are more valuable than heels" thing typed up. Dang it.

Face runs for Omega, the Bucks, Britt Baker, and Matt Hardy have already been bailed on. WWE has the same thing happening with Roman Reigns, Bayley, Mustafa Ali, Sami Zayn, Shinsuke... not to say no heels have turned face since then, but heel turns are easier to pull off and easier to pick out. Odds are better on making a crowd boo you than to have them organically like you, anyone who's ever interacted with other human beings on any level knows how that shit goes. Sometimes you have to turn somebody so you can do the Heel -> Cool Heel -> Face sequence (I guess the best modern example is The Rock?) but if you've got acts like Moxley and Cody who are proven good heels and proven good faces, you keep them face until their act is stale or if the turn creates a storyline that elevates a major babyface.

AEW does have the advantage - call this a Silver fuckin' lining if you will - of the entire Dark Order turning face. And not even overnight, BTE was setting it up anyway.

Edited by John E. Dynamite
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I think AEW has some superb faces (Mox; Darby; Page - Sting if only for nostalgia) but  a lot of mediocre heels. Omega, MJF .. get past that and it starts getting real light. Kingston maybe (if anyone really considers him a heel?). Team Taz has just kind of hung around occupying airtime with no direction for months & months now it feels. DO had big heel potential when they destroyed Rhodes et al months ago but if anything have transitioned more towards faces ever since then. So feels like there’s room for top heels still. Like The Acclaimed in the New Age Outlaws style cartoony heel role. All in all feel like much of the heels in AEW just shout loudly & lack character nuance .. so Rhodes playing that Randy Orton style psychological killer / narcissist would bring a lot to the table. But all fantasy - c’est la vie.

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9 hours ago, AxB said:

American Wrestling usually goes for the 50/50 split of Faces and Heels, doesn't it? Whereas WoS was always face heavy, so you'd have a mix of Face/Heel matches and Face/Face matches. And then NJPW has a bunch of different stables, most of which are nominally Heel stables, but all of which have fans...

 

I think AEW could work with the NJPW approach.  Have folks stan the group they like.   The Inner Circle  needs to be split up though- they don't fit together at all anymore.

Let the fans decide who is the face and who is the heel- just make sure everyone acts in a way that makes sense.

 

If folks want to cheer Eddie Kingston's family let them.

 

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I think that's right, so long as the motivations and attitudes make sense, AEW doesn't have to rely as heavily on standard face/heel delineation. However, I'd argue that the truly great matches in North America tend to come from solid good vs evil setups, or at least good dude vs jerk, that allow for some catharsis and AEW has robbed itself of some of these journeys by having things a little too nebulous. Take Cody's back and forth style over the course of 2020 that was so frustrating to me. He's wrestling for these big, emotional reactions but he doesn't want to do the proper leg work for them. I'm listening to him on Jericho's pod because I hate myself and he said he didn't want to appear on Dynamite between losing the TNT title to Brodie Lee and the dog collar match. Chris had to talk him into coming in earlier than that and showing that he had faced his failure and learned from it and was a more focussed and dangerous wrestler now through wrestling instead trying to convey that all with a dye job. He wants to be a sympathetic babyface then acts like a bully in matches, telling stories at cross purposes and negating both. So yes, they can get away from strict black and white rules but it's not that easy.

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All the things that make Cody a perfect heel are attributes of the actual person, so by turning heel he'd have to admit he's kind of a dick IRL.  ?

I wrote my whole "what I don't like about Cody" thing already, probably in the scouting report thread.  But I can just say that being a booker and just doing whatever you like can lead to a the kind of incongruous presentation  @Godfreynoted.

Edited by Technico Support
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another strong show from AEW

I really like the Idea of opening with a hot tag then running down the nights events instead of a 20 minute promo like on raw

too many announcers. Although I felt everyone did a good job a four man booth is too much to follow

another fashion statement by miro...

I was wondering if the would put the belt on Abadon with a quick win so Shida could work her way back to it. However I think Abadon isn't ready to anchor the division. At this point I would keep the belt on Shida the rest of the year until Britt Baker is ready to step up.

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There's a fast too easy way to eventually turn Cody heel, but I want them to hold off until at least Hangman is champ and has established his reign a bit. Then you can have Cody just utterly destroy him. "I'm an executive vice president, I can do whatever the hell I want. I'm challenging for the belt."

By that point, they honored that stipulation for at least a couple years, so you aren't just screwing the audience and devaluing stip matches, and it's the first time you've broken a stip, you are in perfect place to get people to hate him, despite how much the audience loves him right now, and seems to credit him the most for the company existing.

And then you can get back to that heel who somehow got crowds so riled up that he allegedly needed police protection in 2018, 30 years after that kind of heat existed.

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