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AEW R-Evolution II - 3/7/2021


Dolfan in NYC

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A couple of thoughts I just remembered.

This is a nitpick as I like all the teams I’m gonna mention but, considering how deep the tag division is, I wonder if they’re going to the well too many times giving shots to relatively new/makeshift teams (Page/Omega, PAC/Fenix, Jericho/MJF).

I don’t think Wight understands the concept of a clue. Using the debuting guy’s, as yet unused, new catchphrase as a tease makes no sense. Part of his scoops gimmick should be him giving completely illogical clues, maybe throw in a dash of overhype. “Up next we have a BEAST of a Dynamite debut from someone who could be the Next Big Thing in AEW...it’s Ryzin, who you may know from losing dozens of matches on Dark.

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8 hours ago, A.M.B. said:

One of the most poorly executed shows I’ve seen maybe ever. Part of me feels sorry for Kingston and Mox, but there’s so many bad ideas here that were consciously made that it’s hard to give the company a pass. It’s concerning to see people like Meltzer cover up how many mistakes were made and act like things would have been fine if the final explosion worked.

 

Pre show match was alright. Ito’s mic was too loud and her singing bit came off a bit awkward as a result. Interference count at 1 already.

 

Opener was my favorite match on the show. Could have gone a little shorter and the finish was anticlimactic, but I didn’t have any major complaints here. Interference from Wardlow, though pretty minor. Didn’t get on my nerves yet.

 

Tag battle royal was a bad idea. It should have been a 4 team scramble or something. Finish was good but the body of the match was typical battle royal bs that is much more fitting for an episode of Dynamite or the pre-show, not a paid, special show. Interference count hits three for three here, is Marco Stunt even supposed to be a baby face at this point? This is what I mean about this company being too equitable. Everyone’s friends with each other and seemingly doesn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by leaving them off the show. Please leave Marco off the show, and half these managers getting their shit in.

 

Shida vs. Ryo went way too long for me. Ryo’s Kojima spot was embarrassing and makes Shida look like an idiot for selling. Excalibur trying to cover it up by saying she’s mocking Shida, but this was way too goofy for me. Biggest tournament they’ve ever done and a big effort to give credibility to the women’s division ends not with a definitive moment of celebration but instead with a heel beat down, and once again, let’s get everyone on the show. 4/4 for interference/fuckery now, at least if we’re including post match.

 

Page/Hardy also was a good match for a Dynamite blow off. Ending bit was nice and conclusive, but with limited spots on a limited PPV schedule, I would have much rather seen a up and comer get this spot instead of Hardy. 5/5 for interference.

 

Miro match was a fine Dynamite segment. Blood 3 matches before a big deathmatch seems like a bad idea. Another match with interference. At this point any hype I had for the remaining matches was gone, was  really just hoping to not be completely let down.

 

Christian was a terrible disappointment. Even if you do like him, this would have been better unannounced on Dynamite. Unnecessary hype created for another veteran who brings the company closer to TNA comparisons. Please stop.

 

Ladder match was awful, they really need to stop doing these. They have devalued gimmick matches so much. MitB was a good idea back in the day, but at this stage a ladder match should never be for anything but a title. Also, fuck right off with the “brass ring” bit. Didn’t Khan say at the start they weren’t gonna take jabs at WWE, and that they would just focus on being the best version of AEW? Then don’t do cute shit like this. They keep trying to make Scorpio Sky work and so far I haven’t seen any reason why. I should be behind him since I’ve followed his career since 05 but especially after that commentary last week where he was cringe worthy levels of bland, he just doesn’t have the charisma to be a top guy. Debuting Ethan Page (ugh) in a ladder match was a bad idea, he should have been debuted in a singles match where he can talk after. I’m assuming his gimmick is similar to MJF, and I’m not excited but we’ll see. Interference from Jake was unnecessary. 100% interference rate at this point is driving me insane.

 

Street Fight was terrible. The music was so corny, the commentary over it was a bad idea, Sting didn’t look good, more interference, just bad. I don’t like these matches and didn’t even care for the Boneyard match, but this was still worse than it should have been. 

 

Main event was eh. I actually appreciated the tension and build, liked little things like Moxley bringing a flask, Omega getting blinded, the rope break explosion, and the bumps were good but I thought the explosions looked awful, they weren’t even attached to the ropes. Surprised some people didn’t mind them, but this entire match would have been much better if there weren’t any explosions and they just did barbed wire. The underwhelming explosion from the landline made the insane bump off the apron come off as a disappointment, which is the last thing you want. And of course, gotta make it 9 for 9 with interference. The ending made me feel so bad for Kingston and leaves me wondering what the actual intended explosion was supposed to look like. 

 

I would call this show cursed, but bad luck has nothing to do with my problems here. It’s a series of bad decisions. There should never be this amount of interference on any show, let alone a PPV, let alone what they call their “Wrestlemania”. It’s already a problem on TV, and I do get that you need to have heels cheat sometimes, but this is inexcusable. Who are the agents okay’ing all these bits, and how is this not the lead? Fuck a pyrotechnic mishap, this company can’t do a single show without shoehorning in convoluted and downright outdated interference. He’s easy to pick on, but this company really needs a mind like Gabe Sapolsky behind it, who was always great at not overusing gimmick matches and getting the most out of them (like the ladder war and CZW feud) and made sure to not overuse fuck finishes.

If this show was setup different it could have been so much better. Instead of the battle royal just do Jurassic Express vs. Death Triangle (you could add in Silver/Reynolds as a 3 way but risk it being a clusterfuck). Make the women’s match (and most of the matches) 5 minutes shorter. Instead of the ladder match just do a fatal 4 way. Miro’s match deserved a stip more than the ladder match to set it apart. I’m happy people like him but Sting can’t go. Let the young eat the old. Darby and Starks have great chemistry, I really just wanted to see more of that combo in a regular wrestling context. Main event could have had a better stip.

Anyway, I really hope this company starts to reign a lot of this shit in, but it seems like a lot of fans don’t even notice it somehow. For me the product in the last 6 months or so has been tilted far more towards bad than good, but I’ll keep watching for now as I really don’t have anything else, unless I like shows without any crowd heat.

A lot of great points.  Doing away with convuluted situations, gimmick matches, everyone's buds needing to be on the PPV, and especially the overuse of interference.  One of the things that was so refreshing about this company was their commitment to clean finishes.  What happened?  Ha, I agree with pretty much everything but the idea of bringing in Gabe Sapolsky.  Tho agree they could use somebody to reel in and constructively critique TK and the EVPs ideas.

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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10 hours ago, Sex Machine Gun said:

This guy gets it. My issue was the lack of Koko talk.

Fair enough. Me, I'm disappointed that Matt's attempt to segue into discussion of "No Class" Bobby Bass seems to have failed.

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The interference in every match felt very TNA/WCW to me. It's my least favorite spot in wrestling, if you can it that. This felt like a Russo Starrcade in that regard. If they really wanted to do interference in a match or two, I disagree but at least you avoid the Law of Diminishing Returns.

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5 hours ago, RunningFromAmerica said:

Tony Khan's Internet Response Analyst: So the headline is that people liked the show, but the dud explosion at the end did a lot to hurt people's overall impression.

Tony Khan: Forget all that, what are they saying on Death Valley Driver?

Tony Khan's Internet Response Analyst: I can't really tell, they seem to have decided to talk about Greg Valentine and Koko B. Ware instead:

Tony Khan: IT WORKED!

Tony Khan Comments On AEW Revolution Explosion Dud | Cultaholic

@coachTonyK Don't listen to him. The inmates are not running the ship.  There is absolutely no need for an agent to serve as match editor. You also are not putting out self-indulgent matches that are not building a wider audience but are only serving a small and aging group of fans who scream like banshees on the internet

In completely unrelated news, sir, I'm still available to receive tickets to next year's Jags-Dolphins game.

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9 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

@coachTonyK Don't listen to him. The inmates are not running the ship.  There is absolutely no need for an agent to serve as match editor. You also are not putting out self-indulgent matches that are not building a wider audience but are only serving a small and aging group of fans who scream like banshees on the internet

In completely unrelated news, sir, I'm still available to receive tickets to next year's Jags-Dolphins game.

Seriously.  I like AEW a lot but surely there's a happy medium between WWE's scripting every match move for move DDP style and AEW just letting dudes go out there and do whatever they want. 

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13 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

only serving a small and aging group of fans

wait, did their 50+ demo go up when I wasn't looking???? I mean I know that's the makeup of DVDVR, but...

?

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28 minutes ago, RunningFromAmerica said:

We really now should do a series of polls: 'Is 'X' a bigger star than Christian?'

That would be the most meta thing ever I think.

The thing is that no one here wants to knock Christian. We're the biggest Christian fans out there. I actively resent AEW for making us do this.

It honestly says something that a guy who Vince had such weird hang-ups over had such a good run.

You guys have heard the blue dot story, right?

When I was making my GWE list in 2016, I specifically put him one spot above Dibiase. The thing with Dibiase is all of his heel Ring General stuff in WWF rarely produced compelling matches, but the babyface matches that have come out in the last decade are all great, and he has plenty of compelling heel stuff from pre-WWF. Go-go-go guys like Angle have probably aged the worst in the last two decades, but those "ring general" style heels (WWF Dibiase, early 00s Triple H, etc) haven't aged very well either.

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In regards to the blue dot story, I bet Christian's face looked especially ratty when sneezing in front of Vince at some point! Completely rhetorical, but seriously WTF is literally wrong with Vince's brain? Well, it is wonderful that there are slightly more options, if one wants to continue as a wrestler even if the owner of the biggest company dislikes you because of something I'm sure even Vince himself couldn't fully explain.

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I wonder if they originally planned to have the deathmatch in TIAA and the NFL said "Uh, no?" Maybe the fire marshal limited what they could do in there? FWIW, Dailys Place has a fabric ceiling. Maybe the concern was anything larger could have gotten really bad, really quick... Just trying to make sense of this thing for the last three days

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15 hours ago, just drew said:

No such thing.

I mean unless it's pork or chicken (and a steak by definition, isn't) this the truth, not that it had nothing to do with the point itself. If I was using that particular metaphor, I would have said "the steak felt overcooked", but that's neither here nor there, either.

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18 minutes ago, Spontaneous said:

Alvarez said AEW tested it earlier and it worked, the one for the ppv was a dud. Could just be bad luck. Regardless, the damage is done.

If that's the case, and it likely is, then I can't imagine the amount of disappointment felt by literally everyone backstage at that event. I mean, you think we're all disappointed by it? Think about the wrestlers who sold it and performed in the match, think about the staff who rigged up the ring for it, think about the producers who thought they were going to blow people's minds only to see...poof. If it were me, I probably would have been catatonic, just mouth agape staring at the monitor wondering what the fuck just happened.

Ultimately, this isn't going to matter. People need to dial it back a notch when they say or worry that this is going to hurt AEW or people aren't going to trust AEW anymore. Up until this year, I think people were saying every month for about 24 months straight that WWE was the worst ever and such and such thing was the worst thing they ever saw and they were dead. The Hell in a Cell with Bray and really nearly everything with Bray is some borderline WCW death bed shit. Aside from people on here who love to poke fun and laugh at shit, who else is remembering that? People will move on from this too and they'll get back to business as usual.

Now, if someone actually got hurt, then that's a different story entirely. I still think the confusion surrounding the Matt Hardy/Sammy match is worse than this. Matt could have fucking died or Shibata'd himself. Everyone involved looked fucking confused, the announcers didn't know what was going on, and it was really bad. If something like that happened in this match then I could understand the outrage. As it is, it's a botched finish. Sometimes shit happens, but you learn from it and you move on. 

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I do think they should reign in the gimmick matches for a while. The ladder match has had mostly negative responses to it. The explosion was a dud. All Out 2020 had the mimosa dunk tank match and the Sammy-Hardy last man standing match. The tag team casino battle royal was rough.

No more crazy stipulations through Double or Nothing. Just wrestle. You have a great roster. Use it!

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15 hours ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Was anybody else stoked to see the great Paul Walter Hauser on the PPV.  One of my Favorite actors.  

I lost my shit for him being there. I'm a huge It's Always Sunny fan and so did not expect to see the Juggalo child Charlie wanted to mentor sitting front row lol.

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10 minutes ago, Spontaneous said:

I do think they should reign in the gimmick matches for a while. The ladder match has had mostly negative responses to it. The explosion was a dud. All Out 2020 had the mimosa dunk tank match and the Sammy-Hardy last man standing match. The tag team casino battle royal was rough.

No more crazy stipulations through Double or Nothing. Just wrestle. You have a great roster. Use it!

I think this would be good as well. For a little bit now, Tony has been booking the PPVs like someone would in EWR or TEW where you load up PPVs with gimmick matches. I know gimmick matches are cool and fun, but less is more. Like you said, they have an outstanding roster. Let them wrestle.

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Bigger, more important matches have survived and remained fondly remembered.  A smart angle on Dynamite can make up for the misfire.

Lesnar/Angle from WM19 had a nice little legacy for itself.  Time and over saturation of WWE overall have brought that match’s rep down a little.  I think of that as a much bigger stage with much more at stake in many levels.

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1 hour ago, Spontaneous said:

Alvarez said AEW tested it earlier and it worked, the one for the ppv was a dud. Could just be bad luck. Regardless, the damage is done.

The way TK initially responded it did seem like the dud was by design which was starting to annoy me.  But if it was truly meant to not be like that then it may take a bit but I guess I can understand why he kayfabed it.  I still think an apology is the way to go though if they ever consider this again (please no) they need backup plans.  Whether it's taping the test earlier and have them in there or the match itself there's a lot of "could have, should have" stuff that comes to mind.  Either way I still feel really bummed out for everybody and don't see a clear way to recover from this.  And to Craig's point I mean when dealing with the match itself as the company's going to be just fine either way.

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