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AEW - MAR 2021


Casey

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Yeah he was good at general psychology. He missed a couple things (notably not knowing Jungle Boy's and Red Velvet's finishes) and they clearly got a research sheet on some people they were clearly reading (Shimmer tag team champion reference, Abadon working in Colorado) that there is no chance they actually knew. All in all, it wasn't a bad first effort by any stretch and he's going to get better as he picks up things by being on the show. I would say Taz and Excalibur have more of a conversational repartee like Bobby and Gorilla. This is more... Michael Cole and Tazz? Which is good!

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I liked the Itoh/Riho match but my thing is... AEW really doesn't get Maki's whole gimmick. She's a failed idol that is seeking respect and redemptio so its tragedy done as comedy. 

The gimmick is an ode to failure and trying to overcome it. Maki Itoh is joshi's answer to Rusty Venture. Yes she is evolving in TJPW but AEW just treats her as "the girl who sings and dances her ring entrance" and she is so much more. With the right opponent, she can actually have a fantastic match!

James

 

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I totally forgot about Elevation. I'll have to watch it on my phone while working today. If for nothing else, I want to see this awful TK segment that everyone seems to be talking about and not in a good way.

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8 minutes ago, J.H. said:

I liked the Itoh/Riho match but my thing is... AEW really doesn't get Maki's whole gimmick. She's a failed idol that is seeking respect and redemptio so its tragedy done as comedy. 

The gimmick is an ode to failure and trying to overcome it. Maki Itoh is joshi's answer to Rusty Venture. Yes she is evolving in TJPW but AEW just treats her as "the girl who sings and dances her ring entrance" and she is so much more. With the right opponent, she can actually have a fantastic match!

James

 

Part of me wonders if that was due to her only being there for a short time.  I'm not saying for sure they get it but if she ends up being there on a longer term basis then there's always a chance that can be explored.  Right now it just seemed more like them using a talked about star on the rise than anything else.  But FWIW they did at least mention in commentary a few times about her being in the idol group and them cutting her.

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Matches, matches everywhere!

Riho vs. Maki Itoh

Main event! I wasn't playing a ton of attention because I have a short attention span. From me paying half attention, this was probably Itoh's best outing in AEW. SEX RELATED COMMENT ALERT (AWOOOGAH!) I am always struck by the flexibility of female workers and how it translates into selling submission holds. That Boston Crab almost had Riho touching the back of her head with her feet. Good lord. Itoh still leans heavily on gimmicky stuff like having a hard head (the weird Riho bridges out of the way of a headbutt leading to a dropping headbutt was probably the worst transition in the match). Itoh is okay. She's got too much charisma to be a heel right out of the gate. 

Jungle Boy vs. Danny Limelight

Not a great outing for Limelight who looked like he was having trouble recovering from a early mistake. JB looked good in victory to me carrying Danny to something by moving past the mistakes and not stopping to focus on mistakes or trying to redo spots to get better results. This felt a hair too long, like they could have cut off the 619 rana to the floor segment and it would have been better. Limelight seems like the comic with a good 6 minutes but can't handle a 12 minute set yet. Marko Stunt continues to troll me with post match heel work when he's a face.

Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Brandon Cutler

Not the best Hobbs outing. He probably needed to throw in his spinebuster at some point or something else with a little impact to it. He still did a good job leaving no doubt that he's above Cutler in the pecking order. Hobbs and Hook have decent physical chemistry, demonstrating what looks like two guys who would hang out outside of the ring. 

Tay Conti vs. Ashley Vox

Boy is -1 distracting to me at this point. Please get him off television before the crowd turns on him (which is possible because wrestling fans are terrible people). But the dancing and flailing and falling and everything... 

Max Caster vs. Dante Martin

Caster as a loud mouth heel who can't back it up and needs to cheat is fine. Kissing hands is fine because it's creepy and weird. Dante didn't do much to distinguish himself from every other athletic guy on the roster. 

Big Swole vs. Alex Gracia

Probably the best dirty dancing has ever looked. Still terrible.

QT Marshall vs. Marko Stunt

Marshall did a good job of rag dolling Stunt around and as we know, Stunt is at his best when he's pretending he's the Japaneese blow up doll. Finish was good, countering the Sliced Bread #2 into a diamond cutter was slick. I'm pretty much fine with hitting the diamond cutter out of know where when the guy taking it is coming forward or down. But when the guy doing it is coming backward? That looks worse. 

The Sydals vs. Joel Nelson and Royce Isaacs (ex-NWA Power)

Why did they sign the Sydals? Again, don't they have enough athletic babyfaces? This was fine? The double lightning strike is a better double team finisher than the single version. I totally skimmed the Kenny Omega-Michael Nakasawa-Tony Khan segments. Let me just say, you can only do something the first time once and to make the thing that brings out Tony Khan is to set up a Matt Sydal match? Like really? 

Miro/Kip Sabian vs. Baron Black/Vary Morales

Miro is the fireworks factory and Sabian is the 4 hour car ride. Miro wrestles like he's really goddamn mad which is great. Sabian is not great. Miro trying to steal Kip from Penelope is pretty positive for me since it may mean this pairing will get separated or they will get more heat on Kip for putting Bros before Wives.  

Butcher/Blade/Private Party vs. Dean Alexander/Carlie Bravo/Brick Aldridge/David Ali

I would have liked more inter office turmoil between The Big Money Conglomerate having to work through growing pains. Like Private Party trying to show off and The Triple B being mean and off putting. As it was, Butcher and The Blade seem like the easiest people to work with. Which is a character point I guess but it's not particularly interesting. I did smile at Kassidy leaping into the Butcher's arms but I'm not sure laughter is the response they want for the big bad heels.

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Jungle Boy vs. Danny Limelight
Tay Conti vs. Ashley Vox
Will Hobbs vs. Brandon Cutler
Max Caster vs. Dante Martin
QT Marshall vs. Marko Stunt
Baron Black & Vary Morales Vs. Miro & Kip
Ray Lyn vs. Abadon
Leila Grey vs. Diamante
Red Velvet vs. Dani Jordan
Skyler Moore vs. Big Swole
Butcher & Blade & Private Party Vs. Carly Bravo, Dean Alexander, Brick Aldridge & David Ali
Matt & Mike Sydal vs. Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs
Riho vs. Maki Itoh

vs.

Vertivixen vs. Madi Wrenkowski
Tesha Price vs. Penelope Ford
KiLynn King vs. Jazmin Allure
Chaos Project vs. Fuego Del Sol & Jake St. Patrick
Sonny Kiss & Joey Janela vs. Brian Cage & Ricky Starks
John Skyler vs. John Silver
Gunn Club vs. David Ali, Adam Priest, & Seth Gargis
SCU vs. Carlie Bravo & Aaron Solow
Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs vs. Varsity Blonds
Luchasaurus vs. Cesar Bononi
Leyla Hirsch vs. Savannah Evans
Jack Evans vs. 10
D3 vs. Nick Comoroto
Bear Country vs. Dean Alexander & Brick Aldridge
Angel Fashion, Baron Black, Vary Morales & Ryzin vs. Dark Order (Colt Cabana, Evil Uno, Stu Grayson, & Alan Angels)

Well, I'm trying but for now it's pretty hard to find the difference between monday night Dark und tuesday night Dark. I'm still hoping tuesday night Dark will change (back) to a b-show for Dynamite with angles and storylines for undercard wrestlers.

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13 minutes ago, Goodear said:

Tay Conti vs. Ashley Vox

Boy is -1 distracting to me at this point. Please get him off television before the crowd turns on him (which is possible because wrestling fans are terrible people). But the dancing and flailing and falling and everything... 

I'm fine with -1 being out there as long as it's only for Dark Order/DO-adjacent matches.  But if he's gonna be out there then at least have him on the side of the ring and not on the side facing the hard cam the whole time.  The occasional camera cuts would be much better.

But FWIW it could be worse.  He could be in every DO segment on BTE and even when they sometimes show up on Sammy's vlog.  That's something that I'm glad doesn't happen especially when it means they'll have to PG a lot of what the group says.

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So let's get this out of the way before it gets beat to death:

Two things can be true at the same time

Okay, so whats the general consensus on the lesser evil?

1) Firing wrestlers during pandemic = bad

2) Adding wrestlers to the roster/payroll during pandemic = bad

Also sort of related, which of these is the more unforgivable sin?

1) Running the weekly TV with the same guys feuding while a good chunk of the roster sit in catering?

2) Running weekly tv with a varied group.of guys week to week where you may not see your favorite but maybe twice a month?

Sincerely no snarkiness intended, I'm trying to read the (general?) consensus of active* TV viewers and what the preference is ?

 

*By active i mean id rather get the thoughts of fans who actually bother to tune in and not the armchair brigade who weigh in even though they don't watch the weekly TV ?

Edited by Hayabusa
ETA I absolutely count myself among the armchair brigade who maybe tune in once a month because of work/life and don't have the free time to watch as much as I'd like
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I watched most of elevation last night really late.  Overall I thought wight did a good job but felt like he occasionally was dropping into non kayfabe stuff like mentioning swole was selling the leg.

I dont mind them having -1 doing stuff but they have to make sure they are corraling him because bored kid in the background of tay's match wasn't a good look to have broadcast.  I thought conti looked good, I think she is starting to put together some better offense that she was severely lacking in nxt.

 

I liked this outing for itoh who I have limited matches for.  I like her character work and like the kokeshi, there are certain things that don't always seem to click but the combo of someone being "cute" but having the mean streak plays well as she can flip from the friendly star who loses their shit backstage when the assistant gives them the wrong brand of water.

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Had some time to kill after some 89 AJPW so I decided to watch the first match on Dark Elevation, mainly to hear what Wight could do. I thought he did a great job for his first go. He'd done his research and was able to work the things he'd learned, like the stats, into the match mostly organically. I think maybe he filled the space just a little too much and should have hung back 15% more or so. The other big worry is that, through trying to make everything matter and everything matter logically, he might have leaned a little too hard into talking about wind and shots to the chest, etc. I say that because unless you talked to the wrestlers beforehand or have some sense from an agent, etc., bringing up totally logical stuff can backfire if they lean in a different direction or go completely illogical later on. You build a bridge to nowhere and I could definitely see that being a concern. I do think in that match you could sort of find some way to tie that off compellingly towards the finish even in just noting that Jungle Boy's wind is so good/he's in such shape that despite all Limelight did, he was still able to be lightning-fast on the DDT rollthrough and the finishing combo, but they didn't land that plane that way. Again, nothing huge. And it's not like Wight's going to see this, but that would be my constructive criticism. They sort of missed calling the DDT rollthrough too which was problematic as it was the most important single moment of the match. Still, very good first showing and it's obvious how much he cared and how seriously he took this.

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I tried watching Dark last night and tapped out about the point of the Sonny Kiss & Janella vs Starks & Cage.

Let me just tell you that whoever didn't edit Luchasaurus vs. Cezar Bononi clearly hates them and wants them to fail.

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Cezar Bononi really, really sucks and I don't think there's any way that guy gets better. It feels like he spent forever at the PC and he never learned how to put on a halfway decent match.

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Did they delete last night's Dark off of Youtube? I only watched half, and now I can't find the rest of it.

Did Tazz make another dodgy joke, by any chance?

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38 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Cezar Bononi really, really sucks and I don't think there's any way that guy gets better. It feels like he spent forever at the PC and he never learned how to put on a halfway decent match.

He has a cool name, and I like the Avalon pairing so far as an enhancement team, but I'll agree that he doesn't strike me as particularly unique. Like, you could probably drop one of the La Resistance guys in there and I wouldn't notice for a few weeks

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Holy shit! I just watched a clip from that Luchasaurus vs Boner match. That's quite possibly the worst wrestling I've seen in quite some time. I would have just cut that out of Dark entirely.

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5 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Holy shit! I just watched a clip from that Luchasaurus vs Boner match. That's quite possibly the worst wrestling I've seen in quite some time. I would have just cut that out of Dark entirely.

That's some mighty fine auto-correct there.  And I ended up skipping a lot of Dark due to most matches not having my interest so I guess I'll be sticking with Elevation.  But I did see 10 with the blood which admittedly made for a neat visual.

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