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AEW - APR 2021


The Natural

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The right answer, Misawa/Kobashi vs. Kawada/Taue, AJPW, 9th June 1995. I'll go further still, it might be the greatest wrestling match of all time. It's either that or Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13. Both *****.

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3 hours ago, Casey said:

One has to assume he has already went full Cornette, since Brodie Lee was already a TNT title holder.

Because he was portrayed as a goof and comedy relief backup like they are now. It's pretty dang oblivious to not notice the Dark Order is very different now than then. Brodie was presented a big fuckin' deal and they destroyed the #1A face in the promotion. This argument is flawed as shit. 

Edited by Sex Machine Gun
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At this point Uno and Stu would really need a push for the Dark Order to be viewed as a threat (Silver/Reynolds won't be title material until they break out of the Dark Order)


I think honestly it might be good for everyone involved if they lost a match that forced them all to break up at this point.

 

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38 minutes ago, Sex Machine Gun said:

Because he was portrayed as a goof and comedy relief backup like they are now. It's pretty dang oblivious to not notice the Dark Order is very different now than then. Brodie was presented a big fuckin' deal and they destroyed the #1A face in the promotion. This argument is flawed as shit. 

You didn't provide any context like that to your statement, just that if a member of the Dark Order won the title you'd rage. My argument is only "flawed as shit" because your original statement was dumb as shit.

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Those two tag teams have ALWAYS wrestled like they do currently in AEW.  They aren’t super serious focused characters.  That was one of those things that I really disliked about both teams when I originally saw them in promotions like ROH, Chikara, PWG, Dragon Gate USA and EVOLVE. The former Beaver Boys (Silver/Reynolds) and Super Smash Brothers (Uno/Greyson) wrestled like serious ass kickers in the ring while their “characters” are goofy (Silver), two video game personalities who dialed it WAAAAY back to nothing and Reynolds was a blank slate who complimented Silver’s style while tacitly encouraging and adding to Silver’s silliness.

Long story short - what you see is what you get.  They formed these characters over the last 5-10 years.  They work fast paced matches, usually as a team.  Either team is championship material in AEW.  

Having said that I definitely think Su Grayson could mature as a gimmick into more of a reflection of his violent in ring persona. Silver just has too many eccentricities. His look, size and power move set are in conflict with each other. That struggle is going to keep Johnny Hungy probably exactly at the level he is.

What I think the Dark Order’s real problem is Negative One.  Adam Page should be the eventual leader.  Whether -1 is actually the leader officially or not his presence steals focus of every match he accompanies.  They should keep him as a member but keep him away from the ring.  He can do pretapes and cameos but he can’t be out front at all.  People freaked out online when he was merely blood adjacent.  They overreacted, obviously.

 

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Is Rich Swann generally as flat and lifeless as he was against Omega?  His selling was particulary weak.  And his own offense was completely lethargic.  

Speaking of meaningless titles, maybe Kenny oughtta get his hands on the 'FTWWorld' title.    

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I thought Swann's selling was pretty good and always has been. There were a few dodgy moments mostly the two avalanche spots but other than that I liked it a lot. Big question regarding AEW: does he even bring the belt to Dynamite tapings? AEW has done nothing to promote Impact, which is real interesting. 

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Well they participated in the unification match, so the have to do something with Omega being Impact champion, don't they? Even if it's just an interview just to showcase Kenny in his belt collecting glory. Well...I guess it will probably just be a backstage/Elite trailer interview, given Dynamite is taped this Wednesday night.

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Re: Rich Swann looked weak

To me he looked dead on his feet, barely acknowledging the strikes, no motion, especially those V triggers.  Then he'd suddenly be on offense looking gassed.  I only caught about 10 minutes or so, but that looked awkward and uninspired.  That said, I'm sadly never impressed by anything I ever see in Impact Wrestling.

Mauro's selling on the otherhand was excellent.  

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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1 hour ago, Ryan Faulconer said:

Those two tag teams have ALWAYS wrestled like they do currently in AEW.  They aren’t super serious focused characters.  That was one of those things that I really disliked about both teams when I originally saw them in promotions like ROH, Chikara, PWG, Dragon Gate USA and EVOLVE. The former Beaver Boys (Silver/Reynolds) and Super Smash Brothers (Uno/Greyson) wrestled like serious ass kickers in the ring while their “characters” are goofy (Silver), two video game personalities who dialed it WAAAAY back to nothing and Reynolds was a blank slate who complimented Silver’s style while tacitly encouraging and adding to Silver’s silliness.

Long story short - what you see is what you get.  They formed these characters over the last 5-10 years.  They work fast paced matches, usually as a team.  Either team is championship material in AEW.  

Having said that I definitely think Su Grayson could mature as a gimmick into more of a reflection of his violent in ring persona. Silver just has too many eccentricities. His look, size and power move set are in conflict with each other. That struggle is going to keep Johnny Hungy probably exactly at the level he is.

What I think the Dark Order’s real problem is Negative One.  Adam Page should be the eventual leader.  Whether -1 is actually the leader officially or not his presence steals focus of every match he accompanies.  They should keep him as a member but keep him away from the ring.  He can do pretapes and cameos but he can’t be out front at all.  People freaked out online when he was merely blood adjacent.  They overreacted, obviously.

 

I'd like to see him at ringside less, but it's probably ok for Dark and Elevation. I think it's wonderful when he comes out with Taya Conti and Silver for prelim singles matches. Does he need to be out there for intense #1 contender tag team matches? No. 

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4 hours ago, Ryan Faulconer said:

What I think the Dark Order’s real problem is Negative One.  Adam Page should be the eventual leader.  Whether -1 is actually the leader officially or not his presence steals focus of every match he accompanies.  They should keep him as a member but keep him away from the ring.  He can do pretapes and cameos but he can’t be out front at all.  People freaked out online when he was merely blood adjacent.  They overreacted, obviously.

 

Don't think you can build your #1 face (if they put title on Page) around a bunch of novelties in gimp masks on primetime US tv. Bit like sticking Austin with the Oddities in 98. The -1 stuff is overdone and prob. just disappear at some point. The Cabana storyline (whatever that was) got lost in the shuffle long, long ago. The Uno team has had 1 Dynamite match in 4 months (big tag) & Reynolds team 2 matches (again, big tags). They probably slowly go way of the dinosaurs. I was thinking recently how Silver works in the comedy role in a similar way to Crash Holly .. didn't appreciate Crash had close to 5 inches in height on Silver. To be fair I'd say Silver probably carries the height deficit better than Crash did. If they had a title for cruisers/smaller high flyers he probably finds his niche there.

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5 hours ago, Ryan Faulconer said:

Those two tag teams have ALWAYS wrestled like they do currently in AEW.  They aren’t super serious focused characters.  That was one of those things that I really disliked about both teams when I originally saw them in promotions like ROH, Chikara, PWG, Dragon Gate USA and EVOLVE. The former Beaver Boys (Silver/Reynolds) and Super Smash Brothers (Uno/Greyson) wrestled like serious ass kickers in the ring while their “characters” are goofy (Silver), two video game personalities who dialed it WAAAAY back to nothing and Reynolds was a blank slate who complimented Silver’s style while tacitly encouraging and adding to Silver’s silliness.

Long story short - what you see is what you get.  They formed these characters over the last 5-10 years.  They work fast paced matches, usually as a team.  Either team is championship material in AEW.  

Having said that I definitely think Su Grayson could mature as a gimmick into more of a reflection of his violent in ring persona. Silver just has too many eccentricities. His look, size and power move set are in conflict with each other. That struggle is going to keep Johnny Hungy probably exactly at the level he is.

What I think the Dark Order’s real problem is Negative One.  Adam Page should be the eventual leader.  Whether -1 is actually the leader officially or not his presence steals focus of every match he accompanies.  They should keep him as a member but keep him away from the ring.  He can do pretapes and cameos but he can’t be out front at all.  People freaked out online when he was merely blood adjacent.  They overreacted, obviously.

 

 

Hungee would benefit so much from a junior belt.   Look at SHO in NJPW.  He does a power gimmick in the junior division, one which Shingo did better, but it's hard to top Shingo.  If NJPW was truly openweight, he'd look ridiculous trying that vs say, Goto or even Okada.

I still think it's a mistake AEW didn't have a junior/middleweight belt.

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Again when your TV champion is 180 pounds or whatever, you don’t need a junior heavyweight title unless it’s for the guys you don’t think can get over. Stop falling into the trap that AEW is WCW from ‘94. Cruiserweight titles should be dead but people want to reanimate the corpse for no good reason.

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Also, stop trying to make AEW into New Japan USA.

Hot take maybe, but weight limits in a fake sport are dumb. So are gender based divisions, but I'm willing to let that one slide because a lot of people have a weird hangup about men and women fake fighting.

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11 hours ago, Casey said:

You didn't provide any context like that to your statement, just that if a member of the Dark Order won the title you'd rage. My argument is only "flawed as shit" because your original statement was dumb as shit.

It's like me saying I didn't want to see nWo 2000 run all over the WCW roster or I'd go crazy, and someone pops up saying "you didn't mind it in 1996!" Don't talk shit if you can't understand fucking context without someone holding your hand. Don't tell me how that example is different either, the concepts of time and presentation are the same. You're trying to use present tenses of verbs to describe something, something that happened months ago, to conflate things. 

Do you tell people in the summer that they didn't like cold weather back in the winter so they shouldn't want it now? How boring.

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3 hours ago, Goodear said:

Again when your TV champion is 180 pounds or whatever, you don’t need a junior heavyweight title unless it’s for the guys you don’t think can get over. Stop falling into the trap that AEW is WCW from ‘94. Cruiserweight titles should be dead but people want to reanimate the corpse for no good reason.

Problem is Darby already stretches limits of believability, and his lack of stature is wrapped up in and compensated by his daredevil gimmick. When you take someone who is 4 inches shorter than Darby even, it makes title ownership at that level near impossible unless the aim is to remove all element of realism. If it is, fine, but the more bizarro the world becomes the less mainstream popularity I expect it will have. The envelope can only be pushed so far. Can you run Cage vs Silver, for example? I think probably not in any meaningfully effective way.

So the question then becomes what is the goal for someone like Silver? In a title-oriented promotion, there should always be a belt of prestige for anyone to challenge for. We don’t say the UFC should kill the lightweight or featherweight titles for example because the middleweight and welterweight titles exist; you are talking 15 lb gaps there which seems very small, but enough to craft entire brands of style within those divisions. And at that level, the difference in size between champions is the same or less than that between Darby and Silver, say, never mind the larger guys on the roster competing for the title. So it is a meaningful conversation to have.

Edited by A_K
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There's footage of Conor sparring with Hafthor Bjornson (and easily getting the better of the strongest man in the world). So yes.

Roy Jones Jr won the World Heavyweight championship despite being a natural 154 pounder, who it was expected would be too small to fight at 168.

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You know what I'd kinda not mind seeing? 

I hate the idea of a trios belt, it's too redundant to the reg tag belts - they ought to double down on the Freebird rule, and say that the tag titles can be defended in any team configuration from 2v2 up to 4v4. You could not only protect the two man teams by having their weaker third eat the pin from time to time, but you could also use that to set up a bunch of different issues. For example, JX are champs but lose the belts because Marco begged to make it a six man "to prove himself" or something. 

 

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
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31 minutes ago, AxB said:

There's footage of Conor sparring with Hafthor Bjornson (and easily getting the better of the strongest man in the world). So yes.

Roy Jones Jr won the World Heavyweight championship despite being a natural 154 pounder, who it was expected would be too small to fight at 168.

Yeah .. the former I think you may find was a publicity stunt. The latter was a once-in-100-year achievement (quite literally, 105 years from memory) in which Jones beat an uber-journeyman (who himself had grinded the belt from a 40 year old Holyfield) for the title then would never defend the belt. So probably not useful to extrapolate. There are prodigies but typically we see elite prizefighters operating in fairly close weight range bounds, hence the enormous rarity of UFC multi division champs for example. In this context Darby can be presented as a prodigy, but you likely dull his achievement if other similar or even smaller guys are equally competitive against the big ones.
 

Some people might like cartoonish & absurd pro wrestling, that’s fine, but realism is quite different (to quote AEW at inception, it was going to be a “sports-centric alternative” to WWE).

Edited by A_K
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Like others have said, I don't think we need another belt that would once again be just another meaningless belt for the little guys to fight over.  Fans have been conditioned over the past 21+ years, if not more, to see a light heavyweight/cruiserweight/littledudeweight belt as less than midcard and, as good as AEW's booking is, I don't think they'd be able to overcome that.  Also, as others have said, there are too many "light heavyweights" positioned as higher-up guys already.  So, since this isn't UFC and there's no way we'll ever view different "world titles" in different weight classes as equal, what does a promotion do?  Do you do the WWE thing and keep, say, Darby as a heavyweight contender while guys bigger than him are still lightweights?  That's just dumb.  But if not, then the alternative is to devalue him in a division we've been taught is less-than, which is also dumb.  Sorry, but the idea of weight classes in the U.S is done for.

Edited by Technico Support
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