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AEW - DEC 2021


The Natural

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Elevation highlights, as mentioned above, were mostly on commentary. Good showing by Dark Order in two trios matches, and I’ll give Billy Gunn credit for selling for Alan Angels and being minimally involved in the match overall.

Spears-Moriarty was solid but wrong guy went over in my opinion.

Hardy gave Lockhart a lot of offense to start, topped by a gnarly looking submission hold...which Hardy immediately followed by no-selling and going into his 5 moves of doom. Weak, I know you’re hometown baby face tonight but sell a little.

TayJay vs. Emi/Diamanté could have been good but wasn’t. I don’t know, nothing clicked.

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3 hours ago, DEAN said:

So either Anthony Greene or Peter Avalon is the best wrestler on Dark.  That Wingman/Best Friends match was a total hoot.

Anthony Greene gets my vote, I was buying the potential upset and he was not only hitting some great moves but also throwing great strikes and was working the crowd/telling a story. Easy full Worldwide~! Point for that match.

Peter Avalon has that skeevy PUA 70s porn look down pat, and is a solid wrestler. Cesar looks like a WWE guy. Another easy full Worldwide~! Point.

Acclaimed/Bear Country was another great match, Caster’s rap had Boulder cracking up, the Bowens getting chokeslammed while on the mic spot was hilarious. I love Bowens, he should be a star. Bear Boulder sold his knee really well, and I liked how you could hear Bronson ask “are you sure?” when setting up their shoulder-ride finisher.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bunny win a match, at least not as part of a trio while using the brass knuckles.

The Skye Blue squash was weird, that seemed set up to be a nice match between two relative unknowns with losing records and instead was shorter than the Wardlow match. Guess they’re setting her up for something.

The main event started slow, in that this was another everything goes match with trash cans full of weapons sitting unused for 5 minutes. The chair pile spots looked hurty, but the cameraman/editors should’ve done a better job of hiding Janela’s blading. The table spots were big. Seemed weird to have this set up as a grudge match for Kiss and then have Janela go over “clean” as the heel.

Even with the squashes, a really good episode.

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With that blonde hair Sonny should have been the one blading, but helluva fun match. Janela is the garbage match expert so makes sense for him to win in this style, maybe they can have a 3rd match that favours Sonny to blow it off. Sonny really should be on Dynamite and involved in storylines, she's too good just for Dark.

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Again, half-assing this.

Dark 12/28/21

Anny Jay vs Reka Tahaka: I do think Anna's improving and matches like these are good for her. The Dangerous Jay kick looked good and worked well. She's good at entry points into the Kingslayer. Tahaka had some good bodyshots.

Blade vs Toa Liona: This needed another minute or two and Blade to feel the consequences of his antics just a little more. It did get over how wary he was of Toa but they ran him in circles just a little too much. I agree that Toa should be a signing but only if they figure out how to use him as an attraction and not just another guy.

Wardlow vs Casanova: I'd like to see Wardlow find a way to interact with the crowd a bit more as they're chanting for the powerbombs. I've seen him deny them but that's not the current trajectory.

Diamante vs Reed: Effective for what it was. I like Diamante as a studio worker a lot. Hopefully she can be built for a shot at the TBS title upcoming.

Nese vs Greene: I thought this was the best Greene looked so far and Nese took all of his stuff really well. Just a good showing from both guys. Solid character stuff as Greene paid early for his goofiness and a good finishing stretch as Nese really had to work for the knee. Just a good match. Nese vs Hook makes sense to me as Hook is over enough to be a tweener.

Bunny vs King: I would have liked them protecting King just a little more here, especially in the finishing stretch, but I get why they didn't. Allie has looked good for most of the last six months. She earns her spot. There's a world where Toa rushes out here and builds to a mixed tag next week. I like that world. Ah well. This also felt like it needed another minute or two.

Acclaimed vs Bear Country: One of the best Acclaimed matches I've seen. Everything made a ton of sense and told a solid story of Bear Country making mistakes and Acclaimed taking advantage, which was really the only way they could survive. Bowens taking out both guys with the stairs was a nice moment for him. Big hubris from Boulder thinking that he could do their finish given his hurt leg, but that's how Acclaimed riles you. I thought the finish chop block looked good but I would have liked Bowens to use the ropes or pull the tights too.

Skye Blue vs D'amboise: Quick squash. Nice definitive win for Skye but she needs the ringtime too so not too many of these.

Cassidy/Yuta vs Bononi/Avalon: I loved how they worked to Cesar's size, including the double dive to get him down. That pumphandle suplex on Yuta over the other two guys was just absolutely nuts. One of the craziest spots of the whole year. They should have replayed that six times. I think Yuta can be hit or miss as he depends a lot on his opponent but he has one of the best hot tags in the company and is generally pretty good in the twenty seconds beforehand where he really earns it.

Janela vs Kiss: I'd say this should have gotten more of a showcase but Janela owns it and his pride for the webshows, so fine. A good hardcore match that checked most of the boxes. I liked how they got Kayla out of the way early and how present Kiss was about where she was, which works if this was a blowoff. The finish was nuts, just in how the table broke.

 

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Apparently Tony Nese and Anthony Greene (at the time his name was August Grey) had another match earlier this year, on 205 live. Not many people watched it though.

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  • TV Insider asked Tony Khan if he has to become a little pickier when it comes to deciding who will be a good fit for AEW with only so many spots on the roster to fill: “I do think I have to be more discerning than ever in talent acquisition because we have such a strong roster. I was aggressively expanding with the launch of Rampage. We made some big signings in the past including CM Punk. Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Ruby Soho, Thunder Rosa, Kyle O’Reilly, Bobby Fish, Andrade El Idolo, Malakai Black. Christian Cage and many others. We’ve also continued our partnerships with great international companies like New Japan Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre AAA. We have a lot of great talent working, but it’s time for me to be more discerning than ever in terms of acquisitions.”
  • Khan said we’ll be seeing more talent coming into AEW in the new year: “Yes. We will continue expanding the roster. Absolutely, there will be more people coming into AEW.”
  • In his interview with Sports Illustrated, Khan responded to a question about Hook potentially being the rookie of the year in 2022: “Hook could be rookie of the year in any year. He has the marketing machine fully behind him. He’s had great coaching from his father, Taz, who is his mentor, and he’s learned from a lot of very intelligent pro wrestlers. It bodes really well for him, and he is going to be special every time you see him on screen. There is so much to look forward to in 2022, and Hook is a big reason for that.”
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Apparently the street fight on Rampage this week between The Bunny/Ford & Tay/Anna is pretty violent and on par with Rosa/Britt Lights Out match. No spoilers (I haven't even look up results tbh) but they had to clean up a lot of blood before the main event.

I'm off for New Year's Eve so I'll definitely check this out.

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On 12/27/2021 at 6:02 PM, Gordlow said:

Dark: Elevation: Holiday Bash Edition

What do you know, I've finally got time to do one of these. 

The Dark Order (Alex Reynolds, John Silver & Ten) vs. Fodder, JR Miller, & Brandon Scott

I liked the boys at the desk riffing on Fodder's name. I would have tried for a "Hello mudder, hello fodder" joke in that situation, because I'm all about the up to date cultural references. The Dark Order used a trios finisher that I have honestly never seen or even imagined before. Which means: Probably it was famously used in King of Trios or French Catch or some recently unearthed early CMLL footage. @Matt D, was that new to you as well? 

 

It was Bruderschaft des Kreuzes triple team finisher in Chikara, which is why Eddie recognized it.

 

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