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All Out IV - 9/4/2022


Dolfan in NYC

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2 minutes ago, A_K said:

Thanks all. I wouldn’t take much from that .. 10k attendance is still an OK number. It can’t be underestimated the financial strain on the public at the moment (there are some ridiculous stats out there, like credit card usage month-on-month increases being the highest in 25 years). There is going to be an impact on event attendances, there has to be. Tickets will go but not as easily as in 2021 when everyone was flush with cash.


I’d also be less concerned about “momentum being lost” now .. in reality momentum was lost 6-9 months ago, it’s just dwindled bit-by-bit until it’s become a noticeable public issue. More important is that they get the big picture booking back on track .. the PPV will tell a lot about that. Less easily addressable is that they have way, way, way too many titles. It’s really bad and I don’t know what they do about that readily.

It’s not going to be a bad number, but this would always assume to be an automatic sell out for the history of aew, and there are hundreds of reasonably priced tickets just sitting there. So it’s a downturn. 
 And yes, momentum was lost 6-9 months ago, which is now manifesting itself in an observable decline in demand and business. 

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Sounds like Wrestling fans being extremely fickle over little things again and then leaving. I noticed some of the super fans on twitter have turned against AEW. 

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Personally, I don’t think things in AEW are as dire as some folks here make them out to be. I do, however, think things have gone down some as far as the booking. We’re still getting amazing matches week in and week out, but the stories aren’t there like they used to be. That said, I think TK’s true test as to whether or not he’s a great booker will be how he handles the next few months. 

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1 minute ago, Log said:

Personally, I don’t think things in AEW are as dire as some folks here make them out to be. I do, however, think things have gone down some as far as the booking. We’re still getting amazing matches week in and week out, but the stories aren’t there like they used to be. That said, I think TK’s true test as to whether or not he’s a great booker will be how he handles the next few months. 

This nails it. The week to week is still great but it doesn't feel like it's building stuff PPV worthy. Those first few years about Hangman's chase and the rise of MJF as the company's biggest dirtbag were fantastic but there there was a little "okay, now what" after.

I have faith they'll get back on track. Every great company has their lulls and "not as good as it used to be" AEW is still better than most other stuff out there (for me at least).

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Don't think anybody has ever criticized the consistency of the in-ring quality. Most of us who are critical consistently point to it as a reason to stick around. No matter the bad decisions Khan makes, he is still letting some of the best wrestlers on the planet do their thing in an environment conducive to great wrestling. 

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The funny thing is I think the two dynamites from a couple weeks ago are among the best episodes ever. Like, they are giving me everything I want as a fan action wise. But overall the storylines feel so slap dash and hap hazard, and the build for the last two official ppvs feel super weak to me. It’s super clear they having been throwing stuff against the wall and cutting themselves off for whichever reasons come up. 
 

edit: in the meantime the same few hundred tickets are still sitting there for one of the two signature ppvs in supposedly the best market. 

Edited by matt925
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 Just my take on it, but I think it has less to do with the product / lack of a main event / cooling off than it does with them just absolutely burning the Chicago market to the ground. They had what 16k for a PPV there just 2 months ago? Now they are running 3 live events in a week there? Plus they've had at least one other live TV there this year. It's too much in too short of a period.

The PPVs always deliver, but who knows what you're getting for a live Rampage ya know. 4 events in 2 months all with very high ticket prices, Forbidden Door especially, is just a bad call. I get the desire to have destination PPVs that are in the same city annually. But Forbidden Door being in The United Center should have caused a pivot. They should have went with Toronto for this weekend.

Edited by NoFistsJustFlips
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Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie
2 hours ago, Log said:

Personally, I don’t think things in AEW are as dire as some folks here make them out to be. I do, however, think things have gone down some as far as the booking. We’re still getting amazing matches week in and week out, but the stories aren’t there like they used to be. That said, I think TK’s true test as to whether or not he’s a great booker will be how he handles the next few months. 

I think if you love wrestling for the sake of wrestling, then AEW is perfect for you to watch. There's no doubt that there are a significant amount of fantastic athletes that work for AEW. But I personally cannot enjoy wrestling within a vacuum without a reason to care about the people having the match. It's one of the reasons why I don't like watching Dark; I have literally no reason to care about the matches being presented aside from "here are a bunch of wrestlers wrestling, please enjoy". If that's your thing, more power to you. I need something to connect with on a deeper level than "this person is very good at their job, and they are going against someone else very good at their job". I have hundreds of hours of wrestling in my backlog that are full of great matches too that I can hurry to watch instead.

AEW is not appointment viewing for me because it takes more than HEY HERE'S A REALLY GREAT MATCH! to make me drop what I'm doing for. There's dozens of great matches in my backlog too. And yet, what will make me stop what I'm doing and watch? A show with matches that may not be as mechanically great, but the characters hit me on a much more aesthetically pleasing level, so I'll make time for that and not Yet Another Five Star Technical Wrestling Masterpiece that my brain is too mushy to be able to tell from the one that was on TV two weeks ago. When it all blends together, that might be a problem that I don't think anyone either knows how to address or has the willingness to want to address.

The most compelling thing about AEW for me for the first two years was seeing Hangman Page, a wrestler I never cared about prior to AEW, experiencing a crisis of confidence and needing to grow into becoming the wrestler he felt he needed to be in order to fit in with the people who took him under their wing. AEW's storylines don't all need to be massive overarching stories like that, but give me something other than "here is a wrestler! Here is another wrestler! They sure do wrestle! Don't you want to see it?!" Because the answer, for me at least, is "not really?"

The problem is that there's no secret sauce that's going to connect with an entire populace. I fully admit that I'm probably not someone you can market to easily. But it seems like the way AEW is trying to book is by going "oh hey, you thought THAT match was great, how about THIS?!"

And the people who love wrestling for the sake of wrestling are going to love it! But the folks like me who need a reason to care aside from that will go "you enjoy that, I guess. I sure wish Jamie Hayter was on TV more than once a month."

Edited by Stefanie Without Stefanie
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It's a really, really easy booking situation to sort out.

98/99 WWF (choosing this as a period of key commercial success in single-brand format prior to big WCW/ECW influx) had a roster of around 35-40 names across the male/female roster who would comprise Raw/Smackdown/Heat (5 hours national television).

A casual look at the AEW website roster shows they're topping 120  names across the male/female roster before you get to commentary/trainers with 3 hours of national television.

It's simply obscene. You cannot build a compelling, soundly-footed narration with this many names clouding the product. They would be far, far better if they cut literally half the roster, cut the Youtube product and focused very, very deeply on the national television output. Rampage ratings would be better for it. Dynamite would be much sounder in focus. Once you have those 40 or so names that you can build lower/mid/upper card around, then you can make the storytelling compelling. Right now they're onto a highway to nowhere as it is impossible to funnel a singular vision for where the company is at and where it is going. Absolute key first step. Then you come back down to 4 titles at maximum ever shown on television, and never let another title come on screen again. Build the value of the titles you have and start to attribute uniqueness again to the talent that are privileged to hold titles. Right now no title has any merit on AEW Television as there are simply far too many shown.

EDIT: They have one of the strongest rosters in any promotion in history, and the deep-value of the great talent they do have is lost by having far too large a pack around them. The hardest problem to ever solve in any company is talent-finding. They are in this grossly fortunate (almost unique) position of having great talent .. now just cut the chaff around them.

Edited by A_K
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4 hours ago, A_K said:

In all seriousness, the guy looked ludicrous coming on national television with those cupping marks. Absolutely ludicrous. He should be kept off until that’s addressed (whether he needs a shirt or whatever they do to address it)

There's a few things thr agents need to address with him, mainly everything about his on-screen presence besides his actual wrestling. And even on that front, he was doing the same "keep bumping into the ropes and bouncing back to deliver more offense then get bounced back into the ropes, come hammering back again, rinse and repeat etc etc" finishing sequence with Moxley in the title match that he had just done with Fenix a few weeks earlier (and maybe he even did it with Joe in between and I'm just forgetting??). It was fun once but way too elaborate a sequence to recycle multiple times per month. 

To keep this on-topic and not just more slagging on a guy most people here enjoy, do we think the ppv would have been better served by opening with both the trios semi-finals and ending the show with the final?

In spite of all my griping about the trios match on Wednesday, putting on the Elite vs Empire and DO vs BF as the first two matches and ending with the final would have undeniably been a hot as hell way to open and close the show, just action action action, and you would have kept up the suspense as to what the finals were going be right until the start of the ppv itself (and would allow people who really only like one or two of the four teams at least see their favs in a ppv match before getting eliminated).

It also would have helped compel them to just do FTR vs MCMG as a straight tag and give Wardlow a singles TNT title match so that there aren't 4 trio's matches on one ppv. 

Obvious drawbacks would be the risk of someone/s killing themself/ves in the opener and then not being able to make it to the finals. 

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Yeah I keep thinking about how two of the best-structured (I would personally say THE two best-structured) rosters ever were almost bizarrely small: AJPW in the 90s and Battlarts throughout pretty much it's entire run and the reboot in 2009/10. Both only really featured the same 12 guys or so every week with some rotating guests and were (for awhile) able to protect just about everybody by consistently giving guys midcard wins.

That said, obviously both of those companies had major issues about moving away from their top 2 or 3 guys as the years went on, but that's not inherently a problem with the roster size. I'm all for a small roster as long as the bottom rung is replete rock-solid if unspectacular workers like Tamon Honda and Masao Inoue and Ryuji Hijikata and Junji.com. AEW would have absolutely no issues with putting together a fantastic small midcard roster.

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It’s not just that the roster is way too overloaded, they’ve had a bad habit of just continuing to introduce new people, some who aren’t even under contract, after they debut new people the week prior and then they disappear. It doesn’t even make sense. Add to that the new japan crossover, which everyone wanted from the very beginning but it still ended up getting shoe horned in, then the roh crossover which literally no one was asking for.  Super odd way to make people lose a connection to a show with supposedly continuing storylines. Brand new person this week, please forget the brand new person we introduced last week. And you’ll never guess what we have planned for next week. 

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10 minutes ago, Belgian_Waffle said:

Yeah I keep thinking about how two of the best-structured (I would personally say THE two best-structured) rosters ever were almost bizarrely small: AJPW in the 90s and Battlarts throughout pretty much it's entire run and the reboot in 2009/10. Both only really featured the same 12 guys or so every week with some rotating guests and were (for awhile) able to protect just about everybody by consistently giving guys midcard wins.

That said, obviously both of those companies had major issues about moving away from their top 2 or 3 guys as the years went on, but that's not inherently a problem with the roster size. I'm all for a small roster as long as the bottom rung is replete rock-solid if unspectacular workers like Tamon Honda and Masao Inoue and Ryuji Hijikata and Junji.com. AEW would have absolutely no issues with putting together a fantastic small midcard roster.

AEW could easily, easily pull together 8 signature main-eventer top of the card talents, then 12 upper card of whom 1/2 could rotate upwards into the top of the card 8, then 12 mid/lower card comprised of veterans and young(ish) high prospect talents to feud with each other + go over vets. Separately have 6 tag teams and 10 women. That gives you 44 .. add in a half dozen managers / trainers and you reach your 50. A roster size that can give you lots of fresh match ups while bringing in unpredictability as to who cycles up/down the roster. You then have 3 hours of television of week which you can fill with quality in-ring/vignette action. 

I actually think Khan's biggest negligence by a huge distance has been the roster mismanagement .. it was a mad dopamine rush of adding more and more and more without ever slowing down and considering the detrimental impact. 

Edited by A_K
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3 hours ago, Log said:

Personally, I don’t think things in AEW are as dire as some folks here make them out to be. I do, however, think things have gone down some as far as the booking. We’re still getting amazing matches week in and week out, but the stories aren’t there like they used to be. That said, I think TK’s true test as to whether or not he’s a great booker will be how he handles the next few months. 

I agree with all this, and also want to add that they've had a ton of guys go out with injuries over the past few months. Whether or not TK actually had some coherent and compelling long term booking plans for everyone is anyone's guess, but multiple guys going out at once definitely put a hamper on whatever they had planned for this show.

1 hour ago, Belgian_Waffle said:

It also would have helped compel them to just do FTR vs MCMG as a straight tag and give Wardlow a singles TNT title match so that there aren't 4 trio's matches on one ppv. 

 

Also agreed...it would have better to just have the six man match this coming Wednesday then put on what would be fantastic FTR/MCMG match at the PPV. They could even run Lethal/Wardlow again with some sort of stipulation to make it look like Lethal might have a chance. Or go ahead with the Wardlow/Singh match. If we get FTR/MCMG at the following Dynamite as the main event I'll be down with that.

 

1 hour ago, matt925 said:

It’s not just that the roster is way too overloaded, they’ve had a bad habit of just continuing to introduce new people, some who aren’t even under contract, after they debut new people the week prior and then they disappear. It doesn’t even make sense. Add to that the new japan crossover, which everyone wanted from the very beginning but it still ended up getting shoe horned in, then the roh crossover which literally no one was asking for.  Super odd way to make people lose a connection to a show with supposedly continuing storylines. Brand new person this week, please forget the brand new person we introduced last week. And you’ll never guess what we have planned for next week. 

This is another big thing. The Forbidden Door aspect was a neat concept when the promotion was finding its legs and it's fine as an occasional surprise. Bringing in an outside team for a tournament or something is also all well and good, but when just about every weekly Dynamite episode and PPV features numerous outside talent when they've got dozens of unused full timers it's just over the top. I understand them defending the ROH titles from time to time as they want to remind people that promotion is still technically there, but the sooner they can get ROH back doing its own thing the better.

All this may come off as overly critical, but AEW still remains my favorite promotion currently running and I almost always look forward to the PPVs and Dynamite. For a company that's only been around for three years they've been doing a great job amassing a talent pool and putting on entertaining content from week to week.

 

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Just another instance of maybe me being happier with the booking philosophy of a different era here? But A.K. picked 98/99 WWE. That's a good choice to cherry pick what point he'd like to demonstrate. I'll do the same and cherry pick 1996 WCW. They had about 200 wrestlers under contract. They were super commercially successful during this run. Business was booming. You'd get the important people mostly every week or two. You'd get get your regulars that get in the rotation once a month or so. And you'd get these wacky dudes showing up you had no idea WCW even had under contract. It was the best. At least to me.

AEW could keep the exact same roster and utilize it more effectively if TK just quit using his rigid formula. Nitro would hit 8-12 matches a week in the 2 hour era. AEW has 6 matches every single Dynamite. There is no deviating from that number. It is 6 and it will always be 6. Only one of those 6 a week is a women's match. Literally go back and check results. It always has been 6 and it's always going to be 6. And that is farrrrrrr more at blame than the roster size.

TK is beholden to every match needing to be an epic. Throwing in a 5 minute sprint, or a 2 minute squash, or a story related indecisive finish once and awhile would make things far more unpredictable. You'd see more of the roster each week. Women could have 2 or 3 matches a week depending on that week's format. Everyone complaining about the roster size is missing the actual culprit. That stupid rigid format that has been run into the ground.

Mix. It. Up.

 


ETA: Leaving my post unedited but did want to add in my year and number were off a bit. 1997 had 125 wrestlers under contract and is basically a 1:1 comparison for AEW. 200 was wrong and exaggerated. But still a valid point.

Edited by NoFistsJustFlips
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12 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

Just another instance of maybe me being happier with the booking philosophy of a different era here? But A.K. picked 98/99 WWE. That's a good choice to cherry pick what point he'd like to demonstrate. I'll do the same and cherry pick 1996 WCW. They had about 200 wrestlers under contract. They were super commercially successful during this run. Business was booming. You'd get the important people mostly every week or two. You'd get get your regulars that get in the rotation once a month or so. And you'd get these wacky dudes showing up you had no idea WCW even had under contract. It was the best. At least to me.

AEW could keep the exact same roster and utilize it more effectively if TK just quit using his rigid formula. Nitro would hit 8-12 matches a week in the 2 hour era. AEW has 6 matches every single Dynamite. There is no deviating from that number. It is 6 and it will always be 6. Only one of those 6 a week is a women's match. Literally go back and check results. It always has been 6 and it's always going to be 6. And that is farrrrrrr more at blame than the roster size.

TK is beholden to every match needing to be an epic. Throwing in a 5 minute sprint, or a 2 minute squash, or a story related indecisive finish once and awhile would make things far more unpredictable. You'd see more of the roster each week. Women could have 2 or 3 matches a week depending on that week's format. Everyone complaining about the roster size is missing the actual culprit. That stupid rigid format that has been run into the ground.

Mix. It. Up.

Not to labour the point but .. source on this? Quick google check across a couple of different sites suggests 50 - 80 flexing dependent on time of year. I picked 98/99 WWE because it preceded 3 hour RAW, so most closely fits AEW TV time although is still an hour extra a week just on the 2 flagship shows, and also preceded the influx of WCW/ECW 'invasion' talent. There is no precedent for a roster the size of AEWs being employed for 3 hours of TV time a week that I can find.

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7 minutes ago, A_K said:

Not to labour the point but .. source on this? Quick google check across a couple of different sites suggests 50 - 80 flexing dependent on time of year. I picked 98/99 WWE because it preceded 3 hour RAW, so most closely fits AEW TV time although is still an hour extra a week just on the 2 flagship shows, and also preceded the influx of WCW/ECW 'invasion' talent. There is no precedent for a roster the size of AEWs being employed for 3 hours of TV time a week that I can find.

My numbers / years are a bit off. But my point is still valid using the contract documents released during Time Warner lawsuits:

Quote
  • In 1996, 90 wrestlers made $10,000 or more.
  • In 1997, 125 wrestlers made $10,000 or more.
  • In 1998, 124 wrestlers made $10,000 or more.
  • In 1999, 157 wrestlers made $10,000 or more. 
    • In June 1999, WCW provided a list of 147 wrestlers, announcers, referees and trainees to Trimfast as part of a SEC filing.
    • That list dropped to 133 people in the December 1999 SEC filing for Trimfast.
  • In mid-2000, 124 wrestlers made $10,000 or more.

Full site reference : https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/wcw_contracts

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16 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

My numbers / years are a bit off. But my point is still valid using the contract documents released during Time Warner lawsuits:

Full site reference : https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/wcw_contracts

Hmm ok. So the quality diminished as the roster became more bloated .. that number also includes enhancement / part time talent (e.g. pay exceeding 10k in a year), so yes the core permanent contract regulars was probably flexing at the 50-80 mark.

The AEW roster would be even larger if part-time Dark/Elevation talent were included (for example, Bear Country are not included in the 120 named roster on the site .. but I would assume they've cracked 10k in salary for AEW for example?). Interesting stats/viewpoint any way ? 

Edit: Pretty wild that the full-time AEW roster right now is larger than WCWs ever was, even admitting for a 3 hour Nitro and 2 hour Thunder.

Edited by A_K
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I'm all for people getting paid.
I'm all for multiple promotions having multiple titles.

If I'm watching AEW though, why is Claudio defending the ROH World Title on Rampage? Why is Dustin Rhodes wanting this title and not the actual AEW World Title? Are they equivalent in terms of pay and status? If the ROH Titles are that highly regarded then why aren't the Tag, Pure, Women's and TV titles being highlighted?

Having 15 titles doesn't make these matches more interesting or prestigious. If anything it makes them more predictable. Dustin was never winning that match. Take out the title though and there's a chance he could have upset Claudio to start a program.

In the last 12 months we introduced the TBS, AA and Trios titles to the AEW roster, as well as all the ROH Titles AND the AAA/NJPW Titles floating in and out.

It was cool when Kenny was the Belt Collecter, building himself up as THE World Champion in North America. It dilutes things (IMO) when you have Mox and Claudio both claiming to be World Champion, Wardlow/Joe/Yuta/PAC/Hook all holding midcard titles, Multiple sets of tag titles from multiple promotions, Multiple women's titles... And this is all before you get to the 'Interim Champion' debate.

I keep saying it but the ROH stuff needs to be confined to Dark. Turn that into the ROH Show, clarify the roster split, and keep everything clear. Then when you do Battle of the Belts every 6 months it actually has a purpose with the ROH guys being highlighted vs their AEW counterparts.

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6 hours ago, Stefanie Without Stefanie said:

I think if you love wrestling for the sake of wrestling, then AEW is perfect for you to watch. There's no doubt that there are a significant amount of fantastic athletes that work for AEW. But I personally cannot enjoy wrestling within a vacuum without a reason to care about the people having the match. It's one of the reasons why I don't like watching Dark; I have literally no reason to care about the matches being presented aside from "here are a bunch of wrestlers wrestling, please enjoy". If that's your thing, more power to you. I need something to connect with on a deeper level than "this person is very good at their job, and they are going against someone else very good at their job". I have hundreds of hours of wrestling in my backlog that are full of great matches too that I can hurry to watch instead.

AEW is not appointment viewing for me because it takes more than HEY HERE'S A REALLY GREAT MATCH! to make me drop what I'm doing for. There's dozens of great matches in my backlog too. And yet, what will make me stop what I'm doing and watch? A show with matches that may not be as mechanically great, but the characters hit me on a much more aesthetically pleasing level, so I'll make time for that and not Yet Another Five Star Technical Wrestling Masterpiece that my brain is too mushy to be able to tell from the one that was on TV two weeks ago. When it all blends together, that might be a problem that I don't think anyone either knows how to address or has the willingness to want to address.

The most compelling thing about AEW for me for the first two years was seeing Hangman Page, a wrestler I never cared about prior to AEW, experiencing a crisis of confidence and needing to grow into becoming the wrestler he felt he needed to be in order to fit in with the people who took him under their wing. AEW's storylines don't all need to be massive overarching stories like that, but give me something other than "here is a wrestler! Here is another wrestler! They sure do wrestle! Don't you want to see it?!" Because the answer, for me at least, is "not really?"

The problem is that there's no secret sauce that's going to connect with an entire populace. I fully admit that I'm probably not someone you can market to easily. But it seems like the way AEW is trying to book is by going "oh hey, you thought THAT match was great, how about THIS?!"

And the people who love wrestling for the sake of wrestling are going to love it! But the folks like me who need a reason to care aside from that will go "you enjoy that, I guess. I sure wish Jamie Hayter was on TV more than once a month."

AEW is definitely more for me than for you at the moment. I'm perfectly fine with interesting characters having good matches. Not even particularly the "five star epic" matches.  And not the go-go-go athletic spectacles or the plunder matches - which are less my bag, personally. I'm just straight up delighted to get stuff like Dustin vs Claudio, Emi & Maki vs Shida & Skye, and Lethal vs Dax week in and week out. There was a seven-week period around Forbidden Door, when I was marking out like a madman every single show. That's enough for me. I don't ask for more. The good matches and fun characters are my personal steak, my personal cake, and the belts and storylines and build and so on are - to me - part of the sizzle and the icing.

But. I think I hear you. It's not unreasonable for the build and story to be somebody's steak and cake.

So, w/r/t All Out 2022 in particular: I think it's reasonable to say that about half of the announced matches have some long-term build and story behind them. Is that enough?

Jungle Boy vs Christian being the big one. Teacher vs Student, Mentor vs Mentee, with a story that's been simmering for ages.  Hobbs vs Starks. Classic partner break-up.story. Bad guys in this case, with the manner of break-up garnering sympathy for the smaller partner.

Two classic stories.

Athena vs Jade has the whole "baddies" story behind it. It is likely they were heading for Stat vs Jade but injuries forced a change of plans. I'd argue they've done a fine job in pivoting to Athena here. But then again, the stories aren't my main bag and I just want to see these two wrestlers fight. Is there enough here for you to hang your hat on?

Speaking of injuries changing plans: Interim titles are just fine by me. AEW had to pivot here, but I think there is plenty of story to go around between DMD, Hayter, Storm, and Shida. It doesn't take any imagination to get to "why are they fighting" and eventually "why are these story beats happening in this match?" The groundwork has been done to make for a compelling match beyond just the ring work. I figure they are going to tell quite a story in there.

There's arguably some story behind Mox vs Lethal, but MCMG coming in is pretty much pure "lets watch good fighters fight."

 Danielson has a story, which is he wants to fight everyone. Good enough for me, probably not for you. Sports Entertainment vs Pro Wrestling works as background, but I'll give the "not enough build" crowd this one. 

Swerve in our Glory and The Acclaimed are all interesting characters but this particular title fight doesn't have much build.

If, as seems likely, we get Dark Order with Hangman vs Kenny and the Bucks as the trios final, there is an absolute ton of story and background there.

There has been a fair bit of build toward House of Black vs Miro, Darby, and Sting. We might  get that on PPV. And if we do, people will definitely complain about having three trios matches on one show. I will not be among those people. Give me more trios matches!

Casino Ladder Match is more about the spectacle. It has a built-in answer to "why are these people fighting?" but I don't think that's what you are talking about, S w/o S.

Big thing is the title match. We'll likely find out on Wednesday (Thursday for me) whether it's all story (Mox vs Punk) or just "Let's let two great fighters fight" (Mox vs, for example, Ospreay or someone like that) or ??? (Mox joins the Casino Battle Royal, and/or the winner gets a same-day shot at the title. 

But, yeah, about half the matches have some compelling backstory in my opinion.

I legitimately planned to say, "Ideally, of course, every match would be built to like at WrestleMania III." But then I looked at the WMIII Wikipedia page. I mean, obviously Hogan vs Andre, Savage vs Steamboat, Piper vs Adonis, and Harts & Danny Davis vs Bulldogs and Tito all had memorable backstories. And Race vs JYD had the loser must bow stip. But even that show had some matches that were "just" matches.

Anyway, I am looking forward to learning what the title match will be. And the trios final. And if both of them have backstory, I will be happy. Icing is good. Sizzle is nice. And for some folks, that's the cake. That's the steak. Which makes me more interested in what happens next, looking at it that way.

EDIT: w/r/t Dragon vs Wizard, if we count what happened years ago on the other channel, there is a ton of backstory there as well.

 

Edited by Gordlow
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1 hour ago, A_K said:

Hmm ok. So the quality diminished as the roster became more bloated .. that number also includes enhancement / part time talent (e.g. pay exceeding 10k in a year), so yes the core permanent contract regulars was probably flexing at the 50-80 mark.

The AEW roster would be even larger if part-time Dark/Elevation talent were included (for example, Bear Country are not included in the 120 named roster on the site .. but I would assume they've cracked 10k in salary for AEW for example?). Interesting stats/viewpoint any way ? 

Edit: Pretty wild that the full-time AEW roster right now is larger than WCWs ever was, even admitting for a 3 hour Nitro and 2 hour Thunder.

You have to also remember WCW had Nitro, Thunder, Saturday night, Main Event, World Wide, Pro, and multiple house shows.  The lower or sometimes called B-C talent would work Saturday Night on TBS and get exposure.  

You could argue AEW has Dark/Elevation but really how many watch it?  

WCW had roughly 9-10 hrs of actual TV each week as well as house shows  AEW has half of that and 0 house shows.

One of the glaring examples of a talent coming in and being pushed and then boom he's gone is Jeff Cobb.    Lance Archer is another. He had Jake with him and steamrolled through the Covid era and now nothing.  One could blame them also working NJPW but the simple answer to that is to not heavily push those who aren't full time AEW talent. 

As for every match being a spot fest/epic showdown. Look at who he has in his ear. Kenny/Bucks, Excaliber/PWG.  Too many chiefs and not enough indians (well maybe bad example but..) 

 

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59 minutes ago, Gorman said:

Ahh! My eyes!

Protege

Nope.

I choose my words carefully.

In my opinion, protégé has an entirely too positive nuance. The somewhat unwieldy "mentee" seems more suitable in describing Jungle Boy's relationship to Christian.

Since you seem to prefer terms borrowed from the French, in my opinion in this case "mentee" is le mot juste. ?

Like it or not, mentee is an American English word.  No less an authority than the Columbia Journalism Review has my back on that point.

The English language, much like pro wrestling, is always growing and changing. It's good to keep a flexible mind about those things,I believe.

 

 

Edited by Gordlow
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