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AEW - SEPTEMBER 2022


The Natural

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Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie
2 hours ago, Krone Meltzer said:

I saw someone a page or two back talk about elevating Andrade, Malakai and those guys up to the main event scene - which would be more than refreshing. However, what about the next batch of talent? You want to talk about a hierarchy in AEW, this is about how I judge it.

Main Eventers - Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho, Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Jon Moxley, Hangman Page, MJF
Next In Line - Andrade, Miro, Malakai Black, Adam Cole(?), PAC
Gonna Wait a While - Jungle Boy, Ricky Starks, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin

It's so log jammed at the top that... I just don't see when some of these guys are going to be in the main event scene. They're gonna have to wait for Punk, Jericho, Danielson, etc to retire before getting bumped up? And there are even some names I didn't put on the list like Keith Lee, Powerhouse, Wardlow. Where do you put everyone? When I look at the AEW roster, it looks like 10% main eventers, 80% upper midcarders, and then 10% jobbers. 

76 wrestlers have a winning record in 2022 
17 wrestlers have a losing record in 2022 (counting managers [Mark Sterling])

Isn't it hard to draw definitive lines of where people are on the card when everyone is booked as a winner?

This is one of those situations where the records system and win farming doesn't help all that much, because it doesn't factor in just how much the winning records can shape perceptions if you don't have a plan on what you want to do with those folks.

@Matt D and I had a good chat about this in the August thread, about how each match can be structured to gain some importance wherever it is on the card, and an expanded rankings system would probably help a ton in terms of figuring out where each person is in the hierarchy and what they need to do to climb up.

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8 hours ago, SprintingFromAmerica said:

Most definitely, though it leaves Adam Cole somewhat a man without a country.

Give Khan one of Omega's brooms and he can sweep Cole out too. Was fun when he came in but has sucked for 9 months.  That or he reinvents his gimmick. AEW was sickly-sweet for way too long .. time for some of the talent to shape up or GTFO. Actually think Khan has learnt this now and AEW has "bottomed" as it were .. couple of million-viewer shows back to back. Forward.

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Not sure what's going on with Black but AEW has started to squander momentum with some of their performers. Black is nowhere near as over as when he first came in with the solo entrance and destroyed Cody. He's lost some of the aura he had. 

MJF was a red hot angle and now it's been 3 months since we've had any follow up. 

Blackpool Combat Club are having some fantastic matches but it's mostly against dudes who aren't over and aren't getting over.. it's small potatoes in some cases. Why waste Bryan on Jake Hager this past week for example. 

Miro was scorching hot with The Redeemer deal and now he's involved in a low stakes trios feud 

Dr. Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa are not as over as they were a year ago.

Ricky Starks and Powerhouse Hobbs had all the makings of a great team, modern promos, "it" factor, it's ok that they are now rivals but it should be a bigger program.

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Malakai getting pinned off a music distraction roll-up last week was really bad. Not only should HoB been the first trios champs, but if you have them lose to the Dark Order, that's what Buddy is in the group for. Buddy could even get his heat back with a win in a showcase Dynamite match with Silver.

In usual AEW fashion, they've scrambled and thrown together a solid ppv card at the last minute, but they've been playing with fire with some of these builds, and it's easy to see why some talent would be questioning their futures with the company, especially when the other option no longer involves working for Vince McMahon.

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7 hours ago, Craig H said:

Regarding Black, look guys, you know what sucks? Having any kind of back injury. You can barely walk, let alone wrestle, and the solutions for it are absolute dogshit. Want to do a bunch of physical therapy that may or may not work? Want to go under the knife and risk something worse happening? And maybe those aren't even options if it's muscle related.

You what sucks even more? Having depression and a back injury. Back injuries by themselves are demoralizing because they take a basic thing away from you, walking and lifting and just standing up right. Having depression on top of it just compounds the issue. And the dude makes his living off of wrestling, which just makes everything even worse.

People just need to let the dude do his vague posts on his Tumblr or whatever the fuck without jumping to all of this speculation, which probably isn't helping the guy.

I can totally relate with both. I've been dealing with a ruptured disc in my lower back all year and most likely will have to get surgery in the coming months. I wouldn't compare my profession to a wrestler but I work in a grocery store and even the most mundane tasks there cause hell. Depression thrown on top of it doesn't help but I've tried to make the best of my time that I've been off/on the shelf. Agreed that all this baseless speculation on social media can't be good for Malakai's mental health 

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7 hours ago, Jiji said:

Dog, why do you have to be so dramatic all the time?

DAMN IT I SAID LEAVE ME OUT OF THIS

6 hours ago, Jiji said:

They beat Raw in the demo I believe multiple times.

Only live. When the DVR views are added in, Dynamite has still never beaten Raw, as far as I know.

6 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Why not focus on Jade Cargill and the Baddies before he starts recruiting like 20 guys? 

Where's Lee Moriarty?

Do you know what a Gish gallop is?

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21 hours ago, Greggulator said:

So some general thoughts on TV production that I think are really important for wrestling and sports:

1) If the character is new to your program, the character is new to some percentage of your audience. And you have to really consider how much the audience knows who that person is. There are some people who don't need any introduction like Punk and Dragon. There are some people who do need some kind of introduction like whatever Big Cass's name is or etc. And you absolutely need to give some kind of introduction or backstory if the person is from an indie promotion or another country. Make it as easy as possible for your audience to know who the character is and why they should care about the person. 

2) I didn't catch all of Dynamite but I saw the "Ace Steele rallies Punk" promo. I have no idea who Ace Steele is beyond he's a name I recognize. I could not tell you anything more than that. But he dropped in some dialogue like "I trained you, Punk." That's all that was needed to be done. Or along with Excalibur or one of the other announcers adding in some of the details behind it to fill in that gap of who this person is and why I should care. 

3) I didn't really like the promo. The main reason why: It's CM Punk. When has self-doubt ever been a character trait of his? He lost one match because of a foot injury and he's going to hang it up and needs a sports movie moment in front of his hometown audience to get his groove back? There needed to be a lot more space to make that work -- Punk loses against someone else against Moxley, Punk goes down for a match against someone else and can't get in the ring, some dastardly heel goes after Punk's foot to sell the injury, someone else trying to rally Punk and he shakes it off and then Ace comes into play, etc. 

But Punk losing one match and needing his old mentor to rally him in front of his hometown audience? That's not a good story arc. I get they're sort of limited for time to set up the PPV and Punk has to appear in Chicago but rushing all of that doesn't work. It's real easy just to do a whole "My foot's not at 100 percent, but that was a fluke win Mox and you know it, let's go again" and bam. It's friggin' Mox and Punk and a rematch, you don't need to do anything too much to make that work. 

4) The other reason why it's bad to do that is because the whole "person has self doubt but gets rallied to the occasion" is a good trope. So why the hell are you burning this story for a character who doesn't need it? There are so many other people who would benefit so much for that. Punk does not need it. 

I liked how he was on tv for the last two weeks, and last week Excalibur mentioned him by name so this wasn't completely out of the blue  

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6 hours ago, Stefanie Without Stefanie said:

an expanded rankings system would probably help a ton

I feel the opposite, I think the single biggest improvement AEW can make is drop the win/loss records. Tony wants to protect everyone and the rankings as-is often have only a tangential relationship to what actually happens on tv with people randomly jumping up right before they are asked to do something on Dynamite. With both of those gone people would probably get to show up on tv more as there would be no permanent record of them eating the L that would require.

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On 9/1/2022 at 1:12 AM, username said:

Like... I verbally said several times when he showed up that Fish shouldn't have been signed by AEW, his work was fine but they didn't need him then. This wasn't to say that he should never come to AEW, but that him showing up before any of the other Undisputed Era folks made little sense as his value would be tied almost entirely to one single likely to be huge angle.

...They then did not re-sign him right before said angle was to truly kick off and if it wasn't his call I am utterly lost.

When the UE came to NXT didn't Fish and O'Rilley come out as individuals in showcase matches before grouping with Cole?

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In NXT, Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly were signed before Adam Cole (each had one match against Aleister/Malakai Black, and lost)

In AEW, Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly were signed after Adam Cole (Fish: October, O'Reilly: December)

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1 minute ago, Hayabusa said:

 

 

Fucking JR lmao, he's reaching Cornette levels for me personally in terms of "mute anything that he has to say and just move on"

He also shit all over the main event of All Out. Which some here will applaud, but doing so in a very public way like this isn't the best look. 

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10 minutes ago, Casey said:

He also shit all over the main event of All Out. Which some here will applaud, but doing so in a very public way like this isn't the best look. 

If you want to push the sympathy angle of “pro-wrestling legend who just wants to go out on his own terms doing what he loves”, then you need to realize that you’re getting paid to love what you’re doing and if you don’t like it, then feel free to go out.

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On 9/1/2022 at 5:55 PM, Jiji said:

Fightful on rumoured release requests:

What do you all think Black's ceiling is? Is he a credible world champion? I'm not so sure, at least not in a company with as many world class guys as AEW and with how infrequently the title is shifted among them. When he came in and squashed Cody they definitely seemed to angle him for big things and then it all petered out. I wonder how much of that is by design and how much is injury driven. I enjoy him but sometimes I find it difficult to get a gauge of just how good he is. Even on the indies it was like that. Seems like he wrestles to his opponent's level quite a bit. That EVOLVE tag with Hero was a classic though. 

World Champion. Taker's done, Sting is 65, and Darby, while spooky, isn't imposing enough to be wrestling's spooky final boss. I'm looking forward to seeing what Black can do unencumbered by the back injury

On 9/2/2022 at 12:54 PM, Jiji said:

Jeff Jarrett is a wrestling god.

I just saw some crazy rumor yesterday on Twitter that he and Conrad Thompson are either starting a promotion, or trying to promote AAA shows in the US

On 9/2/2022 at 3:11 PM, just drew said:

Even I’d give him a chance if he got away from that hacky nonsense. I do think he needs a heater. If he’s gonna be a homeless man’s hbk, he needs “big daddy lukewarm” to complete the act.

W. Morrissey would probably really, really shine in that role

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
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12 minutes ago, Jiji said:

If he's like this now, it's going to be hilarious when he's not employed by AEW. 

I think the whole reason (besides the cash and not having much too do since Jan died other than podcasting, his BBQ business, and probably football) he's employed with AEW is TK allows him to say whatever the fuck he wants.

That's on TK for feeling like he has to play contrarian to what he feels is WWE's draconian nature towards their commentators. Two things can be true: WWE at least the whole time Vince was there was extremely overbearing in how they handle their on-air talent and also most people need to not say everything that's on their mind.

Since TK made a very shortsighted decision, Jim Ross is going to ride this one out until he physically cannot do it anymore. The man called one PPV while passing a kidney stone and then several years later, called a show while having a Bell's Palsy attack. It may be awhile.

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11 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I think the whole reason (besides the cash and not having much too do since Jan died other than podcasting, his BBQ business, and probably football) he's employed with AEW is TK allows him to say whatever the fuck he wants.

That's on TK for feeling like he has to play contrarian to what he feels is WWE's draconian nature towards their commentators. Two things can be true: WWE at least the whole time Vince was there was extremely overbearing in how they handle their on-air talent and also most people need to not say everything that's on their mind.

Since TK made a very shortsighted decision, Jim Ross is going to ride this one out until he physically cannot do it anymore. The man called one PPV while passing a kidney stone and then several years later, called a show while having a Bell's Palsy attack. It may be awhile.

What happens when some of the main event talent go to Tony and say they’re not going to put up with JR’s bullshit?

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Just now, JLowe said:

What happens when some of the main event talent go to Tony and say they’re not going to put up with JR’s bullshit?

How many of those guys who are actual main eventers where in WWE and have some sort of prior relationship with Ross? Also, I think by now, a lot of the folks have already given him the "that's just how he is" pass. The whole premise of Grilling JR is he's a grumpy old fuck. It's literally two hours of him smoking cigarettes, talking about motherfuckers complaining about their pushes, new wrestlers slapping their legs, and opining about how wrestling should be done.

IMO if you listen to his show, it's weird in that he knows that wrestling is much different and he is very much more open minded than Cornette. However, he just won't accept it. So he will say something positive about this era of pro wrestling and then immediately undercut it 5 minutes later when Conrad goads him into a tangent. Rinse repeat. It's incredible. It's like an extended version of the Rick James "Come on, I got more sense than that.....yeah I remember grinding my feet on Eddie's couch".  

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Every Grilling JR

“There was this talent down in the Southwest during the 70s, Jizz Rogers. Jizz was a running back at Florida State before he blew out his knee. After he got laid off from the local racism factory he became a really good hand for Burt Merkin’s promotion. The boys didn’t care much for Burt because he made me inspect all of them for eye herpes before each show, which I told him I wasn’t sure, I’m not an eye doctor, but a few of the fellas probably got shitcanned for having a sty or allergies. Anyway, that all goes a long way to me saying the Young Bucks are the greatest tag team in the world.”

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