Go2Sleep

Very sports entertainment-y show, but I honestly didn't hate it. I don't think serious, violent Trent is a long-term thing, but him killing Chuck in a parking lot should be fun. Swerve/Fletcher was a good Swerve showcase and sets up the Callis Family break-up since new heel stables are moving in. Willow/Mercedes segment was good. I love that they aren't forcing any face or heel roles here, just let the women be themselves and the crowd can do what they want with it. Mina/Anna was a nice little match. Toni and Mariah as tweeners is working and there's plenty left in that well before the break-up. The casino clusterfuck was ridiculous, but it was set up perfectly to keep the crowd hot and there were some good sequences in there (particularly Ospreay/KOR). Interesting to have Will go after Roddy which seems beneath him, but will be a great match. Roddy seems way beneath Will at this point, but the story of whether Will has lost his killer instinct evens it up a bit. I know I'm totally in the minority, but I love Jericho's new gimmick. Totally leaning into to all the online criticism and playing it straight. The Learning Tree is such a wonderfully stupid and self-indulgent nickname. I died when he used the phrase "Jericho vortex." Bill as the muscle works great. Only problem is no more White Zombie. Mox/Hobbs was there. Shame about Hobbs getting hurt, but man, Callis was a fucking pro heel there. "I'm more concerned about the loss." The closing segment was one of the most WWE-ish things AEW has ever done, but it wasn't terrible. Whoever said New Elite vs. Team Tony in BnG is probably dead right. The timing of Kenny coming back seems just right for him to lead the charge. Extrapolating a little further, Hangman coming back as the 5th for the Elite seems right since his heel run got cut short. Kenny, Ospreay, Swerve, and FTR feels good for the face team.

Gotta say Omega/Ospreay at Forbidden Door 23. Two guys that know how to do a proper 40-minute King's Road style match with a little infusion of sports entertainment with Don Callis' excellent desperation character work throughout. MJF/Punk dog collar is probably number 2, but MJF/Danielson iron man, Hangman/Swerve TDM, and FTR/Briscoes 2/3 falls (assuming we count nu-ROH) would all be strong contenders.

I feel like there's a lot of hyperbole in people's reactions to this show. I'm not seeing how Danielson/Ospreay is anywhere near the best match ever or even either guy's best match this year. Ospreay/Takeshita did a lot more for me on first watch, as did Danielson/ZSJ in NJ. It was still very good, mind you, but pretty much any Ospreay formula match is gonna be good and Danielson is obviously gonna be game for keeping pace. Some big spots here, and the "Hidden Blade vs. Busaiku knee" was really cool. Danielson's retirement tour has kinda gone back and forth between performative bucket list type of work and actually building a good match through genuine struggle. This was definitely all the way on the performative side whereas his work with ZSJ with a story of trying to establish technical dominance or his quick and violent strap match with Starks are the matches that show why he's still one of the best. The Omega/Ospreay matches were rooted and character work playing off their career arcs (like Kawada/Misawa) underneath all the moves. Likewise, I'm not really sure how Hook/Jericho was the worst ever. Jericho's character right now is that he's a hanger-on despite having nothing to offer. The more this gets exposed, the more he throws tantrums calling back to his WCW heel turn. If anything, he's probably playing the character too well or perhaps just miscalculated leaning too much into what the AEW die-hards think about him. He's getting exactly the heat that he wants, whether that comes across well on TV or not is another story I guess. That said, the match wasn't good by any stretch, but it was far from AEW's worst this year (Billy/Jay is running away with that, and Dustin/Butcher was horrible too). Basically, both guys have limitations, and neither guy is at a stage of their career where they can compensate for the weaknesses of the other. Worst match on the show, sure, not much beyond that. The rest of the show was pretty good overall. KOR/Roddy was the sleeper match of the night. Swerve/Joe was a really well put together match too, where it felt like Swerve was going hard the whole time but really had to earn the win. I feel like no one's talking about Adam Cole is back bay bay. I think we're looking at Cole/Swerve at Double or Nothing with MJF negating Kingdom interference.

You guys are putting way more thought into this than Punk and Tony combined. They're both reacting instinctively because their egos were hurt, that's it. Then they have to continuously double down every time someone brings it up because the idea of being wrong about something doesn't exist in their minds.

Finally got around to watching Dynamite. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. The video did nothing to dissuade either side and you got people chanting for a WWE guy on TV. Not as disastrous as it could've been, but solidly bad. The most underrated wrestlecrap part though was Cash's "Rod and Todd Flanders" line hitting the mute button on the live audience. He actually had a nice fired up promo going (given the circumstances) before that, and you know with his Simpsons shirt, he was so proud of coming up with that. Sorry pal, a good chunk of that audience wasn't even alive when The Simpsons was good, time comes for us all. Fittingly, you could do a frame by frame of when his heart got ripped in half by the line getting no reaction. More broadly, though, I'm disappointed with the show layout. If your goal of this stunt is to get more viewers, you should be putting your best foot forward the rest of the show. This is a week you run Ospreay/Vikingo or some shit, Swerve/Fletcher, run a fucking Billie Starkz vs. Kris Statlander match for no reason, etc. Basically show what you actually offer as an alternative. All due respect to Joe and Dustin, but putting two guys of varying degrees of past their primes in the main event spot ain't gonna turn any heads. The majority of the show was fine for story building purposes, but I couldn't imagine any of it hooking a casual viewer. All promos, lots of focus on guys known for their time in WWE, and none of the unique talents really got to show much. I don't get the thought process of trying to pop a rating on a filler show, but I'm not a thin-skinned billionaire so...

Out of the infinite number of universes, I'm sure there's one where the footage is the smoking gun where Punk wraps both hands around TK's neck before being confronted face to face by Jack Perry who proceeds to leave him laying. Then Punk announces his retirement on twitter out of shame. Unfortunately, we live in one where the footage is completely unrelated to Punk, no one cares about Bucks/FTR 4 or Jack Perry, and TK is still scratching his head wondering why people on the internet make fun of him and his company.

A Hardy Compound match with these 4 would've been phenomenal. Whoever said Matt (and to a lesser extent Jeff) overvalues himself too much in 2024 is dead on. You can see the difference in the approach between the work of the Hardys and Cope/Christian in AEW. The Hardys (in addition to being more broken down physically) always seemed like they expected everyone to work their match and kind of projected that "play the hits and leave" mindset. Cope and Christian have both adapted their styles to what the rest of the roster brings and find places to integrate their strengths on top of that. No surprise that the latter two have had much better output on TV. It might be more accurate to say the Hardys overvalue their WWE experience specifically. While I'm sure they'd have plenty of useful advice, they don't possess the secret for turning AEW into a second WWE. For most guys on the roster, picking the brains of Daniels and Sydal would be far more fruitful (to say nothing of having Danielson, Joe, Claudio, etc around). Those guys are much more in tune with what AEW is going for and most of them can incorporate the WWE perspective in their teachings as well.

They were obviously phoning it in on Rampage and Collision this week, but can I just say how much better it is that Jericho is using White Zombie instead of Judas now? Low-key killer theme.

The billionaire family can have plenty of shitty labor practices without being compared to Vince, which is wrong for a lot of reasons. Even putting the personal stuff aside and just looking at Vince as a promoter, he was very meticulous about controlling the roster and the brand from top to bottom. If anything, TK is turning more into Bischoff, which is pretty hilarious. Can't manage competing egos because he's too afraid to make an overt stand, alienates beloved figures in the process, fires people in shitty cowardly ways, etc. Not to be fully negative on the guy, though, since I generally enjoy his company, he does have a lot of the positives of HHH and Heyman too. A lot of his problems could be solved by simply not talking/typing off the top of his head.

Since I brought up the age of modern wrestlers in another thread, I have to share this tidbit I saw on FB: Billy Gunn is older than Iron Sheik when he won the gimmick battle royal... The layout of that match with Jay was indefensible. If it goes long, Jay eventually takes out a leg and wins. If you want the 2000s WWE style finish, the whole thing shouldn't last more than 3 minutes. Hearing about Cope's promo beforehand, I expected it to be way cringier. Probably didn't need to be done, but was executed as well as possible. I know Thunder is owed one, but man she looks like she has no business at the top of the women's division. Toni guest commentary is always welcome, though. I still have zero faith in Trent Beretta doing anything as a singles heel in AEW, but the turn itself was well done. Good bump by OC. Interesting camera angle for the Willow promo. Mercedes coming out and big-timing the current TBS division seems like they're trying to set up a heel turn, but I'm not sure it can work with Mercedes so fresh. Probably better off turning Willow or at least Stat out of jealousy. Contract signing was good. Perfect balance of pro wrestling violence and cheese.

Match wise, I think Billy is the kind of guy that Jay White gets a crafty (but mostly if not entirely clean) win against. Outside of the MJF match, Jay is pretty protected. I like the idea of a new angle where Jay wants to injure Billy like Darby but his kids can't pull the trigger. Unfortunately, this runs into an issue with the Acclaimed being left out in the cold and the fact they need to merge off the useless ROH 6-man belts so at least one set of trios titles can be defended again.

Men's side is Swerve and Ospreay freshening up the main event scene. Also heel Okada. Bucks have been effective in their roles, but I'm really hoping they don't get the gold. On the women's side, you have Mercedes coming in and where she's gonna fit, but the Toni/Mariah thing is simmering right now too, and Mariah should be a breakout star herself. Statlander always has killer TV matches too.

This makes me muse on the concept of age distribution in wrestling wondering why guys now are so old compared to the top guys of yore. I guess it's a combination of medical advancements, better training, and a bottleneck at the national level where it takes guys a long time to get those spots and not wanting to let them go once they get there. Also overexposure making guys feel older than they are. You look at the attitude era and the top guys were all young compared to the midcarders of today. Austin, Foley, Taker, and even Shawn were all in their early 30s when that era kicked off in earnest. Rock and HHH were both still in their 20s (and Rocky was mostly out of wrestling by the time he turned 30). Bret was practically a dinosaur at 40 and he was just putting guys over in big programs by 97 (whether he wanted to or not). You can't even fault the next generation, as Cena, Orton, and Lesnar were all at the top of the card before turning 30. Batista was in his mid 30s by the time he made it as a "late bloomer." Somewhere after that, though, shit changed. Copeland and Christian are older than Hogan when WCW went out of business, Joe, Punk, and Danielson are older than Bret at Montreal. Jericho is as old as Flair in WCW. WWE's top guys are all nearing 40 themselves, though at least in Roman's case, he's been at the top for a while. You have dozens of midcarders who get the 15+ year vet label, when guys who got that label in the 90s were either at the top or jobbers. Ultimately, I feel like AEW should prioritize youth in who they build around. Swerve is right about at the cut-off for time to pull the trigger. MJF at 28 is a prime asset who should be the centerpiece. Ospreay, Jay White, Hangman, Darby, Garcia, and even Hook are guys they should be looking toward in the future. If anything, AEW probably needs less midcard tag guys with 20 years of experience.

No argument about point B, but on point A, there's a lot more potential value in Drake than Henry. Henry is a stereotype indy wrestler in a company full of dudes who built (then mostly transcended) that stereotype. Drake at least has the "mobile big man" thing going for him, which makes him more useful even if you are just going to use him as a jobber. You could also put him in a team with just about anyone else and be instantly more credible than the Workhorsemen. Dutch and Drake, let's go.

Vance is one of Brodie's boys, he's set for life. I support the Wire reference, though. Was Dasha the one that said "by submission" on Collision? That'd be a shitty way to go out.

Definitely down for the first, second one is terrible for AEW, third is a lateral move. HOB are the best in-ring trio since the Shield, Gunther is the only 1 for 2 I'd even consider. I'd probably sell the farm for Gunther, though. Since it seems like Dustin is longing to go back, could we get Pete Dunne for him? As for the shows, this week, Dustin/Butcher was one of the worst televised AEW matches in years. Menard getting the hometown (province) punch-above-your-weight match was fun. I really hope they pull the trigger with Mariah over Thunder Rosa. Rosa just doesn't have it since coming back from injury and takes herself too seriously to fit into the Toni-verse. Mariah on the other hand, has been red-hot lately, the foundation has been set for her angle thinking she can be a better Toni Storm than Toni Storm, and looking ahead to Wembley, you've got potential big-time matches with Jamie Hayter or Mercedes. Starks getting hurt forced them to do the right thing and put Top Flight over. I can't believe they had seriously written the cold-ass Starks/Bill team to go over the obvious leaders of the next generation in the tag division. Nobody wants to see Bucks/FTR 4. The Archer/Righteous trio is 100x better than just the Righteous, probably because Vincent doesn't have to be in the ring so much. Nice pop for Cardona. I'm surprised TK hasn't worked out a deal with him for some special attraction matches even if he doesn't wanna be full-time.

I think Swerve and Ospreay have the main belt covered the rest of the year. If the timing works out, MJF/Cole 2 should be at All Out this year. Last year they did the double babyface glitz and glamour match, this year they get the gritty, bloody, hate-filled match. The worst part from Mercedes on commentary was fumbling the "which of these 4 would you most like to face" question. That's an easy "Willow, because I have history with her" not hemming and hawing trying to mention everyone and realizing you don't have anything good to say about Anna Jay.

MCMG would be an upgrade over the Hardys.

I guess we could argue about whether this should've been addressed on TV or not, but I feel like this is answered well enough with Mox and Claudio declining the invite for health/family reasons. A quick pre-tape from BCC or even Danielson off-handedly mentioning it during his screen time would make for optimal continuity, I'll agree with that. Just seems like such a small thing to worry about because only people who watch every second of AEW TV would catch it anyway.

FTR is made for life, winning or losing a feud to BCC makes no difference to their status. They could win the tag titles at any time and be credible doing it, nothing wrong with gate-keeping for a bit. If anything, out of the 4, Claudio needed the win the most.

I really don't like the idea of a 3 hour Dynamite being a regular thing from a personal viewing perspective, but it's probably good for business. AEW does at least have the roster to pull it off without too many people being in multiple segments. The best thing about this block was the women had multiple segments for 3 different angles and didn't feel like anyone got shorted. Wednesday is by far AEW's best night, so if they can get some of their programming out of those Fri/Sat death spots, that's a win for them. Hook taking Jericho to suplex city sure was something. That was a really good put-over by Jericho, so hopefully he won't ruin it by overstaying his welcome and dragging out this angle. Maybe just have him ask Hook to help him get revenge on the Callis Family and call it a day.

Trent Beretta as a singles heel on this AEW roster sounds like a good way to end up like Ortiz, right down to losing the blowoff match on Rampage. He's a million times more relevant and useful to the brand as a competent workhorse tag guy. Even if Chuck can't come back, Beretta/Romero is a perfectly fine low-card team with OC as the "big brother" who can help them punch above their weight from time to time.

Maybe Okada can win the belt, then throw it in the trash to discredit Eddie's legacy.

The bracket is underwhelming, but I don't think it's such a foregone conclusion the Bucks run away with it. I could definitely see Top Flight getting their breakout year going over FTR and the Bucks back to back. Bucks or FTR winning the tag belts when we're supposed to be entering some new era or whatever would be some really lame booking. FTR will always be ready to go for a program when you need them, and the Bucks are gonna be best hiding behind Okada. Toni/Mariah killing those jobbers reminded me of the long (lost?) squash match thread. This was so much better than a semi-competitive match vs. an ROH team. Julia and Skye could probably use such a match as well.

I honestly don't think it's a stretch to say Mercedes/Sasha is the most important wrestler this century. The 4HW all deserve credit, as do many others before them, but never forget crowds were always chanting "We Want Sasha." in 2014, people were still talking about Trish/Lita main eventing Raw 10 years prior as the high watermark of American women's wrestling, and the thought of getting anything better was not seriously considered. After Sasha's 2015 essentially wrapped up at Takeover Respect, it was 6 months before the word "diva" was purged from WWE lexicon, a year before women main evented a PPV, just over 2 years to main eventing a Rumble, and 3.5 years to main eventing Mania. Imagine telling somebody in 2012 that women will main event a freaking WM before the end of the decade. Looking back nearly 10 years now, it's easy to take for granted, but the opportunities that are available now for women in wrestling both financially and artistically in the US were unfathomable 12 years ago and it was Sasha's run of matches that pushed that boulder over the hill. I think about people like Julia, Skye, Billie, etc who were literal kids in 2015 and wonder if they would've even pursued wrestling as a career (let alone to what success) if the landscape for women's wrestling was still what it was 2013.