Go2Sleep

The bigger problem with the AEW title is that the belt itself hasn't been the main focus of the show since MJF went out. Joe was on the back-burner for Sting's retirement angle, and now Swerve is taking a back seat to the Elite Takeover angle. At least with the latter, they are making some connections to Swerve and probably merging the two at some point. I like Swerve as champ, but they need to finish off Christian decisively at DoN and position Swerve as the front-line leader for AEW's honor against the Bucks and friends.

On the wrestlecrap side of things, Sonjay shattering the table was hilarious. I think it was mainly because they filmed a segment earlier where he couldn't break a pencil so easily. During the blood bath, I was half-expecting Excalibur to say "viscous red liquid." Probably good that he showed that restraint, but I would've laughed.

Malakai/KOR was good stuff. A little change in formula goes a long ways. Swerve/Wayne was good too. I think we take for granted that Nick Wayne is 19, when he wrestles like a 15-year vet. Swerve is in his prime and he's been good at getting the right amount of offense in his TV matches. He doesn't do long heat segments against guys that shouldn't be working over a top champion, and makes it feel like lower ranked guys really have to earn offense against him. Everyone comes out looking better in the end. Darby ending the show chasing off the heels with a flame-thower was pro wrestling AF.

Danielson missed Wembley last year, he ain't missing it this year. There's no way that's not on his bucket list.

An Eliminator match on a ppv sounds wrong, but it gives Takeshita a real shot at another big AEW win. He can quietly lose the re-match in NJ, but a ppv win over Mox would be a nice accomplishment. Not sure if it would make him the only one to beat Mox and Kenny on AEW ppvs, but it would sound good if he was.

I'd say 6+ months, if it's a complete fracture. That's the bigger, more load-bearing bone in the lower leg. Kingston being a bigger a guy, in his 40s, and trying to get back to pro wrestling instead of just everyday mobility are all things working against him here.

It's been kinda obvious for a while that they're slow-burning Mercedes as a heel by big-timing the AEW roster. It's a more polished version of what they did with Saraya, with a better babyface foil. The only question is if Stokeley is in on it.

"Can someone get a mop for Tony?" "A MOP???" LOL moment of the year.

With Christian getting the Kane-challenger role for Swerve and the name power in AITA, it kinda seems like they're setting up Willow/Mercedes to main event. That's probably the only way to not have Swerve in the main without it being a bad look.

I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the Anarchy in the Arena mystery partners, but I think Eddie and Bryan are great choices. Eddie had some heat with them early on and of course lost his belt to Okada, and Danielson has a significant history with bad wrestling bosses. I'm glad they acknowledged Christian working with the Bucks to explain how he jumped the line and that Swerve's shots at the Elite aren't going unnoticed. The Trent/Orange stuff took some weird turns, but in a good way that keeps me interested in the story. I'm not sure there's ever going to be any direction for the trios division, but Jay White looks like a boss carrying around those three belts.

TK Pawn-Star-ish-ly: Hmm, best I can do is Dynamite in Youngstown Ohio.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't do more with Skye and HOB. It sucks that Julia got hurt, but the story writes itself. They probably should've had Skye take Julia's powers to write her off, but Malakai teaching her the way leading to a power struggle when Julia returns is right there. For added flair, you could have Buddy being Skye's protector which creates friction with Brody who has the same role with Julia. It would be a huge mistake to sideline your <25, conventionally attractive home-grown star who has greatly improved in the ring and loves to work death matches. Skye's a future cornerstone and offers something for pretty much anyone who tunes into AEW for any reason.

According to Tony Schiavone, Karen Jarrett was already an "evil bitch." I think he said the same thing about Skye this week too. Maybe it was "crazy bitch," I don't remember.

Christian had some good points about why he'd want to go after Swerve, but that's a really underwhelming first ppv defense for Swerve. Pretty much the AEW version of the new champ feuding with Kane. I could get behind Christian as part of a multi-man match, but that's about it. Come to think of it, a multi-man match to tie up Swerve's loose ends and transition into something new would've been much better. Christian, Keith Lee, and Jack Perry (who the brain genius Bucks convince he'll have an easy path to gold). I don't know how he does it, but Jericho stays winning. His disingenuous babyface act played perfectly in Winnipeg, and he had a low key violent match with Shibata who played the "technical guy adjusting to hardcore match" role well. Ending could've been better, but these two delivered.

I love Keith Lee and thought he had a world title run in him before all his health issues, but I can't see him selling any ppvs right now. That match should happen, but on Dynamite. I'm also not liking Roddy being sacrificed to Ospreay, though it will no doubt be an excellent match. There has to be better ways to keep Will occupied until All In than giving him one of three secondary belts, and someone like Garcia or face Wardlow would benefit a lot more from getting that win.

Are they really gonna shove Jack Perry in the title match here? I don't see that getting a ton of buys, but I don't know who else goes there unless Hangman's good to go. I see could see them trying to do Rock/HHH from Backlash 2000 with Kenny playing the Austin role. Hangman getting reinstated as a member of the Elite (after he swerves Kenny and joins the beatdown in Winnipeg) would be a better fit. If they're running a Blood and Guts for control of the company, you have to bring Swerve into the fold or his reign becomes a bigger afterthought than Joe's.

Max Caster's rap was super cringey this week. Good to see the GYV got to keep all their original stuff. The Parking Lot Brawl was good stuff. Quick and violent. Rosa/Deonna was good too, and it's nice to see a women's feud that isn't about a title. Those two should have a good hardcore type of match at some point.

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.