Go2Sleep

Deonna is playing the straight woman for Toni to bounce her wackiness off of. The feud has been pretty well done for the most part, I think the Madison Rayne stinker is just too fresh in people's minds. It highlights why Toni was incredibly smart to develop this gimmick, though, because it gives her a way to make her matches stand out even against people who can't keep up with workrate Toni Storm in the ring. I suspect Toni and Deonna will have a really good match at Revolution before they go their separate ways. I agree long-term that Deonna will be better off going full heel, and I eagerly await the Mariah/Toni feud where they take "underling finally snaps" trope and turn it upside down with the boss character ending up as the sympathetic face while the underling is portrayed as a Mark David Chapman/Yolanda Salvidar type.

Thought Keith/Malakai was good, they got pretty creative with their strike sequences. Also nice that they threw Keith a bone on Rampage, even if it's right back to "close but not quite" jobs on Collision for him. Good to see Hobbs get a real win, and the main was a solid Danielson carry though not a bad effort by old man Akiyama. Caster having a "mom's spaghetti" moment needs to be turned into an angle if it wasn't one. That was very weird.

So AEW got the top 2 weekly shows, best ppv, most charismatic, best technical, best brawler, best flyer, best non-wrestler, best announcer, most improved, best gimmick, featured/signed the best overall, and the promotion of the year is... WWE?

I hope everything is ok in Hangman's life and he has whatever support he needs, but from a storytelling perspective, Hangman Frank-Grimes-ing his way out of the title match is a pretty logical wrap-up. I can break into someone's house and everyone will still cheer me because I'm Swerve Strickland. If he was gonna do the fake leg injury, doing it by failing on a cinder block stomp would've been the way to go, though. It's time to strap up Swerve anyway, and going back to the Hangman well so soon has been a drag on his ascent. Joe talks the talk as a champion, but AEW needs 2005 Joe at the top, not 2024 Joe. The Sting spectacle gives the ppv enough juice that they don't need to push Joe into working a longer match. A good 10-minute sprint with Swerve working face and winning clean will be just fine. Speaking of Frank Grimes, though, Wardlow airing all of his very legitimate grievances with his booking only to have Excalibur announce that he will be in a match called "Meat Mayhem" right after was good stuff.

Maybe, but the stuff on Wednesday didn't feel like that. You had Darby talking about their hiring power, them bullying an announcer, and another announcer kissing their asses to gain favor. The last two could be subverted I guess, but it's right out of the attitude era playbook.

I think the Bucks are doing a decent job with the gimmick, but I really hope Sting and Darby send them packing in a couple weeks because the heel authority figure trope is one I've been glad to not see in AEW. Also, I must know if either Saraya or Harley is a 90s Simpsons nerd or, if not, what their reaction was when that promo was pitched.

I think the big knock on Taven and Bennett is that their presentation is usually pretty dull, not that they're bad in the ring. They remind me of ReDragon, except they aren't quite at the level where they can pull off a "wrestling speaks for itself" gimmick. Still, Taven's definitely the KOR of the team who has a much higher singles ceiling and is generally underrated. I appreciated that the graphics department found a suitably psychotic looking picture of him for this match and he was a great choice for a TV main with OC who always delivers. Both guys and the story were elevated here, really pro work from everyone. Hangman using Dril tweets as promo material got a real lol from me.

Multiverse of March Madness

The handspring back rakes and what not was some of their best stuff.

So is there just straight up no Collision this week, or is it getting taped and aired on a different day/time?

So can I just say how much I love that AEW takes managerial pairings that look like their going to lead to all the same old heel turn tropes, then turn them into charming and logical babyface pairings instead? Menard/Garcia and now Stokely with Willow and Stat. I'd like to see Menard, Parker, and Garcia fill a "Best Friends" role where Menard and Parker are mostly lovable jobbers, but every once in a while they bring in their big gun who gives them a chance against higher ranked guys. They did this with Hangman in the Dark Order too and it works really well for the way AEW likes to book their weekly shows. You can also bring Ruby into the fold and she can finally win the Owen with the power of love and friendship.

The first one that came to my mind was Joe throwing him into the buckles then he does a complete 360 ragdoll to the floor landing on his shoulder. The Christian stairs bump took forever to set up, but it was gross. The barrel roll on the Hobbs/Takeshita toss was the best combo of ridiculously hilarious, then cringe-inducing when his head caught the rope. His recent black hole slam with Bill was beautiful with the dip on the catch and spin into the extra elevation like some olympic level figure skating, except it ended with a suitable splat. I could watch a .gif of that for 5 minutes straight. I'm sure his most damaging are the simple missed coffin drops on the apron/steps/etc, though.

Toro Negro would have killer Collision-only feud with Rush.

Oh yeah, that was the best looking Black Hole Slam ever. It wasn't Darby's most dangerous looking bump, but it might have been his prettiest.

Is it cynical or logical for Rocky to just cost Cody the match now? If you could actually guarantee Rocky being around enough to be the godfather of the Bloodline (and no not that Godfather), that would freshen the group up quite a bit. I couldn't see dragging Cody's story out for another year, but if the goal is to get Roman in shouting distance of Bruno, they could do worse. The real best move is Cody finishing his story by pinning Roman clean, then losing in his first defense to Gunther in the same manner he lost to Brodie Lee.

Hangman/Swerve is a great example of going with what the fans give you and making it work. Hangman has every right to be pissed that he's always taken the high road, only for the fans to ditch him for the guy who broke into his house. Nevertheless, the guy who broke in is cool as hell and always delivers a great match even by AEW standards, so he's picking up a lot of organic support. It's the little things that put it over the top, though, like Nana being much more of a babyface manager, and Hanger growing that heel stache. Bo$$ton wasn't very subtle, but that's ok. That show should really be First Dance but for Mercedes. Okada and Ospreay can debut at the ppv. The women's division is starting to look really crowded now, but in a good way. They finally have a roster that's comparable to WWE talent wise, so hopefully the next step is actually giving them big featured matches.

No, but he (probably correctly) thinks it's the only way he can stay out of federal prison.

This could very well be true, but if that was the goal, they could've done so much better with that promo. Have The Rock say he wants to challenge Roman at Mania, then have Pierce/Aldis (or HHH himself if you really wanna lean into it) say "This is the toughest decision I've ever had to make, but The Rock being on a tight Hollywood schedule has limited availability and as a businessman, I can't pass up the once in a lifetime match of The Rock vs. Roman Reigns at the 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF WRESTLEMANIA. Again this is a very tough decision, and Cody is very deserving and will get the championship opportunity he earned at the Royal Rumble, just at another time."

Bayley/Iyo is an actual good example of long term story telling and 10 years of character development. HHH playing the long game to get back at Cody for the throne-smashing thing is funny, though.

Given what we know about Vince and Johnny Ace now, I'm going to guess the diva search concept was one of their most audacious and egregious displays of deviancy. Even at the time, the whole thing was so blatantly "how much will these young, attractive women degrade themselves to be on TV" that you kinda got the sense there was much more going on behind the scenes. There was also the infamous unscripted insult contest where Christy Hemme very explicitly said Carmella DeCesare was only there because she was doing sexual favors.

This is a card where none of the matches (save for maybe Deonna/Taya) should go over 5 minutes, but they'll all be 12+ with the obvious losers getting way too much offense. There's a good opportunity here for Fletcher to get a cheap win over Jericho, and for Toa to establish himself as a Meng/Norton level midcard killer by taking one off Hangman to mix things up, but I doubt we'll get anything that cool. Swerve gloating about Hangman losing this week only to drop one to someone like Dante Martin in a couple weeks to even things back up for a triple threat would be good TV.

Savanah was Dynamite. Show some respect to Bossier City, Idaho! Seriously, though, this was more enjoyable than the Rumble. May/Frost was the surprise of the night, although I usually come away from Lady Frost matches thinking she should be doing more. The stuff that was supposed to deliver delivered, and I appreciate that Collision ran an AJ/NOAH midcard tag as a main last week, followed by a ridiculous(ly fun) attitude style clusterfuck this week. Variety is the spice of life.

I took the Ricky comment as he doesn't have any close personal friends in AEW and the advice he's seeking isn't about what he can do in his matches, but more general career/life stuff.

It might be technically true in that he hasn't read the full legal document. No way someone hasn't filled him in on all the most heinous parts, though, and well before the WSJ article dropped. He also likely has a personal lawyer giving him more in depth analysis if he's one of the numbered corporate officials. Edit: Also, I'm not enough of a sicko to watch the press conference, but did anyone ask about Lesnar?