Go2Sleep

Yeah, the whole thing about Hurt Business was that it was getting massively over in WWE before Vince pulled the plug for whatever reason, and they deserved a real shot. Now they're getting the real shot (and knocking it out of the park).

I don't know why Brody, Buddy, and Julia couldn't just keep the House of Black name. Bryan, Mox, and Claudio called themselves "Blackpool Combat Club" for 2 years after Regal left. A small change to House of Violence would work too.

I know "company originals vs. outsiders" has been done to death, even within AEW, but it's at least a tried and true story. When the outsiders' main opposition is now outsiders that co-opted the originals message for their own gain, another outsider looking on with an outsider trope, and an outsider who is trying to weasel his way to the top because an original said some mean things to him, everyone should stop and be like "wait, what are we doing here?"

Ricky's situation in AEW is like if the current Miami heat situation was with Tyler Herro instead of Jimmy Butler.

The biggest problem with FTR turning is that it's going to drag out the DR angle even longer and drag more people into it. It's not like DR actually need the help either, they beat down everyone with ease as is. I'd try to end the angle as quickly as possible and have FTR turn afterwards saying they're tired of fighting other people's battles.

Pretty good show for all the non-DR stuff. Glad to see them rushing through the Kenny/Will partnership. Hopefully they bury the hatchet after GS-A, and can go their separate non-Callis family ways. Felt a little bad for Private Party since they got basically nothing after their big win over the Bucks, but Hurt Syndicate is red hot right now and is the right choice for tag champs. I'll never complain about a Swerve/Fox match, those guys have had incredible chemistry for like 10 years now. The announcers explaining Swerve's added muscle mass giving him the edge was a nice touch. The Daniels mini-feud was actually a really good arc to start Hangman's road to redemption. Harley had a wonderful night, first Aussie-ing it up with Toni, then shooting her shot at Mercedes. She absolutely deserves a banana-peel battle royal win followed by a close-not-quite match with Mercedes. Too bad were stuck with Rated FTR/DR for another 2 months. Adding Jarrett to the mix ain't it, either. Jay White coming out is probably just to get him on the card in Australia, probably going over Claudio or Wheeler.

Schiavone is most definitely not a WWE announcer. Yeah, he worked for them like 2 years in the 80s, but "WWE announcer" clearly refers to the time period after Vince dropped the headset and started to micro-manage the others instead, with Michael Cole being the prototype. He still sounds exactly like he did calling 90s WCW. If AEW got early NXT Graves, that would've been great. Graves after 10 years of WWE programming, though? No thanks.

Is the Corey situation actually serious in WWE? I haven't watched any of their shows lately, but I saw a clickbait article that read like they were setting up a match with McAfee at Mania.

I was happy that Kenny beat Cage relatively quickly and easily, but I still can't get into wasting the super babyface union of Omega and Ospreay on a midcard angle like the Callis Family. If they were doing it to dispatch the Death Riders, sure, let those two ham it up. There will be some good matches along the way with Fletcher and Takeshita, but I just don't see the point in dragging this out. Just have the faces win the tag match, then stab Callis with a screwdriver to write him off for a bit. Kenny, Will, Swerve, and MJF slumming it in the midcard with the current main event scene being dire is the big vibe problem in AEW right now. They need to rip off the band-aid and have Hurt Syndicate squash PP for the tag titles. Hurt Syndicate is one act that's moving in the right direction. Agreed that the MJF/Jarrett promo needed to be 10 minutes shorter. The opening line about Jarrett being the last thing you see before your favorite company dies was good, and then the Owen stuff advanced the story, but everything in between was dog-shit terrible. Karen still catching strays because god forbid her marriage with a beloved male wrestler not work out nearly 20 years ago, "call girl," all the usual AEW misogyny that people have been saying to stop for years, and Jarrett stumbling through his delivery the whole time made it even worse. The women's casino gauntlet didn't offer much other than Mariah doing well on commentary. Not much chaotic action, very little urgency, and Megan Bayne's debut was lackluster. Felt like there was a big opportunity for Toni to come out as Outcast Toni following her loss last week and use the hairspray to win in a big cluster situation (would've played nicely against Julia's mist). Main event was a good showing from Hobbs, but only so much you can do with the uninspired Death Riders writing. The way-too-late "save" might leave the door open for Hobbs turning on Collision, but I'll believe something interesting happens here when I see it. I'm not even sure that would be ideal since Hobbs is finding some footing as a face, but man this Rated FTR/Death Riders feud is *not* doing it for me.

I wouldn't call them a super group, but the Raven's Flock arc was pretty good. The #2 guy (Saturn) realizes how bad everyone is getting used, fights the odds for a bit, then eventually emancipates to everyone to varying results. Kidman "got clean" and reached his potential, Raven went on a downward spiral after being exposed as a fraud, etc.

Gotta say no, solely because the angle feels like it has no direction. All the people involved seem to be doing the best they can with it, and are all plenty talented, but I just don't see how anyone is supposed to care about what's happening. The initial bagging of Danielson was a huge deal, but since then nothing has gotten anywhere near that feel. The whole "existential threat" vibe never had a chance when they were only going after jobbers and a couple midcarders while the big names were kept away from the angle. Darby was the only one that felt like he had the juice to step up to Mox, but they did a flat program with OC instead. Darby also has completely failed to ever get one over on the Death Riders. He keeps losing singles matches to Claudio, and got unceremoniously written off on the the final Rampage. Even when he crashed his car into them, he got a concussion and missed time while DR escaped unscathed. The 4-way program was more focused on each person worried about their own agenda, and DR went from "existential threat" to just a generic cowardly heel stable that can only win because the faces are idiots, which was really hammered home in the match itself. Now they're feuding with FTR and Cope, which just isn't that exciting. I still maintain the even if the angle was completely unchanged, it would be better received if Mox was just holding the TNT or International title. The lack of direction and heat for the "featured" angle just reflects poorly on the company.

Kinda sad how wasted HOB was for most of their run, but it's definitely better for Brody for them to disband. Julia should stay with him for sure. I worry that Buddy will continue to stay in that Beast Mortos/KOR tier where he's always there for a good match, but seldom a win. He would be better off if they kept him Brody together. Those two vs. Hurt Syndicate sounds like an All In level match.

You guys are gonna get Kenny getting stuck in the Callis Family vortex while Mox and Cope eat up the main event time and like it. It's because no one wants to see Kenny in the Callis vortex that Will's been in for the last 6 months. Kenny/Fletcher will be a banger when it happens, but the rest of the lengthy Callis promos, trying to pretend Cage and Archer are at Kenny's level, cautiously keeping Takeshita away because he needs to be protected, and the drawn out will they/won't they (when everyone knows they will) between Kenny and Will won't be worth it.

If wrestling was a real competition, it would make sense for someone who's conscious to clock the ref's count to maximize the amount of time to get a deep breath and fire off the muscle chains for proper kick-out technique. Now guys scooting into position to take a top rope move on the other hand...

I think that's obvious, whether that assessment of Athena by the powers that be is right or not. She's clearly the veteran "good hand" to give the young women (mainly Billie) some practice working big matches. It's too bad, because running a condensed version of the minions angle would've played extremely well on the main shows and they'd have Billie as an emerging young star.

I don't think there would've been anything wrong with Garcia winning with a regular piledriver or having Briscoe pass out with a flash guillotine. Both of those would've had Mark looking stronger than losing immediately after hitting 2 of his 3 finishers.

I don't know why but that FTR/RnR/Outrunners bit was hilarious. I think it was mostly because RnR are extremely out of place in these sports-entertainmenty type of backstage segments and their line delivery reflected that. Garcia/Briscoe was another good match between them, but I'm not completely buying all of Garcia's wins with the jackknife cover. He did have an elevated DDT like impact-finisher at one point, right?

Swerve is a dick, but he's violent and psychopathic, not a clown. The toilet paper thing would make sense for like Max Caster or the Young Bucks. At least beat him up before covering him in toilet paper. I suspect it'll be a fairly small thing by the end of the angle, though. Ricochet will likely have toilet paper rolls stapled to him soon enough.

"Cope" is such a bad idea. Even if everyone calls him that for shorthand, and there are two other prominent Adams on the show, you don't make that his official name. One thing WWE got right was never giving into calling The Undertaker "Taker" on a full-time basis, even though it was a common nickname for him. Of course, they got it wrong with nearly everyone else by having them drop a first or last name or go by their initials, which is what "Cope" reminds me of. Luckily they've had the sense to not do the same thing with Mox, but I do remember them having Cody Rhodes go by just Cody for a bit. Ricochet's angle is pretty good, though. I hated that toilet paper segment at World's End, but it makes sense as a launching off point for him snapping (still makes no sense that Swerve would be the one doing Vince-style humor, but whatever). The golden scissors were Bowens' weapon of choice in Blood and Guts last year, so I wonder if there's a connection there.

I loved the Ospreay/Fletcher sprint opener. It's always nice when AEW matches are forced to "hold back" a little bit. At some point, someone might realize that not doing everything in every match helps in the long run. You'll notice how the crowd was never out of it in this one with no down time, and popped huge for a non-traditional finisher getting the W. Okada/Ricochet was alright. Post-match was some stupid Vince-brained shit. Mariah/Thunder was pretty decent. Liked the quick, but extremely believable, finish. Didn't care at all about MJF/Cole. MJF tried his best to carry this one, but the whole Undisputed Kingdom part of the angle isn't clicking. I feel like these two could do an inspired double turn match, but they tried to play it straight, and it was very uninspired. Hobbs/Takeshita didn't quite click for me, but I respect the effort they put into to the story of the match. Mercedes/Stat 2 didn't start off nearly as well as the first match, but the second half was still really good. Like most people, I was confused why they ran it back so fast just to have Stat lose clean again. There has to be another woman who could've used the Mercedes rub (now that she's back to having consistently good matches again) more than Stat here. The CC final was exactly what it was expected to be. You knew they were gonna go full epic, and it was fine for what it was, but it seems like I'm in the majority that found the semis far more interesting precisely they weren't full epics. If nothing else, it shows Okada still has his NJ Ace Mode in him. Not sure why they didn't end the show with Kenny instead of Cope. The 4-way was pretty dull, even by filler 4-way standards. Totally baffling they didn't put this on below the CC final. Rated FTR going after the trios belts isn't something I care to see, and I was really hoping we'd get the Christian payoff at least. Only thing worse than a Mox/Cope filler program would be a program where Cope actually is the one to beat Mox, just so there's a vehicle for the Christian cash-in. Get the Not-MITB case out of his hands already. Overall, pretty middling PPV. You can always count on most of the in-ring to deliver for AEW, but the writing for big angles has mostly been going in the wrong direction for a year now.

Briscoe/Fletcher Briscoe/Garcia Ospreay/Darby Ospreay/Brody Ricochet/Brody Okada/Mortos

Darby/Ospreay delivered, but the best part was that it wasn't a forced epic, it was just a really good TV match. Yes, with inflation, a really good TV match now would've been a blow-away generational ppv match 25 years ago, but it works. Mercedes/Anna was good too. Felt like an early NXT women's boom match. Definitely didn't like Swerve calling Ricochet "Trevor," but his "oh you read my wikipedia" response was pretty good. Totally fine with them having a match of course. Toni continues to be a genius. Harley's commercial was great. Really good show except for the flat ME angle which is extremely mid-2000s WWE in a bad way. Also, why does everybody only wear black now?

Ospreay vs. Darby was the match I was most looking forward to when the CC lineup was announced. Although if Ricochet caps his slow-burn heel turn against Darby, that might top it.

Toni speed-running her career show by show would make for some incredible content.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a three faces of Toni gimmick at some point. She needs a strong third character, though, Outcast Toni isn't it. I also would've definitely put her return on Dynamite if not ppv, not because it will necessarily draw more, but simply as a matter of respect. She's carried the women's division when they needed her, treat her like it.