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Go2Sleep

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Posts posted by Go2Sleep

  1. Something I liked about this Dynamite was the different lengths of matches. OC/Fenix is the kind of match Dynamite and Collision need more of. Very attitude style, 5 minutes, both guys get a lot of shit in, still packs in a lot of story, no commercial break necessary. No one comes away from that match thinking it's a squash just because it finished in one segment. The "average 12 minute match" has been way overdone by now, and with more matches like this, things like Swerve/Dragon stand out in contrast. The show also had a Wardlow squash and Hobbs semi-squashing Jericho.

    I also thought Shida/Saraya was a top match for both in AEW (I know Saraya has a very small sample size). If that was on NXT in 2014, people would've gone nuts for it. It says a lot about the hard work numerous women have done to completely flip the script on women's wrestling in the US over the last 10 years when this particular match flies under the radar. Also, it was a logical setup for the inevitable Outcast triple threat, which I don't think anyone was really calling for, but will work thanks to the re-invention of Timeless Toni.

    • Like 6
  2. The inability to be subtle made the quarters thing worse than it should have been. Everyone knows Juice uses the roll of quarters as his weapon of choice, and everyone knows about Max's antisemitic bullying story centering around quarters. Anyone who needed to get the angle would've gotten it.  Writing FRIEDMAN on the roll of quarters and zooming in on it makes things look a lot worse to a casual viewer. I don't think there was any ill intent, but much like the misogynistic lines that Caster slips in his raps, sometimes creative freedom still needs some oversight. Hopefully there won't be much more to this than Juice trying to grab the quarters in the match, then immediately getting blasted by the diamond ring and otherwise beaten handily. Keep the focus on the main event with Jay which is the big program here.

    • Like 3
  3. 14 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

    We just opened a new airport terminal back in February.

    Looking at the map of the area, do you think Minoru Suzuki would eat at a BD's Mongolian Grill, Kobe Japanese Steak House, Hooters, Carrabbas Italian Grill, the Golden Corral, or Whataburger?

    Takeshita really hoping TK has room for Callis Family promo or Rampage squash on this show now.

     

  4. On 10/8/2023 at 11:32 AM, Curt McGirt said:

    You know, thinking about it, the kid looks like Ospreay if he had a giant syringe stuck in his body and all his muscle mass sucked out. Or if they just starved him for a month.

    Dude's 18. It's gonna be another 5 years before he can pile on muscle mass.

    Collision was kind of a nothing show outside of the tag title change. All in all, it's probably good the belts were forced of FTR. We didn't need them and The Bucks again so soon, and Ricky and Bill have been delivering the goods every week despite bad booking. Hopefully they see the big picture here and don't have the Bucks go over in LA.

    Timeless Toni is a top act in wrestling right now. Love that they bothered to type out an actual script.

    Generally speaking, I think AEW needs to book smaller venues for their weekly shows. The other option is drastically lowering ticket prices and comping the fuck out of under-performing cities. They should know by now what cities they can run a big arena in with a decent card (Chicago, Toronto, NY, London). No need to force it and have 20% full arena pics surfacing elsewhere. I don't think even MNW-era WWE and WCW were running 10K+ arenas every week. WWE didn't start that until they were way ahead and into their monopoly days.

    • Like 3
  5. 1 hour ago, Matt D said:

    I'm a firm believer that the house style would be far worse without the PiP. It's unfortunate that most of the audience misses the most important part of the match (the heat), but the live audience doesn't, and I'm pretty sure most matches would have been 50/50 Your Move/My Move Get Our Shit In if it didn't exist.

    It's amazing how much better AEW TV matches look on the international feed, especially Dynamite when Taz drags the whole team into DGAF mode on commentary.

    • Like 6
  6. 11 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

    just realized the Tuesday Dynamite is in my town (I don't feel like going outside, but i'll try to remember to watch it even if I don't have a Nielsen box and can't help it in the ratings)

    I got tickets yesterday, they have decent ones now for $24. Normally my group just buys the $95 dead center hard camera seats without blinking, but 2/3 of us had other shit going on, so we waited to see if the prices dropped. We're one section off the hard camera closer to the stage, but there aren't many bad seats at the Independence Events Center (that changes sponsors every other year).

    For a city that isn't super important to AEW, KC usually gets something kinda big. Pac/Kenny 2/3 falls, Will Ospreay debut, Kenny/Vikingo, and now Copeland's in-ring debut. Swerve/Danielson and Jay/Hangman should be nice too.

    • Like 4
  7. 7 hours ago, Technico Support said:

    There was a man holding a literal infant in the second row, visible during Hobb’s ringside beatdown.  Had to text my brother in CA to ask if Stockton is the trashy part of the state.

    It's where Nate Diaz is from, so draw your own conclusions.

    Another promo heavy Dynamite, but at least this one wasn't all "serious business." Roddy still yelling "AAADAM" when Cole is right next to him is great. Bennett and Taven are excellent stooges.

    Toni's "all in" with her new Timeless act and I love it. "A word from our sponsors... NOW IT'S TIME FOR A TITTY SLAP" is hands down the best mid-match cutaway of all time.

    Good to see Hobbs and Wardlow back. It's kind of amazing that Wardlow stays as over he does for how poorly he's been booked since the MJF split.

    The E/C (or A/J) reunion was well done. Felt like a big deal but still part of a bigger angle, not just a straight nostalgia trip. Copeland's promo was mostly good. I don't know if anyone has ever called Juice Robinson "The Stray Bullet" before, but if not, he should be thanking the hell out of Copeland for giving him an infinitely better nickname than "Rock Hard." Despite his goofy gimmick, that nickname always just comes across too Russo-ish for my liking, but I digress... I also liked the foreshadowing of Nick Wayne and Luchasaurus turning on Christian, which could very well set up the tag team reunion some time next year). Nick Wayne has that super sleazy dickhead "no morals" energy, and Adam Copeland should be able to relate. Christian's part in this was perfect. I will say I hope they don't focus too much on a Christian/Copeland feud beyond the obvious 6 man at Full Gear. Let them go their separate ways for a while and get the feel-good reunion when it's right, probably around All In next year for a match with FTR.

    • Like 3
  8. A full time AEW workload is like one match every 2-3 weeks, Copeland's gonna be fine.

    I thought the show was the standard AEW ppv, so mostly good if you like what they do.

    Barnett/Claudio stood out on the pre-show because they did a lot more of a shoot style match. Really unique stuff that stood out in a good way without overshadowing anything else.

    The Righteous still come out to dead silence after being pushed for a month, so it definitely wasn't the worst team for comedy MJF to go over WWE-style. It wasn't so much a burial as it was two sacrificial lambs to build up MJF's face cred. It served its purpose and hopefully we can go without the Righteous on every show for a while now.

    Julia/Stat was an example of a quick build that helped everyone. Julia finally stands out as contributing member to HOB and gets a much-deserved PPV showcase for her improved skills. Stat gets a more significant win than just random open challengers. Good work all around.

    Not excited about the Bucks winning the 4-way, they're kind of testing their boundaries on over-exposure again.

    Swerve/Hangman was really good with both guys adapting for the crowd. They both got to show their vicious side. The hand work made for some logical cutoffs and Swerve's arm-injury move looks like a real equalizer. Swerve will still be a heel everywhere else, but it was nice for him to get a big moment.

    Danielson/ZSJ lived up to the hype.

    Everything not listed to this point was just kind of there.

    I feel like Aussie Open doesn't have that AEW-level top gear. They didn't bring anything new to their biggest match except a move where Mark Davis probably broke his arm. Kinda disappointing showing from them here to be honest.

    I liked the choice of Darby/Christian as the main. Despite the initial botch, those stair bumps were exactly the type of insane shit you'd expect from main event Darby. Frankly, it didn't look like Christian was entirely comfortable with the idea and I don't blame him. Really hot match down the stretch and the Nick Wayne turn makes sense and got great heat. Copeland debut was a cool moment and I'm glad Tony sprung for the Alter Bridge theme. It did seem a bit rushed, like it would've probably been better to let the Wayne turn sink in for at least a couple weeks before bringing Copeland in to even the odds, but I understand the need to sell PPVs by only putting the biggest moments on them. Like most, I wasn't thrilled with Copeland's WWE work the last few years, but he still seems like he has some gas in the tank, so I'm ready to give him a chance in a fresh setting.

    • Like 2
  9. Dynamite was too promo heavy for my liking, even if there wasn't anything wrong with any individual segment. I think the biggest problem was too many "this is going to the next level" type segments, and it lessened all of them. At least the MJF/Cole segments sprinkled in some comedy. You had Takeshita braining Ibushi with like a 20 lb kettle bell, Righteous trying justify their ppv spot, Wheeler getting all serious about toughness and respect to Starks, Darby weathering Christian's shots at dead family members, and Swerve and Hangman going back and forth with a not so subtle metaphor for CM Punk and culminating with a pen-stabbing. I know they have to generate video package material for the almost the whole ppv this week, but I got burned out on the super intense promos the way others get burned out on super intense matches.

    Willow/Julia was really good, though. Julia has improved tremendously and is working more character into her matches now as well as getting a lot smoother at the technical stuff. Really looking forward to Julia vs. Stat. Other matches were total filler including two versions of "singles matches of feuding teams," very WWE-ish.

    Despite the abundance of promos, I am a sucker for a good mystery angle, and I thought the choice of Jay White being attacked was pretty inspired to give it a chaotic feel. I wouldn't mind Undisputed Kingdom vs. MJF and babyface BCG if they're gonna break up Cole and MJF. Given the way the last Blood and Guts fell apart, I wouldn't mind a quick mulligan.

    Edit: Just occurred this could be a way to bring Adam Copeland into AEW too. Imagine a write-off for Cole where he has Roddy cornered and he stops him with "AAAADAM.... But not you"

    • Like 5
  10. Ali is a no brainer pick up for AEW. It's honestly a fair trade for Jade, where both are better fits in the other company.

    The ship has probably sailed on Aliyah, but it always seemed like she could've done more. If she puts in some work, she can probably find a home in AEW like Tay Melo.

  11. 56 minutes ago, AxB said:

    If Fenix, instead of pulling Mox up and giving him a second Rikishi Driver, had jumped to the top rope and Frog Splashed him (in that “landing entirely on my knees and elbows without actually touching the guy I’m doing the move to” way), would we be calling him a genius right now?

    No, because the impact on any part of the body or the movement from the ring shaking underneath him is still not ideal if you suspect someone has a serious neck injury. Watching it back, it seems like Rick Knox is most at fault for just not counting through the pin. That would've avoided everything else. Fenix, while not being a medical expert of any kind, still deserves some blame. I think a point should be made to all wrestlers and refs that in a shoot injury situation, you just eat the botchamania moment and end the match no matter how bad it looks live. Video can be edited, and fans will forgive for a real injury. Protecting the workers has to come before protecting the business.

    With that said, I think not enough is being made of the fact that Mox was obviously concussed on the initial dive. Someone should spot that and end the match right then and there. There's no way you could watch the immediate aftermath of that and think that Mox was ok. With all those guys in the building for Rampage, filling the extra TV time is easy, and Mox working an angle that parallels his angle with Hangman with the roles reversed practically writes itself once he's healed up. If TK is right there in gorilla, he needs to not be afraid to call some audibles.

    • Like 1
  12. Danielson following a Terry Funk career arc sure would be something. I have no doubt Dragon could reinvent himself as a lumberjack version of old Funk and be good enough at it that young viewers watch his old stuff and say "Holy shit this guy was a master technician when he was young?"

    • Like 4
  13. There's no shortage of successful bigoted wrestlers and promoters, so I don't think that's what did Warrior in. Punk is an extremely weird case of being the least successful politician ever. Every time he tried to go into business for himself, it backfired. Probably why he resents HHH so much.

    Low Ki stands out as someone with a ton of talent who seemed to piss people off everywhere he went.

    Jarrett burned some bridges in WWE and WCW, but he eventually got his own promotion to be a big fish in a small pond.

    Flair was pretty lucky that he had a decade of success behind him before hand, because whoa man did he get out-maneuvered horribly once Hogan went down south.

    • Haha 1
  14. I don't think MJF would be getting the push he is now without being committed to AEW. I have a feeling that the "bidding war of 2024" stuff is all a work and he signed a new deal probably as far back as winning the "not-MITB" chip, and at the very least before they committed to a face turn and headlining All In. Even Cody never got a rocket strapped to him like MJF has now.

    I could see Ricky being frustrated with his start and stop booking, and most recently getting dicked over by Punk. I'd be giving him the International belt at Wrestledream so there's always a reason to give him TV mains and PPV angles.

     

    • Like 3
  15. I'm not sure why people love Nigel so much as an announcer. He does have a pleasant voice with that cockney accent, but it's so obvious all his prep for announcing came from watching tape of Raw-era Corey Graves. Kelly is also an ex-WWE guy, but from well before the buzzwords got out of control, he just kinda sucks on his own merits. What really hammered home how bad Collision announcing is was when JR was actually carrying the booth during the main. Kelly kept missing the obvious cues JR was trying to feed him to drive the story.

    I wouldn't mind seeing Ex/Taz hold down Dynamite and having Tony work with Nigel on Collision, which I think would capture that 94/95 Tony/Heenan dynamic very well.

    • Like 1
  16. 19 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    IIRC, they were originally billed as The Major Brothers.

    This is correct. They were a jobber team on SD. They disappeared for a bit then came back with the Hawkins and Ryder names as Edge's lackeys to help him beat Taker.

    My biggest memory of them as the Major Brothers was when I was in college, I went to a one of the WLW shows that had NOAH guys on it on a Saturday, then WWE was running a house show in Columbia on Sunday. Other than the NOAH guest stars (who just worked with each other) and a young Bobby Fish, the WLW guys were pretty rough. The Major Brothers were like the absolute bottom of the barrel guys that would still appear on WWE TV at the time, and watching them work the crowd and their general timing and execution really highlighted the difference of what it took to get from a low level indy to the big time. It was like watching an end of the bench NBA player dominate a king of a pickup game.

    • Like 4
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