Go2Sleep

AEW's biggest problem with the women's division is that when the company took off, WWE had 90%+ of women's wrestlers worth a damn that wanted to work in the US under contract because they had been pushing women's wrestling seriously for about 4 years at that point. The fact that AEW's women's division has improved to the point it has with quite a few fresh prospects on the horizon is an accomplishment in and of itself. They have also had a lot of bad luck with people getting hurt right when they got hot (Stat, Rosa, Hayter). Not being able to ink Mone was bad too, but that might have been unrealistic expectations from fans, I don't think we really know how much she was considering it. That's not to say they couldn't have done a lot better with what they have, mind you. Opting for a second singles belt over tag belts was big miss, not just stylistically, but in terms of getting double the number of women on tv per segment. They built Jade up, then let her fizzle out. Earlier this year, we were seriously discussing the prospect of a women's blood and guts, and instead we got the same Outcasts match every week for months while the faces looked like idiots not forming even enough of an alliance for a regular trios blowoff. One thing they've done well is showcase women's hardcore wrestling in a way that even WWE hasn't, so missing B&G was a real letdown.

That was definitely a top 5 Rampage. Only the debut episode and the "oops all non-AEW title matches" episode can compete. Even the QTV promo was great. "Who should feud with next?" "House of Black?" "Someone that won't kill us..." The parking lot brawl was good stuff. I was kinda hoping the Best Friends would get to keep this as "their match," but it makes sense that BCC would excel in it, and they built up a really strong heel win that built off the previous parking lot and arcade brawl matches the Best Friends won. It'll be interesting to see what the Lucha Bros have in store on Dynamite.

I thought that segment was totally Taker beating up David Flair, especially with them attacking the random trainees. You should also go watch that segment if you want some peak Bikertaker.

I think turning Cole would be a mistake too, though not as egregious as turning MJF again. Cole only came back for his first national babyface run a couple months ago, and their bromance has been the driving force of humanizing MJF. I think Strong/Kingdom vs. MJF/Cole/Holliday makes more sense. Let MJF and Cole develop as faces together instead of running a predictable jealousy angle that leaves Cole nowhere to go after he loses the feud.

Great episode of Dynamite to rebound from last week. MJF/Cole promo ran a little long, but that looked like a pivot to full on babyface MJF and I'm here for it. Plus with All In being an homage to Summer Slam 92, a face/face main event feels right. The 3-way match had spots that kind of suggested that was supposed to be the main at one point, but I liked it as a beefed-up hardcore title style match. Loved seeing RVD get to come out to Walk and get a big pop. Now he was pretty bad in WWE 8 years ago so I'm not excited about the match, but this moment was nice and Jack getting a cheap win over a washed up RVD will get some heat. Aussie Open vs. Vikingo/Komander was awesome. Hopefully Vikingo will become a full time AEW guy at some point. Mark Davis growing a mullet was giving off some Scott Norton vibes, and I'm all for Vicious and Delicious being reincarnated as a 2010s workrate team. I'm guessing the "Book the women's division better" sign got to Tony since the women got the main event and an actual surprise title change that opens the door for something fresher than "Outcasts cheat to win every week," and does a solid for one of your home-growns who had some horrible luck of being hot at the beginning of the pandemic and Britt getting really hot as the fans came back. Now we know that signs on the hard camera side get results even faster than posting on DVDVR.

I think the Jericho/Ospreay rumor has people thinking that bump hurt Sting more than he let on, because it looked like they were clearly booking toward a Jericho/Sting match and this show would be the prime candidate.

Don't forget Punk! I went with Matt Hardy because he's a face and the only one that wouldn't kayfabe have Jack running scared.

A very easy way to tie All In/Out together would be have Cole/MJF win the tag titles and get beat down by FTR and Punk to solidify Punk as a heel. Storyline wise, it would be more logical to run a 6-man at IN with Cole/MJF/??? vs. CMFTR. Mystery partner ends up being Kenny or Hangman. Then you do Punk/MJF at OUT for the title. BUT, since crowd reactions and moments have to supersede storyline logic sometimes, I propose doing it in reverse. MJF/Punk as MJF's signature win at IN, then treat OUT like Canadian Stampede in Chicago. The babyfaces get their moments, the heels get their moment (as faces) and everyone is happy. If Danielson is ready, you have to run him vs. ZSJ before it's too late. If not, why not just run ZSJ vs. Ospreay and let the Brits go nuts?

If Jack Perry wants some heat (and a good reaction from Taz), he should promise to defend his belt against a former ECW champion and it's Matt Hardy.

I can see why they waited until after the tickets were sold to leak that.

Tony/Nigel would probably be pretty good. It would sound a lot like Tony/Bobby on the 94/95 WCW ppvs before they threw Dusty in for maximum chaos.

I prefer Taz being all over the place, although they should do away with the recent trend of him getting all sad about Hook while never directly saying that's his son. Nigel's commentary is very WWE-ish. He does sound very polished, much more so than Ian or even Kevin, but I have never and will never understand what purpose an announcer openly pulling for guys along straight face/heel lines actually serves. It comes across like those cable news pundit panels.

The only benefit to AEW hiring Bret would be for them to promote the fact that Bret Hart is working for them. I can see why they'd only be interested in an on-screen role. Let's be real, AEW has no trouble putting out great matches, and Bret is not going alter the trajectory of the company at all as an agent. Almost the entire AEW roster are 10+ year vets, Bret isn't gonna be unlocking any secrets that make anyone better to a degree that it leads to a ratings shift, and I mean TV or starz. You can still have reverence for the guy and his legacy while understanding that having him coach your current roster week to week has basically no value. AEW hiring Bret as an agent would be like the Chiefs hiring Dan Marino as the QB coach.

Underrated storyline from the battle royal was Cage and Bill working well together and Swerve getting jealous. Since Stoke isn't doing anything, maybe he could take those two as his hoss team. Collision has managed to be a fun show with its roster of like 12 people. Long term, though, I think they need to mix angles between the shows. It would be good for everyone to work under the slightly different production styles of each show. Looking forward to Cole and MJF on Collision next week. I think the Buddy/Andrade ladder match would benefit from the Dynamite commentary team, but it will be great either way.

Yeah, and then beat Mox at the ppv for the undisputed belt. The least memorable thing he did at that show, sure, but it did happen.

They have to do an interview segment where Renee asks Gravity how he feels about making his AEW debut against Pac, and he says "Who?"

That he never lost the belt, he had to relinquish it due to injury. It's not much of a claim, but plenty of wrestlers have gotten title shots with less. Edit: It's also good to see the Cole/MJF merch flying off the tables, because wasn't that one of the main drivers in memory-holing Billy Gunn's short-lived family reunion before sticking him with the Acclaimed for good?

Sometimes you just gotta go where the money is and write the stories from there. It would be pretty easy to book an MJF/Cole rematch with a bunch of "who's gonna cheat first" tension, but then end up settling it clean with a hug afterwards. Then they watch each other's back while going on to their own thing. Obviously the money program with MJF as a face is against Punk. There's good potential with face vs. face MJF/Kenny if they really want to solidify MJF as the guy. As for who would take the belt way down the line, there's a couple decent possibilities. Will Ospreay if he signs is a no-brainer. Jay White can easily be built up to that level. There's also Wardlow as a heel as MJF's old demons come back to haunt him. The main thing is TK has a super over guy in his 20s who can work at a high level and appeals to every segment of the audience. That's every promoter's dream. There isn't a single story arc in the world you don't sacrifice to find that guy.

This has been a problem going back to 1987. I'm surprised no company has ever tried a snake entry where Team A gets the 2 on 1, but Team B gets the next two in so they get the 3 on 2 period, Team A gets the 4 on 3 and Team B gets the 5 on 4.

I'm beginning to wonder if that "banned moves" thing from last week was total BS. Kota did a buckle bomb in the B&G match. While one could understand why he may not be up to speed on such things, it wouldn't explain the Bucks going along with it since they did a double eznuigiri as part of the spot. Also there was a suplex into the buckles during the 2/3 falls match last Saturday.

I think the funniest part of the B&G match was Mox getting busted. It was during the 4 on 3 portion, possibly picture in picture. Claudio and Wheeler are beating down Nick Jackson in the corner with Mox helping from the apron, Nick fights them off grabs a fork (I think) and lunges at Mox, Claudio and Wheeler immediately go back to stomping Nick while Mox sits against the cage and shamelessly blades in front of god and everyone despite the fork not drawing a drop of blood to that point. All of this except the blade job was in the background. Overall the match was a fine feud ender, but there was a lot to nitpick. I'm glad BCC/Elite is over, as it really should've been after Mox/Hangman at Revolution. On to fresher feuds for both. MJF and Adam Cole sports entertaining it up the highlight of the show. It's a shame the match with FTR doesn't have more time to simmer because the potential of the comedic stylings of MJF and Cole is gonna rule against the "pro wrestling is serious business" attitude of FTR. Since someone from AEW likely reads this, I will keep reiterating that turning MJF back to heel would be lighting money on fire. Listen to the god damn reactions he gets every week.

I'm pretty sure there's more money to be made with MJF and Cole as friends than enemies at this point. I don't care what the original plan was, you have to keep them together. You can still do an Eddie/Batista kind of title match between them at some point.

Probably thinking of the first WWECW standalone show (December to Dismember 2006). It had an "Extreme Elimination Chamber" with a lot of midcard guys as the main, and not much else in the way of announced matches. They even had to throw in a random Hardys/MNM match unannounced just to make it feel somewhat like a ppv worthy card. The whole thing ended in just over 2 hours. The wiki entry for this show is a real trip. Highly recommend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_to_Dismember_(2006)

Was she? She was kind of a tweener being noticeably bitter about Stat taking her glory, but I don't remember her going full heel before becoming Ms. Canada this week.

I'm not sure if there's any purpose to the QTV/Acclaimed feud besides giving both groups something to do, but they really need to turn Harley Cameron face and have her joined the Acclaimed. She has way too much likable goofy energy and is a bit too talented to pull off the ironic pop star gimmick. Meanwhile, Taya is floundering as a face and could easily slide right in as the "real talent" QT and Johnny push Harley out for.