NoFistsJustFlips

Seemingly the natural stopping point would be Abby killing Jesse and you leave the showdown with Ellie as your cliff hanger. But there's too much to get through I would think. Only way around it is if next week is only half flashback and half the lead up to the Mel & Owen confrontation. You start the finale with that confrontation and end with the Abby killing Jesse. But that seems pretty rushed when this show has been very good about it's pacing so far.

My take on this is besides the heel turn, this was always what was planned for his last year. Him vs Cody at Mania face vs face. Him warning in a gee shucks way that this was his last year and if no one beats him he's retiring as champ. And how he doesn't want that and the title means so much and him retiring it isn't what's best for wrestling history and all that. Then and now its all leading to Cody beating him in his last match and rescuing the title. It actually works much better now as a heel. And you ask who is it helping, well Cody of course when he gets the rub for retiring Cena and saving the title at the last minute. The problem with why it's gonna be a rough year is... Cena's body is shot. His body is basically a full body Matt Hardy jimmy legs. His movements are stiff and he's lost his athleticism. He can't bump properly. So the heel turn is also giving him some bells and whistles to hide how bad his body is betraying him. They're just lucky that crowds are so hot right now in a boom. The audience is having fun being able to boo and get invested in Cena's character so the matches don't matter that much. That main event was mechanically ugly yesterday but the crowd was so fucking into it. So ultimately it doesn't matter.

Fair point. I did have a second prong on my argument tho, being 6 matches isn't enough. Kevin showed the data that it hasn't been strictly 6 every week. It's been a mix of 4, 5, 6. But my point to that still stands, I would enjoy (and I think they would benefit from) some weeks having more matches. Sprinkling in episodes that have 7,8,9 or whatever. I'm not saying let's run all crash TV 3 minutes as the norm Russo style. I'm just saying I would enjoy a more varied show and think AEW would greatly benefit from sprinkling in a few episodes here and there that have higher match totals / feature more workers getting to wrestle.

Yes. In my opinion, of course. A work of art can still be an artistic expression even when using only one color. But for my enjoyment, I prefer art with many different colors and line weights, etc. I don't begrudge Bloodsport for existing by any means. But it's definitely not what I would consider exciting. And when you limit the tools in the toolbox you also limit widespread appeal. It can still be a cathartic artistic expression for you. But if your goal is to make money and grow beyond a niche idea (and I believe that to be AEW's goal), limiting your tools in the toolbox puts you at a disadvantage.

I'm so down with Zach Gowen working Dynamite. He's one of my favorite dudes in the business. Just such a nice guy and deserves his flowers and a dope showcase on national TV.

I should have done a better job aiming which comments were to which sentiment. That's on me. These are all just opinions. Even my side of it. But what ventures beyond opinions is blindly projecting that someone wants AEW to be more like WWE when they have a different opinion of what's best for AEW. (That wasn't you). As if WWE is the only place that's ever done short matches. Or convincing wins for guys they're heating up. That's pretty universal in the business over the last 40 years. Currently AEW is the promotion I enjoy most. But I am a pro wrestling fan. That doesn't have any ties to one singular promotion. And the people who tie their fandom to one specific company are, in my opinion, what's wrong with the discourse in wrestling right now. In short: I want more variety in my wrestling, and I want less toxic stans for one company acting like being a fan of anything else makes you less than.

Down on his luck DDP in 1995's losing streak turned around when he found The Diamond Cutter and led him to becoming one of the most popular dudes ever. So once at least. Can't think of another tho. The condescending tone from a few posters on this debate is a bummer. Worse are the shit talking WWE takes directed towards me. Where have I said WWE is my only point of reference and I want AEW to be more like WWE? My points of reference are successful periods in all national wrestling companies over the years. I mean Goldberg in WCW is what sparked this topic. The company being All Elite Wrestling and all of them being elite is some head cannon shit. If TNA does a sit down interview is that action? 'Their name is TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION. All they do is action!' To my recollection the everyone being elite take has not been used in marketing or branding for AEW ever. If they're all elite, then none of them are elite. The literal definition of elite is significantly exceptional, far above the norm. If the norm is elite then by definition elite is only average. My main thesis was Dynamite formating is stiff and they should add in some variety. Never in my wildest dreams did I think there would be a bunch takes fighting against that. A show of 6 15 minute matches is boring. A show of all tag matches is boring. A show of all death matches or all spotfests or all sports presentation is boring. Wrestling needs short matches long matches luchadores brawlers hosses tag teams fat dudes ripped dudes monsters wimps. Variety is a nessicary component. And I will dismiss the opinions of anyone who disagrees with that main point. The toxic ass tribalism in wrestling fandom these days is nuts. Having critical opinions of something you like doesn't mean you hate it and want to see it fail. Blind tribalism and fake positivity does not benefit anyone. That's how you end up with a Vince / yes man dynamic.

I cannot disagree more. 50 / 50 booking that tries to not make anyone look too bad ends up not making anyone look good. In that scenario a definitive loss to Hobbs in 5 minutes isn't going to hurt Yuta long term. Losses are a part of the business. You shouldn't have to make sure every single performer gets the same amount of offense in every match. That's how you end up with a roster full of middle of the road unover guys. There's a whole generation of fans that have grown up thinking someone is getting buried just because they took a definitive loss. That's just not true. Theres a lot of scenarios where you gain more with a loss than you do with a win. It's story telling. And even if the loss doesn't help you in the current moment, its easy to rehab people and get them back up the ladder when its their time. Tl,dr: if you protect everyone, then you're promoting no one. 50 / 50 booking is for lazy bookers that don't understand the nuance of the medium.

Good points. It's a weird era we're in where one company doesn't do house shows and the other very rarely does. My counter to the Goldberg thing would be well why did he ever have to go 15 minutes? Brock showed you can have a super top of the card money drawing monster that routinely only works 8-10 minute bomb fests. Like you've been saying, 3 ring circus. Not every character & not every performer should be smushed through the same mold. Should have a few Lesnar & Goldbergs bomb throwing hosses get runs on top. Should have a few Omega & Ospreys epic workrate guys that get runs on top. Should have a few Mox / Austin style brawlers that get runs on top. Just because you make it to the main event and win the world title doesn't mean they should make you wear a suit, do the slow plodding heel 2008 Jericho promos and have to go 20 minutes for every match. Variety is what keeps things fresh.

I promise its a genuine argument. I dont automatically attribute long matches to good matches. Theres tons of great workers in AEW who can tell awesome effective stories in 8 minutes. Some talent are actually better suited to it. I don't need these extended apron bump / outside the ring sequences is 4 matches on the same night just to artificially inflate times. I'm not saying I hate long matches. I still want long good quality work rate matches. I just don't want *every match* to be shoe horned into that mold. You referenced Rhyno vs Nick Wayne. Not gonna win any match of the year polls, but it served a better purpose for both guys than a 15 min match would have. For example, what makes Hobbs look better? A 15 minute 3 star match with Claudio? Or a 5 minute murking of Yuta where Hobbs gets to look dominant an explosive with power moves and flexing and not having to sell much of anything Goldberg style? I know my answer.

I saw an article about Willow today. It's mid May and Willow (a great worker & a great character that I think almost everyone agrees is a bright spot in AEW), has had only 4 matches in AEW this year. Is this what people want? This circles back to my criticism about low match counts on Dynamite. The people that enjoy the longer matches, are you okay with only seeing people you like wrestle like 10-15 times a year because of it?

Yeah maybe this era of wrestling just isn't for me. Because the random pairings and unknown match lengths are what I really enjoy. Like if a Dynamite was 6 straight tag matches that did a single heat and all had the same match structure that would be tedious af. (They haven't done that just demonstrating a point). To me that's what having all these long matches feel like. Monotonous. It's just the same thing over and over. Sure the quality of work is generally very good to great. But it's just too samey for me. Ideally, when two guys come out to have a match I want to have no idea how much time they have. Is this going to be a 6 minute hoss fight where dudes just throw bombs? Is this gonna be a heavy limb work match where someone's going to have to over come damage? Is this gonna be an 8 minute sprint with wild spots? I don't want to have the blueprint before the bell rings. And more than anything that's what Dynamite feels like it's been for awhile now. Most matches are the same formula. The same time. The moves change. But the content blurs together (for me).

Just to support my argument a bit here a video came up in my You Tube feed where Wrestle Me reviewed the Raw where HHH tore his quad. And my god the pacing and format was such a breath of fresh air. Shit happened. A lot of shit. So much shit. On the same show. It wasn't just a slow content churn like 2020s wrestling is. An Austin promo to start the show. A major Shane and Angle program starts with a medal ceremony angle. Undertaker messing with Austin is threaded through the show. Terri trying to seduce APA to protect her. Spike & Molly romance. And one of the best TV matches of all time is your main event. -Rhyno v Big Show -APA vs Saturn & Malenko -Matt Hardy vs XPac -Dudleys vs Holly's -Edge & Christian vs Eddie Guerrero & Jeff Hardy -Kane vs Kurt Angle -Benoit & Jericho vs HHH & Austin It's 7 matches but shit happens. There's varriety. There's story advancement. There's unpredictability. There's a fucking banger of a match in the main. That's what I look for in my wrestling TV. Give me some of that in 2020s wrestling. And if you disagree then we just aren't going to have nay common ground here.

I'll just have to withdraw my argument then because we're coming from two different places. I'm sorry longer doesn't mean better. That Fit Finley vs Eddie Guerrero match sounds fucking dope to me and it probably only had 8 minutes. Long matches for the sake of long matches is tedious (to me). I dont care if you run a 4 match Dynamite or a 6 match Dynamite if it's one week of a random rotation of variety and some weeks get 10 or 12 matches. If you want to run 4-6 matches a week cut your roster. It does no good as far as building sustained pushes and getting people hot if you see the average mid carder once in a four week span. I'm legitimately baffled there's people who enjoy a 4 match show and only seeing like 10 people out of a stacked roster that could support seeing way more talent. Including more women on a given show.

One of the 12 weeks you posted defy my overall point. My point is doing so few matches every week is a disservice when your roster is so large. In 2023 and 2024 it was at at least 90% of the year they did 6 matches. I did the research at the time. Saying that number is more like 40% this year only debunks my point if you're fitting on more matches, not less. My personal preference for a 2 hour show is more like the pacing and variety of 2 hour Nitros. I looked it up back in 2023 when this became a talking point for me. But Nitro would vary wildly. It would be 8, 12, 9, 6, 14, 7, 11 etc. The amounts weren't static. The match times weren't static. One women's match isnt enough. 4 / 5 / 6 matches a week total isnt enough. You don't have to do 3 minute squashes where people don't get to shine. But not every match needs 15 minutes. Mix it up. Make it fluid. Make it fresh. Make it unpredictable. I don't think that's a crazy ask.

Your issue isn't with signing WWE women then the issue is with AEW's rigid format. There's no reason your two hour show should only have 6 matches a week when you're roster is so large. Worse yet, only one women's match a week on Dynamite. Period. No wiggle room. Craig's post explains it better than I can. In general using the exact same formula almost all 52 weeks in a year is so uninspired. People can say the booking in AEW is better than WCW's was or whatever. But there's so much more to booking than having 6 slots you just mix and match new matches into every week like it's an EWR sim. It's lazy. It doesn't matter that Collision and ROH also exist and have more flexible formulas. Dynamite is your A show and your A show has a lazy format.

This same topic comes up every times there's releases. Good talent is good talent. Limiting who you pick up because of where they previously worked is dumb. Take in everyone you think is good enough to improve your show. Cora & Dakota are, in my opinion, performers that would help your show. But the counter argument to this is how few matches AEW run on a given week. So if you only have room to feature 8 women a week and you already have 30 on your roster, justifying adding 2 more gets tough.

Idk. My take on this is a bit different than everyone else. Partially because I don't actually see a story being told. Mox is just spewing generic things without some long term Hangman vs Omega style subtle long term booking towards a conclusion. To me you put the top title on the most over guy. Ospreay is the most over guy in my opinion. In that sense him vanquishing the Deathriders is as acceptable as Austin vanquishing DX or Hogan vanquishing Iron Shiek or Cena vanquishing JBL or any number of random title changes to crown your ace. There isn't some grand Mox vs Hangman feud simmering in the background. Theres no Mox feud at all. It's just him rambling. And any over baby face beating him works for the non-story in place here.

I think this is some revisionist history. There was almost no build for this match. Andre was "reinstated" to the WWF after The Machines run on December 28th. There was nothing at all alluding to a him vs Hogan feud until after The Machines run was done. So returns December 28th. Did an angle holding the belt and giving it back to Hogan at a January MSG show. Andre turned heel on the February 7th on Piper's Pit. Wrestlemania was March 29th. The build and whole angle was literally 3 months in totality. They used Hogan ducking giving Andre a title shot as justification for the turn. But that wasn't actually shown or alluded to on air ever before, just once Andre turned. Don't have anything more to add to the general point. Just that our memories are faulty as hell sometimes. This gigantic match that did so much of the business had 3 months of build and that's literally it. They didn't even know if Andre could do the run so they had Orndorff on the back burner as a backup plan. Crazy to think sometime so monumental could be pulled off Between Dec 28th and Mar 29th. This is the end of the month and will get burried in a closed thread but so be it lol.

Can only assume the Third Man is Conrad Thompson and this is just some viral marketing buzz to get some intrigue built up for a Hogan podcast. Which could be entertaining as fuck if Conrad pushes back on all the BS Hogan spouts.

No children in the first 3 rows. Have never seen that listed. Is that a thing AEW always lists or is it specific for this show?

I felt like Nero in Intermission was just an introduction. Especially since he consumes Sonan's soul or whatever and briefly appears as Yuffie's biggest fear in her Rebirth trial. Weiss they didn't even have in the game, just a post game combat sim fight. There's already so much to fit into part 3. I know they'll expand upon Vincent's backstory and Wutai will have a larger presence. But I don't think they get into covering much of Dirge. It was only a 10 hour game or whatever, so I guess its possible. But that would shift timeline stuff around quite a bit, with all that happening after the conclusion of OG & Advent Children. I just think the three games in this series released so far have been very successful. Crisis Core did over 2 million units, Remake at about 7 million units, and Rebirth speculated to have done 4 million units on PS5 alone plus now whatever they've moved on PC. And the games have been critically very well received. Compare that to the last mainline FF game doing about 3.5 million, seems like FF7 is a more bankable brand than Final Fantasy it's self. Not advocating for mainline FF games to go away or anything. But there's definitely a market to continue this series if done with some foresight. I don't think the remake trilogy ends any other way than as a lead in for Advent Children. I know the game seems like threes a lot of meta shit happening and Sephiroth seemingly from the post Advent timeline. But I think they'll get crucified if the story ends too off course. You do a modified and expanded AC game with Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo as the big bads. Leading to a reborn Sephiroth finale where he is vanquished again. Then a modified and expanded Dirge game, with Nero & Weiss as your big bads. That ends with Nero's demise and Weiss escaping to be saved by Genesis. Then it's almost like the MCU leading into the Infinity series. You have 6 games retelling the story you already knew leading into the big final 7th game of all new material where an unleashed Weiss & Genesis are the big bads. Or you could even find a way to bring all the villains back and do a mega team up with Genesis, Nero, Weiss, Kadaj, Loz, Yazoo, & Sephiroth. The sinister 7 in a way lol. Shinra is ultimately defeated for good in the end. All the villains are destroyed and expelled from the lifestream. The planet is totally restored and saved. Total happy ending for all characters left. It's a pipe dream. But just a brain worm kinda thing where I really just had to get it outta my head.

I like The Giants draft class. At this point I'd normally say I like the way the team looks and think they'll be competitive (and I do) but I'm not getting my hopes up. Defense will probably be very good. But the offense is kind of the land of misfit toys.

Went back and got that weird Barrett date achievement in OG FF7 and platnumed it. Didn't end up being as cumbersome as I expected. With the no random encounters and limit breaks always on deals went by pretty fast. I know that's not really worth of a bump of this thread. Main reason I did it is because (while I know it has no shot in hell at happening), I had to get the idea of a remake sequel trilogy out of my head. So we got Crisis Core as a prequel. Then there's the remake trilogy. Id love if they followed that up with Advent Children the game. Then a remade / remixed Derge of Cerberus game. They'd have to retool it to be action RPG and not a FPS I would think. But then to close out the FF7 compilation you do one true sequel game that concludes the whole story. There's a cut scene at the ende if Derge where Genesis comes back and Flys away with Weiss. Theres definitely a story to be told with that. A new story from scratch. Imagine the first true new FF7 content coming at the end of a seven game arc. I also love the symmetry of FF7 being a seven game AAA series. Just putting it out in the universe. Maybe the Square Enix CEO has someone creep the board like Tony Khan does lol.

I'm gonna sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth on this one. I find value in this. I do miss the territory days where there was good turnover and no one's runs really overstayed their welcome. People came in and made a difference until they didn't and they moved on and did the same somewhere else. I miss that freshness to the shows as a viewer. That's from a fan perspective. It's a new day and age. It's the contract era. If I signed a contract for multiple years and you only use me for one story, even a year long one, then you're done with me? That's not very ideal. I'm not going to be happy. If that's disclosed ahead of time I'm not signing with you ahead of time because of it. So I agree with you from the fan perspective. It makes for a better show as a viewer sometimes to have a really tight story beginning middle end and then when it ends it really ends. But if you're viewing it from the performers perspective that's not going to be appreciated. That's not going to be embraced. That will factor into future performers' thought processes on signing with you.