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Steventon

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Everything posted by Steventon

  1. If this is telegraphing Jey or both Usos costing Roman the title vs Cody, that will be such a copout ending to his run. It really deserves a clean loss to put Cody over to really have the most satisfying payoff. Leave the collapse of the Bloodline to the RAW after at least, but preferably it's not an instant trigger pull. I like the idea of Solo as Cody's first PPV title challenger, they've done a good job of building him up and keeping him protected without over-doing it. He really should be on the WM card. They had a good option of him vs Drew as McIntyre has unfinished business with him but they pivoted away from that after WarGames.
  2. It may be buried under the main event segment, but was that the best promo Rey has ever cut? He's never been a great talker but man he really sold this angle and made me want to see this match in that segment. Him finally snapping and kicking Dom's ass will ne nuclear.
  3. Jungle Boy was a B-level title defence for Omega and was elevated in the process. It showed he could hang with a top guy even if we wasn't able to beat him yet. That is a story pro wrestling has been telling as long as time. Now whether any of these 3 will be 'elevated' as a result of this program is a different question, but I don't think that's the objective here. The objective is to give Max another win(s) to his run.
  4. OR how about the idea of the Outcasts crossing Jade and Jade joining the uneasy alliance of AEW originals? It seems unlikely as they want to keep the titles very separated away from each other, but would honestly be the most exciting move they could pull for either side right now.
  5. MJF doing light-hearted, fun promos >>> MJF screaming and yelling about drunk driving. None of the other pillars really belong getting a title sniff right now but I can get into it as a B-level title defence for Max in between now and his next major program. BCC vs DO was fun. I think we can all get behind the BCC as heels, though agree that them vs the Elite is very uninteresting idea. BCC vs any number of younguns is infinitely more exciting than them in the trios title picture or facing any of the other Star factions. I have zero opinion on Tara Valkryie but Jade's act is pretty ice cold right now. They have left it too long and missed their window for a really satisfying payoff to her reign. Now it just feels clear they created a belt solely to give her air time without her having to eat any losses and they now have no idea what to do with her and her pointless title. OC vs JJ was everything we wanted it from it and I bit on the false finishes. I still can not get with OC using a superman punch as his finisher though. Hopefully this leads to Jarrett vs Aubrey doing a 2023 re-enactment of Bill Alfonso vs Beulah McGillicutty. The Outcasts vs Originals continues to be the biggest drizzling shits on AEW TV. I know she was part of a group but the visual of Riho running people off is laughable, the pipe is bigger than her arms! Personally I have zero interest in Page back with the Elite. His character feels much better defined as a guy who stands alone than as a quarter or third of a group (friendship with DO notwithstanding).
  6. Yeah the ending segment was great. They seem to have successfully linked the Cody and Sami stories in a way that helps lend the fan support to Cody rather than hurt it. Hopefully they give us Usos vs Cody/Sami between now and WM, I am here for that shit. Sami vs Jey has the most heat on it than any WWE feud I can remember in a long time
  7. I know there's been some malaise towards the booking lately but personally I think the card looks awesome. Almost every match should be good. - MJF vs Danielson - I know MJF retaining is predictable and some people aren't into the Ironman concept, but I am here for it. There are key ingrediants to making this stipulation exciting and Danielson more than has them, and MJF is no slouch in the ring either. I fully expect we'll get some schtick with him trying to run down the clock, but he's also proven he'll put his working boots on when the time comes and I think he'll want to make a point of hanging with Danielson at this level. - Joe vs Wardlow - in contrast to the main, the key to this match being a fun hoss match is brevity. If we can get in and out in under 10 minutes that should hopefully mean he get all bombs and no running out of gas tank or ideas. Surely Wardlow has to win otherwise he's DOA - Moxley vs Page - I'm in the camp of low-voters on Hangman (although I did like his title run), but all the previous matches between these 2 have ruled and Moxley seems to bring out the best in Page stylistically, so I have high expectations here. Feels like a good way for Mox to finally take that vacation and give Page some momentum back up the card towards a potential title feud. - Tag title four-way - this is your comic relief of the night amongst a card full of grudge matches. The Gunns haven't shown anything to warrant their place as champs yet but I expect this combination of teams to be FUN. Give me Double J vs OC - Hayter vs Saraya vs Soho - Expect this to be a flop of the night. I have basically zero interest in the triple threat formula these days, the whole angle kinda stinks and Saraya is a solid 9/10 on the Ric Flair in-ring fragility spectrum. It's disappointing her return and this angle has somewhat hijacked Hayter's title run. Are we expecting some sort of angle here? Is Soho going to turn / not turn and help one of her opponents win the match? - Elite vs HOB - I'll just say I get why some will like it but I'm not the intended audience here. The Elite, 6-man titles, the House Of Black, the whole 6-star hyper spotfest formula - it ain't for me. - Jericho vs Starks - this feud has quickly become a dud but I am holding out hope they have sense to put Starks over. I don't expect the match to be anything above average but hopefully they lean on their personalities and charisma to make it fun. - Cage vs Jungle Boy - unfortunate this has lost its sizzle, but they're both quality workers so looking forward to what they do. Jungle Boy had an awesome match with Luchasaurus and Cage is WAY better than the lizard. I think the key will be having a match that is very different to the Texas Death Match, because they aren't likely to beat that and having a similar but less memorable match would feel like a waste.
  8. Whenever I see Aussie Open I can't help but remember this ridiculously awesome WALTER vs Mark Davis match from PROGRESS several years ago that went like 8 minutes and was absolute hellfire, and wish that we could get more of Davis in a silo. As a team they are pretty jank. Storm vs Nightingale was pretty rad for what it was. Both ladies brought the beef and had some mustard on their shots. If the rest of this Originals vs Outsiders can't match this level of physicality then we should consider it a dud.
  9. OC vs Yuta was good stuff. Really liked Claudio's presence being the transition from respectful, competitive chain wrestling to a more heated, aggressive Yuta and how the match escalated from there. OC's Orange Punch is still a laughable finisher but I did like how much of an exclamation mark was put on that ending. And Claudio/Yuta walking out smartly set the scene for the BCC being heels going into the main event. I'll be in the group who enjoyed the Bryan vs MJF promo. I mean I didn't love it or anything, and MJF's act is what it is, but I do enjoy the depth they bring to his character. Yes, he is a total scumbag and villain, but he's not just bad for the sake of bad - he's a broken, flawed human being in and out of the ring. Saraya and this whole womens' division angle is auto-skip material for me at this point. There are much more interesting match-ups for Hayter's title run and at this point I'd even be more interested than a predictable Britt vs Hayter break up. Satnam is a wonderful heater for the JJ group. They use him much better than WWE has used any Green Giant in years and years. Compare to how he is used vs Omos and it is night and day. I can get Lethal/Jarrett winning despite having recently feuded with the Acclaimed, I can see them going with 3 heel teams to really keep the Acclaimed hot, but I'm not sure who's the fourth team. Maybe Lucha Bros? Are they still heel? Would be a while since they've been left off PPV. Moxley vs Uno was good fun and achieved what it needed to. Heck, it could have gone a beat longer if anything. Uno is one of those indy guys who kinda sucked in his prime but improved as the years piled on and he reached veteran status. The Moxley vs Page feud has been pretty rad, though I don't disagree with those saying Mox bleeds too regularly. Maybe the barbwire should have been saved for the go home as the last bit of juice to have Page escalating the violence Moxley-style. I enjoy Moxley way more than I do Page, but Page absolutely is the right guy to go over here. Strong start and finish this week, thought the middle was pretty blah though.
  10. I really, really can't help but feel the far more exciting WM match for the Bloodline is a Sami/Owens/Jey vs Roman/Jey/Solo 6-man. You could easily give that half an hour and headline Night 1 leading into Cody dethroning Roman on Night 2. You could even have Roman taking a beating in the 6-man leading to coming into the title match hurt, which would both protect him somewhat and still be a real 'chickens coming home to roost' payoff to both storylines. Lesnar vs Omos certainly has a freakshow appeal, I'd rather see that than another Lashley match if we can't get an actual good matchup for Brock.
  11. Show me one person who wouldn't have been satisfied by Sami beating Roman? Agree that the Bloodline story is a Roman story first and foremost, but the idea here is that they are holding that loss for Cody, therefore Cody winning has to be better than Sami (or Drew) winning would have, otherwise they have made the wrong call
  12. I thought the match was..... OK. The crowd and atmosphere was electric, even if WWE were kinda forcing it by having the entrances go 20 fucking minutes. Sami is a great fired up babyface, amazing to think how far he has come from the indys, but the match was the same blah Roman title defence we've had for the last 2 years. 20 minutes of Roman talking, 5 minutes of hot nearfalls, then some schmozz for the finish. That first ref bump was especially bad, I mean I know WWE canon is that refs are made of glass but it was laughable how long he was out for for getting pushed into the corner. 2 ref bumps and 2 sets of interference is pretty stinko. The Bloodline story is good but its always the angles that happen after the match that seem to be the focus rather than the matches themselves. I'm not someone who thinks you needed to have Sami win just because the crowd were hot, but after Drew at CATC this is the second time they had the opportunity to catch lightning in a bottle and instead decided to stay the path with the Reigns run. I get that, that's their plan and they have an end goal they are working towards. Is Cody beating Roman at Wrestlemania going to be as exciting as Sami winning here would have been? Or more exciting than Drew winning at a UK stadium would have been? Personally, no, but I get others may disagree. I just think they could have done something incredible and chose not to. My biggest concern and prediction right now is they have Jey cost Roman the title vs Cody, which would be a MASSIVE cop-out to not have Roman lose clean after this run.
  13. Roman vs Sami in Montreal should be good, though this era of Reigns's career is probably the low point in terms of ring work and it seems almost certain that Sami doesn't have a chance. They really should have had him Standing Tall on the first Smackdown after the Rumble turn, I have a feeling we are going to get the WWE trope of the babyface being beaten down every week now until he loses the big match. I hope I am proven wrong. I am ready for the Uso's to lose the belts, and Braun/Ricochet are a cool team, though I think they are a filler match until the Usos vs Sami/Owens at WM. I'd like to see Drew get his payback on Solo on a big show. Maybe that is the trifecta of the Bloodline payoffs at Wrestlemania - Reigns, Usos and Solo all losing their streaks.
  14. Great tribute to Jay, really couldn't have asked for more. This was the wrestling death that's hit me harder than any other in years so seeing Mark get such a pop and come out fired up was wonderful. Lethal in pieces was a massive gut punch but god bless them for that match. Both Darby vs Buddy and Danielson vs Cage were the worst match Darby and Danielson have had in a while. I've come to the opinion Matthews isn't that good on his own. He's a spot guy who's spots are all stolen from Seth Rollins of all people and he doesn't offer much in between them. Cage has been a known hack for about 10 years now and didn't impress at all. Booking a match around him working an arm doesn't really play to his strengths, but seeing him do flimsy Adam Cole superkicks instead of actual big man offence is painful. Danielson had a better match with Big Cass. I did like Takeshita making the save (minus that awful exchange with Cage). Hopefully we get MJF vs Takeshita at some point, that could be a fun clash of styles. JAS beat Starks and Andretti so that feud obviously now has to continue until the PPV rather than letting Starks move on to something more exciting. Storm/Saraya doing an 'WWE superstar' schtick against 'AEW originals' feels pretty hackneyed. Granted Saraya has been super unlikeable since debuting but I don't think Storm has the personality for this role. Is Britt a babyface now as a result? Basically this was the weakest Dynamite in ages, save for the main event which still made it feel special. Next week's card looks cool - Danielson vs Thatcher and Darby vs III let's gooooooo
  15. The opener was probably the MOTN for me. None of their matches have really struck me as something memorable but it was good and the whole post-match landed well. I hate the Dunn approach to showing the reaction shots before you see who it is actually coming out though. Logan Paul was shockingly good in his match. I'm not sure the big frogsplash spot was justified, felt like something Paul pitched and got approved because he's a star living out his fantasy, but still incredible athleticism. He's a far more exciting worker than Miz and I'm not against him being on the roster if he performs at this level on a regular basis. The mid card matches on the show were all whatever. Usos vs Profits Round 10,000 wasn't as good as the MITB match and Jarrett as ref was pointless. Not sure why they needed to run this match again if Profits weren't winning. The whole Morgan vs Rousey deal was god awful. Ronda looked like an idiot and Morgan looked weak, the worst of both worlds. Both women came out worse than they did coming in. The main event was fun and had a lot of cool individual moments, but was also over-shadowed by the tractor gimmick and the absurd overkill. The actual physicality of the match was great and Brock was clearly really motivated. It's a shame he's having this run of his career in such a stale scenario because Old Gunslinger Brock is so much fun. The two big tractor spots were risky as hell, but I don't think they looked that good and didn't add a lot apart from the visual spectacle of the ring being ripped up (which never came in to play after). Then the Theory cash in tease went nowhere. Then 4 or 5 nearfalls on Brock before another 'buried under rubble' finish which we've seen enough times already for it to be another tired trope. Basically I really enjoyed the front half of the match when they were just tossing each other about and hitting each other with things then enjoyed it less the booking came in to play.
  16. The New Japan worship has always been the worst thing about AEW, and seeing it come to fruition the last few weeks with the un-repentant fanboying hasn't made for great TV. Jay White does not have half the 'top guy' presence he thinks he does, and I have to assume Tanahashi was supposed to riff on the 'would you please...Shut..The..Hell...Up' catchphrase but instead just had 1 awkward line. At least Christian vs Jungle Boy should be a really good program once we get FD out the way.
  17. Am I missing something here? The guy has been consistently pushed, is one of the most high profile guys they have, has been clearly positioned as one of the future long term main event acts, etc. and I assume is likely paid in line with that. Has creative control, gets to be treated as a hero in his hometown despite being the biggest heel on the roster. What really has he got to take issue with? Maybe I've missed other tidbits and pieces of drama so someone help me out, because I'm struggling to see his point of view here.
  18. Not a great start to Yuta in BCC if you ask me. All of his stuff with the Gunn kids looked pretty awkward, then he gets muscled around by Mr Ass only to get a flukey roll-up win. They really should have had a more decisive, violent finish to continue this. Main event had a pretty gnarly, violent finish but otherwise didn't do much for me. Plunder Cole is the best Cole and still this was too heavy on weak superkick spam and melodrama. Page blading his chin to put over Cole's silly spot was a choice touch though.
  19. Rollins and Becky are examples of guys dressing and acting elaborately as a poor substitute for actual charisma (unlike Austin). Cody returning was a cool moment, though them burning through all of his finishers in his first match back was less so. Rousey vs Charlotte wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't good. And that finish - yeesh. Ronda gets beat with a run of the mill boot? Main event was realistically as good as it could have been. Props to Owens for busting his ass and hell that suplex to the floor Austin took was a surprise too. God bless Owens for getting this moment and glad for Austin that he got this closure on his career that he's happy with.
  20. I like Cody but the thought of him making his Wrestlemania debut to crickets is so good it almost makes me want to watch the show live.
  21. Jaded puro fan here - is there anything from 2022 so far that's worth tracking down and giving a watch? I'm pretty out of the loop but still feel like keeping a toe in the water every now and then. Thanks in advance!
  22. You don't need to be in title matches or on PPV to be important. One thing AEW does very well is making the week to week Dynamite main events feel like big deals. How long will it be until Lee main events a Dynamite? The 'holding pattern' mindset is something I don't agree with, especially if you are going to run only 4 PPVs a year. The time in between needs to be worthwhile too (and for the most part it is in AEW). And that doesn't have to be anything too difficult, just make this existing feud with Starks and Hobbs into something with more juice than 'guys interrupt each others interviews', build to a gimmick match or something, then blow it off on a TV main event. Maybe they'll do that in 2 weeks and I'll eat my words, but the last couple weeks it feels like they've put the bare minimum effort into these guys.
  23. OK lets forget the race part because that was a dumb comment in hindsight. I would still argue these guys are being under-utilised for one reason or another. At this point 'mid-card' is probably a bit rich for Starks and Hobbs who have had maybe 1 meaningful win in their AEW careers each (ok maybe 2 for Starks, both over Brian Cage last year). They are the guys they have dudes feud with when they have nothing better for them, and the paint by numbers 'interview interrupted' formula isn't helping create any steam. The Acclaimed have grown a lot but still seem to be in the same place they were last year. Keith Lee is one of the few guys I think most people felt should have a rocket strapped to him on arrival and he's already Just Another Guy. Now granted AEW have a track record of bringing guys in, cooling them off, then getting them hot again once they've got their feet under the table so I'm sure he will be dandy long-term, but it still feels like a missed opportunity to be doing more with him and everyone else in this bundle. Now if you had Starks in Sky's spot or Team Taz climbing the tag ranks or the Acclaimed getting into a hot non-title program or Keith being paired against a Miro or one of the major stars that would be all gravy.
  24. The Acclaimed and Swerve were also in another segment with Starks & Hobbs about their feud with Lee, but hey I wasn't keeping count and as I say, I'm not really in that camp of people. It just struck me during those 2 segments and that it's a total 'treading water' feud didnt help. But no harm no foul.
  25. Main event had an odd finish (Rosa gets dinged with a chair, rolls back in the ring then just hits her finish?) and took a while to get going but was pretty enjoyable and a well deserved moment. part of the JAS promo felt like they might be setting up Jericho's Sports Entertainers vs Regal's Pro Wrestlers at some point im not on the 'AEW is racist' noise but it is pretty jarring how they seem to have stuck all the black guys together in the same go-nowhere mid-card program. Keith Lee already feels like just another guy
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