AEW TV - 4/22 - 4/28/2026 - Ground Control To Major Tomasso

[Phantom Lord]

Last night's show was pretty good.

MJF continues to be a great heel. I was expecting him to beat Kevin Knight for the title, but I guess they'll do that next week.

Mark Davis vs. Osprey was a damn good match and that piledriver on the ring apron made me cringe. I like that they used a doctor's stoppage. Osprey is too bad for his own good is a good story to run with. No idea where The Death Riders kidnapping him will go though.

I didn't expect Darby vs. Ciampa to be a blood bath...but I was pleasantly surprised. I always wanted to see Ciampa bleeding like that and wasn't disappointed. The air raid crash spot from the top rope to the floor was insane. Great match between them. I would love to see them run it back in the future.

[HarryArchieGus]

22 hours ago, Pete said:

I didn't have "Tomasso Ciampa spraying blood like a Wagner Power Painter" on my bingo card for the night but I was there for it. That match was MANLY.

If someone has a rational explanation for them doing a ref stop finish so Ospreay avoids jobbing clean to the guy who ISN'T a defending world champion, I'd love to hear it.

A ref stoppage after all the talk concerning the medical interruptions lately felt like a smart move to me - I even like in hindsight finding myself a bit annoyed before the call. This was plenty clean enough for me. Also, let's not forget what a killer Ospreay helped make his buddy Davis look like throughout that ridiculously fun match.

Edited April 24 by HarryArchieGus

[The Green Meanie]

23 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

Things I Remember From This Week's Edition of AEW Dynamite:

Wil Ospreay loses due to Doctor's Stoppage and is abducted by the Hurt Syndicate

Samoa Joe squashes a schlubby looking dude

1) Death Riders (which also, I'm thinking they're going to try to get him to join, it was very similar to how the Ministry kidnapped Viscera
2) That was Chunn! An internet favorite from the Covid/Dark/Dark Elevation days!

And a couple of questions - 

Are they turning the Toni thing into a "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" type story? If so, I'm all onboard, especially after hearing someone suggest the culprit was Ruby Soho's kid.
Did Hook actually do a good job as the leader of The Opps? Did he actually recruit anyone? They teased Bowens, which went...no where. 

Ciampa is awful to Mark Brisco but good to Darby, for some reason....?

"Thinking it's socially acceptable to be friends with Speedball Mike Bailey" made my whole household do a genuine spit-take.
 

[Cobra Commander]

fixed my post on Death Riders/Hurt Syndicate

so... does Hook just go back to not running the Opps or will he insist he's still the leader with Joe back

[HarryArchieGus]

49 minutes ago, The Green Meanie said:

1) Death Riders (which also, I'm thinking they're going to try to get him to join, it was very similar to how the Ministry kidnapped Viscera
2) That was Chunn! An internet favorite from the Covid/Dark/Dark Elevation days!

And a couple of questions - 

Are they turning the Toni thing into a "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" type story? If so, I'm all onboard, especially after hearing someone suggest the culprit was Ruby Soho's kid.
Did Hook actually do a good job as the leader of The Opps? Did he actually recruit anyone? They teased Bowens, which went...no where. 

Ciampa is awful to Mark Brisco but good to Darby, for some reason....?

"Thinking it's socially acceptable to be friends with Speedball Mike Bailey" made my whole household do a genuine spit-take.
 

Death Riders making the save brought the crowd alive. I'm into this. I wasn't however into having Alex Windsor cut a promo after the break acting like nothing is happening. We know she watches on from the run in a couple weeks back. Or did she acknowledge it? I could barely hear that promo until the end. 

Cody Chunn took a great beating there. In particular that awesome bump to the middle turnbuckle before the finish. Joe is a squash artist. 

'Hook did a great job while Joe was away' was classic Schiavone (in the not so good way). 

I loved the Ciampa-Darby embrace, but I was asking myself the very same question. 

Yeah, that was a fun MJF line. He's been pretty consistent on the mic lately. Perhaps the heavy lifting during the Omega feud has fueled him.

Edited April 24 by HarryArchieGus

[HarryArchieGus]

15 hours ago, Jenalysis said:

Mina was obviously hurt otnight.  She had this huge patch on the back of her thigh- and a huge lump.  I think she's ibjured, and that's why the match kinda stunk.  This was below what you'd expect from Shida and Mina.   My wife loves the Shida/Kris pairup, and says Stat has ace energy (and she means it in both senses of the word)

I haven't heard anything about Mina being injured. I think it was just another inconsistent showing. I like Mina, but she has some of the worst, sloppiest looking shit on all of television right now. Mina-Zayda Steel (whom I really like) had one of the worst matches I've ever seen on an AEW/ROH broadcast recently. Mina has so much charisma, but she needs to tighten her shit up. Eliminating some of her terrible looking cutesy spots would help. All that said, I'm not sure Shida wasn't at fault a few times there too. Despite some slow horrible looking spots, they had a couple moments down the stretch. I sense it was probably far worse on the uncut than what aired on TBS. Some of the break stuff was unbelievably bad. I wonder if one day I'll look back on Stat/Shida fashions, and say 'oh yeah, they really had something there'. I love Statlander in ring, but I sometimes wonder if her character work is regressing. Yeah, this Mina-Shida match was disappointing. I thought maybe they'd bring the best out of one another. Still, kinda looking forward to full on heel Shida. 

Edited April 24 by HarryArchieGus

[Technico Support]

19 hours ago, Zimbra said:

How long do you think Darby has been dying to recreate that video of the backyarder doing an air raid crush off the roof?

“AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH”

ohmygod 

“AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH”

“get some help dude”

(Butthead voice from off-camera) “You guys okay?”

I did that from memory

[Curt McGirt]

I found it online, never seen before. A comment said "those screams have haunted me for years"; my reaction was just laughter and more laughter. 

[Technico Support]

That video is so old, I know the first time I saw it, I was watching on Windows Media Player or maybe RealPlayer.  I mean it's at least 25 years.  I was going to say I wonder what those kids are doing today, but odds are pretty good they're no longer with us.

Edited April 24 by Technico Support

[JLowe]

On 4/23/2026 at 12:16 AM, Cobra Commander said:

it won't be next week for a few obvious reasons but you'd think Darby defending against a face might be a prelude to somebody turning heel in a match with Darby

Ciampa is kind of a tweener. Like I think AEW wants him to be a heel but his promos are all over the place (he does not really get across Psycho Killer when he’s constantly talking about his family) and the crowd is still so excited to see him that they cheer him. 

[JLowe]

On 4/23/2026 at 9:22 AM, Pete said:

I didn't have "Tomasso Ciampa spraying blood like a Wagner Power Painter" on my bingo card for the night but I was there for it. That match was MANLY.

If someone has a rational explanation for them doing a ref stop finish so Ospreay avoids jobbing clean to the guy who ISN'T a defending world champion, I'd love to hear it.

The storyline has been “Ospreay came back too early and should’ve be wrestling and it’s gonna cost him at some point”. They should have had Davis pulling him up from a pin attempt to get across that he wasn’t really trying to win, he was trying to put Ospreay out. This put Davis over as a killer more than a clean pin IMO.

[Craig H]

On 4/24/2026 at 8:04 AM, Technico Support said:

“AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH”

ohmygod 

“AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH”

“get some help dude”

(Butthead voice from off-camera) “You guys okay?”

I did that from memory

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched that video. And then Tom Segura showed it to Cody and I about died.

[Craig H]

I think I said it on here, but I fucking hated when they always kept playing to Kenny’s diverticulitis like he was going to die in ring. I had to laugh when Kenny finally had to say, guys, that was forever ago so can we please move on? And now they’re doing the same shit with Ospreay. It’s fucking lame and it does two things. One, it tries to make people think someone is actually going to die or get crippled in ring. Two, it makes it look like Coach TK really is a psychotic booker.

If this stuff with the DRs making the save is actually them making the save to rehabilitate Ospreay and to borrow a line from Brody/Gods Hate, make Ospreay see life is hard BE HARDER? Then hell yeah man, I’m all in for that. The DRs become Fight Club/Tyler Durden for Ospreay - “A guy came to fight club for the first time, his ass was a was of cookie dough. After a few weeks he was carved out of wood.” So let’s use this DR/Ospreay stuff to carve Ospreay out of some hardwood, I’m talking about walnut or Purple Heart, shit that would bog down a table saw plugged into just a 15 amp outlet, and let’s move on from “Ospreay could die at any moment.” Doesn’t mean he becomes part of the DRs, it just means that Moxley’s repayment to a guy taking him to the limit is carving the guy out of stone.

[Technico Support]

Maybe Moxley and crew have had a change of heart, mellowed out, and have become The Life Riders!?     

Aside from the "I fight to feed mah famleeee I have a wife and daughter imma girldaaaad I luv mah kid" promos," I dislike Ciampa's beard, which looks filthy and gross and makes him look like the neighbor from Home Alone.  He looks 60 when he's actually 40.  Aside from those things, he's awesome.  Seriously, he's a damn fine wrestler but I don't watch WWE, so to me, he disappeared from a hot run on the indies as The Sicilian Psychopath and came back years later as a mushy sap who won't stop talking about his wife and kid.

Edited April 25 by Technico Support

[HarryArchieGus]

On 4/23/2026 at 9:22 AM, Technico Support said:

Ciampa feels like he went to the Dax Harwood school of babyface promos, and that's not a compliment.  

I hope the Lio Rush thing is something they get behind and push, because it's weird and fun.  

Mina might have been hurt, but she's always been a little sloppy, clumsy, and slow in the ring.  Anything she does that's a little bit acrobatic looks like she's putting a ton of effort into it.

Mark Davis rules.  

49 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Maybe Moxley and crew have had a change of heart, mellowed out, and have become The Life Riders!?     

Aside from the "I fight to feed mah famleeee I have a wife and daughter imma girldaaaad I luv mah kid" promos," I dislike Ciampa's beard, which looks filthy and gross and makes him look like the neighbor from Home Alone.  He looks 60 when he's actually 40.  Aside from those things, he's awesome.  Seriously, he's a damn fine wrestler but I don't watch WWE, so to me, he disappeared from a hot run on the indies as The Sicilian Psychopath and came back years later as a mushy sap who won't stop talking about his wife and kid.

Apt Ciampa/Dax comparison, but I feel opposite on the results. I think the strategy works pretty well for a babyface in the 2020s. I prefer it even. I dug FTR's babyface run, and Dax promos were fine by me. The heel run has been even stronger. They continue to be one of my favorite segments, in ring or out, on every show. I do agree about Ciampa's beard - especially it being a little gross. Nonetheless, glad to see whatever board members didn't like about him pre-AEW being shed by these kind of great performances. I didn't see much of Ciampa before this run, but I've loved pretty much everything he's done in AEW.   

The Lio Rush thing is interesting. The Collision debut felt a bit too corny at times, but the Brody match felt like he's figuring out what works. Yeah, this might have legs. Speaking of which, the Portland audience really came alive for that leggy prance he did. 

Mark Davis getting his due after working his ass off thru injuries has been glorious. Don called him the best wrestler of the past couple months on commentary. Sure, an exaggeration, but it also made sense. Really overjoyed that ppl have come around on him. His matches with FTR in particular were some of my favorites of this era. I remember @DEAN (like most everyone that saw it) loving that New Japan match from the UK. The AEW PPV match where he got injured was also incredible. You knew Davis was injured well before that finish. He was like DiCapprio in the Revenant.  

Mina should absolutely be pushed to cut some of her slo-mo acrobatic offense. I hope somebody can help direct her a little. She's got such great charisma, and a lot of what is needed. Question: did anyone here see much of Mina in Stardom? Was she more consistent there?

Edited April 25 by HarryArchieGus

[Technico Support]

Yeah man, I don’t know.  It’s probably just me, but “I have a wife and kids and fight for my family” is cheesy and weak.  Don’t almost all these guys have families?  Why do Dax and Ciampa specifically get to hold themselves up as paragons of fatherhood?  It’s just such a Hallmark Channel, unimaginative motivation.  Again, just my own tastes.

[The Green Meanie]

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

I think I said it on here, but I fucking hated when they always kept playing to Kenny’s diverticulitis like he was going to die in ring. I had to laugh when Kenny finally had to say, guys, that was forever ago so can we please move on?

A fun (and often repeated) conversation in our house hold:
(Me) "He's going to/he punched him right in the diverticulitis!"
(My wife) "...that's not how that works!"

[Cobra Commander]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

Maybe Moxley and crew have had a change of heart, mellowed out, and have become The Life Riders!? 

the Life Riders sounds like the name of a group that rides motorcycles to protest around abortion clinics

2 hours ago, JLowe said:

The storyline has been “Ospreay came back too early and should’ve be wrestling and it’s gonna cost him at some point”.

which kinda reminds me of the storyline of late 1995 HBK back when we knew enough about concussions to know they were dangerous but not enough to know that it was probably a bit sketchy to do a worked post-concussion syndrome storyline. Ospreay not being an explicit concussion story but just a story of coming back too quick which I guess plays different if it's coming back too quick from a neck or coming back too quick from something not involving the head

[Ramo2653]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah man, I don’t know.  It’s probably just me, but “I have a wife and kids and fight for my family” is cheesy and weak.  Don’t almost all these guys have families?  Why do Dax and Ciampa specifically get to hold themselves up as paragons of fatherhood?  It’s just such a Hallmark Channel, unimaginative motivation.  Again, just my own tastes.

I hate it so much too. I'm waiting for someone to counter with "yeah you got a wife and kids that's great, we do too, you ain't special."

Also we don't hold up Stan Hansen as some paragon of virtue and he told us 30 years ago he's got a wife and kids at home.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

5 hours ago, JLowe said:

Ciampa is kind of a tweener. Like I think AEW wants him to be a heel but his promos are all over the place (he does not really get across Psycho Killer when he’s constantly talking about his family) and the crowd is still so excited to see him that they cheer him. 

I'm able to buy Ciampa as the Psycho Killer, even while he talks about his family. Most serial killers do lead separate lives and have families all while committing heinous acts. 

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, Ramo2653 said:

I hate it so much too. I'm waiting for someone to counter with "yeah you got a wife and kids that's great, we do too, you ain't special."

Also we don't hold up Stan Hansen as some paragon of virtue and he told us 30 years ago he's got a wife and kids at home.

I have a wife and daughter myself.  I should lead off every meeting at work with a promo about them.  It’ll either get me over or get me fired, we’ll see.

[HarryArchieGus]

17 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah man, I don’t know.  It’s probably just me, but “I have a wife and kids and fight for my family” is cheesy and weak.  Don’t almost all these guys have families?  Why do Dax and Ciampa specifically get to hold themselves up as paragons of fatherhood?  It’s just such a Hallmark Channel, unimaginative motivation.  Again, just my own tastes.

Certainly it's a trope, but I don't see it overwhelming everything else they say as you do. Wrestling promos are often Cheesy with Unimaginative motivation resembling the Hallmark Channel. That's just 'par for the course'. To me both Ciampa and Dax speak directly and clearly, and always find solid paths to their point. I've seen ppl complain about Dax promos 'my kid, my wife' as if it's the only thing being said, which would be pretty, pretty rare. None of this to suggest everything either does hits, but more often than not it does. Further, let's be clear, Dax hasn't used 'my wife, my kid' over the last year outside of essentially lampooning his former babyface self.  

[SovietShooter]

18 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

Also we don't hold up Stan Hansen as some paragon of virtue and he told us 30 years ago he's got a wife and kids at home.

Speak for yourself.  

[SovietShooter]

I am not a big fan of "shades of gray" booking, I like clear heels and babyfaces. However, I can certainly appreciate when a "character" is fleshed out to the point where motivations are clear, and their status as a heel/babyface is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.  

I think Coach TK and all the folks at AEW have done an excellent job of taking a core group of guys, and building up their characters and personas where they become versatile to the point of indespensability. Mox is the perfect example - when he attacked Danielson and took the title belt hostage, he was a clear cut heel.  But when fans started cheering him in recent months, he hadn't turned or done anything out of his normal character.  They've somewhat done similar things with MJF.  

I think that is what they are trying to do with Ciampa. Simply by having him attack Briscoe, they flipped him to the heel side and suddenly there are a ton of intriguing match ups with him.  Not that different then what they've done with Samoa Joe in the past. 

 

[AxB]

Collision thoughts: Love to see a show that starts with an in-ring promo that takes less than five minutes.

Lance Archer is back in the ring, he had been just Callis' bodyguard with an arm in a plastercast for the last few months. In the illustrious history of AEW wrestlers still being on telly while injured, it's not quite up there with Anthony Bowens' wheelchair promo guy era (He improvised 'Scissor Me, Daddy Ass" and it sold a lot of t-shirts), but considering most other AEW wrestlers vanish from existence as soon as they get hurt, it's good that he's been there.

Orange and Andrade being dance partners in the six man was pretty awesome.

Marina Shafir's magic towel fixed Ospreay's neck. But mostly I'm happy that the 'What did the Death Riders do with the kidnapped Ospreay' mystery was solved as soon as possible. Any promotion infected by Russo-ism would have had him be off TV for weeks and the come back with no explanation. Like when Samoa Joe got kidnapped by Ninjas, visited a sauna and then returned with a dick on his face.

Steel chairs are bloody loud, in a quiet, echoey room apparently. Moxley has this quiet, gravelly way of talking that is almost certainly supposed to be him doing Jake Roberts, but he doesn't quite have the weight that Jake the Snake did.

RUSH vs Adam Priest is really good! RUSH is a guy who likes to lay it in, and who gets visibly frustrated when his opponents don't lay it in right back - hence that time he wrestled Jungle Boy, in a match designed to prove Perry was tough guy - and ended up eating him alive because Jungle Boy couldn't hit him hard enough. Whereas here, they did one chop exchange and suddenly RUSH is grinning like a kid on Christmas morning because Priest is laying it in just as hard as RUSH is. Shame a minute of it got sacrificed to the advertising gods.

If your first language is Japanese, and you're trying to insult someone whose first language is also Japanese, why would you do it in Englsih?

Triangle of Madness tag match, and it's Skye and Thekla, with Julia nowhere to be seen. Is she hurt, or is this a "We have to put on the best match possible" decision? This match is Austria & USA vs Mexico & England, very international. The team without the American on is the babyface team, and the AEW fans in Portland, being apparently non-Chud, don't chant USA USA USA anyway. We get a lot less of that in Wrestling now, I think those fans all went to MMA. But continued with the whole "Liking this one company is my whole identity" thing, and so became fans of 'Ultimate Fighting' without ever considering watching MMA promotions other than the UFC itself.

Persephone did a hell of a job of getting herself over in the building, by virtue of her ability to do a bunch of cool shit.

 

Speaking of Mexican Luchadors beating the shit out of Jungle Jack Perry, here's El Clon.

Jericho teaming with Lashley and Benjamin, with MVP at ringside. That's like a total combined age of 200. Book them to face Cope, Christian and Dustin Rhodes (managed by Christopher Daniels) and we'll have a whole 4 centuries of human life down there.