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AEW Women’s World Champion Shida vs Abadon


Flair’s Shadow

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I made a new thread for this match because in some ways I believe this is the most important Women’s match in AEW’s short history. Shida has grown into a legit Women’s World Champion, the first one in AEW in my opinion. Abadon is a character which has massive potential. I understand Abadon may not be quite ready to lead the women’s division...she still might be a touch too green. But even with this variable I believe she has great potential. Abadon knows how to move in accordance to her character around the ring. Reports say that Omega loves her and her commitment to the creative process of her character.

My question is simply this...what happens in this match? 
 

I have no idea...and as you know The Shadow I always have an opinion. But I can’t seem to form one on this match. I guess my only concrete thought is something big has to happen as a result of this match. If Shida wins she has to pay a massive cost to herself. Abadon needs to cause damage to Shida..but beyond this I’m perplex how this match goes.

What say you?

Edited by Flair’s Shadow
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I hope I haven’t angered anyone for making a new thread on this one particular match. If it needs to be locked I will understand.

I just find this match very important but I’m not intelligent enough or have the vocabulary I guess to illustrate what I’m thinking. 
 

This just seems to have a big match feel when it comes to the success of the Women’s division early in 2021 for AEW.

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I like Abadon a lot. I think her presentation is good, but could be better somehow. I think it could be more gritty and raw. It’s hard to kayfabe a zombie wrestler, but she could just be a psycho who likes to paint her face. No reason Shida can’t be intimidated by that. 
 

Shida is a very good wrestler, and I think she might be holding back a bit on the stiffness. In my opinion she could be more hard hitting. Really lay those knees in. 
 

as for the match, I don’t know how they finish it. It feels maybe too early for Abadon, but the division does need a kickstart. 

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I'd guess that Shida wins, as AEW has been pretty by the book in choosing champions (Shida's title win at Double or Nothing 2020 probably one of the most surprising, that or Hangman/Kenny winning the tag titles). Also, not quite sure if Abadon is ready to lead the division. I think that the next women's champion will be Britt Baker, and the division could probably use a hot heel like Britt to spark some personal rivalries/battles (maybe Britt wins a number one contender match against Thunder Rosa through nefarious means to keep that feud warm for an early challenger in Britt's reign).

Think that Shida is pretty good in the ring and held up that end of being a champion, but agree that character development has been a bit lacking (Shida has been a formulaic babyface without anything real unique about her). Even though it's been a pretty long championship reign, it has still felt like a pretty transitional reign until someone like Britt can knock her off (and think that the extra seasoning Britt has added in the last year or so has been much needed).

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1 hour ago, Mr Harms said:

I like Abadon a lot. I think her presentation is good, but could be better somehow. I think it could be more gritty and raw. It’s hard to kayfabe a zombie wrestler, but she could just be a psycho who likes to paint her face. No reason Shida can’t be intimidated by that. 

I am right there with you. I didn't understand all the hubbub with folks being put off by Shida being spooked of Abadon. I enjoyed that she showed a little bit of fear and apprehension even though she has otherwise been the stereotypical babyface conqueror. 

If Abadon isn't just a nutjob that likes to play on her own spookiness, then I think she needs a handler. Like a King Curtis / Kevin Sullivan / Sinister Minister kind of vibe. Somebody to keep the madness at bay and do her talking. Although, maybe she is the one in a million kind of person in which the horror movie shtick never gets cheesy.  

Has anyone ever heard her cut a promo?  I just looked at her Cagematch, and she has only 19 career matches listed there. I can't imagine that is the entirety of her career, but she likely hasn't had too many more matches than that. One would think that she's never had much opportunity to cut promos if she has only a year or so in wrestling and only experience in the one local indy. 

I can't see them putting the belt on her with that that kind of inexperience, because if it turns out she's not ready, you have to pretty quickly get the strap off her and that would then undercut her scary monster vibes if you immediately had to have someone beat her.

She's fun as hell, but I think she is the absolute definition of a long term project.  

 

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Those 19 matches are her whole career. She's basically in the same boat as Anna Jay - super young and green, but showed enough potential that AEW signed her despite the fact that she's what the old Wrestling logic would decree as "Not ready for prime time". It's one of those ways that AEW is different than other promotions, they're willing to sign and push people very early in their careers. You'd be surprised how many wrestlers on AEW Dark or Dynamite are under 25 years old. With (for example) Top Flight it's a part of their gimmick that they are 19 and 21, but Alan Angels is only 22. Lee Johnson is 23. And they aren't doing "Young Person" gimmicks, exactly.

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Looking forward to it. Shida is one of my absolute favorites and has been in some of my very top AEW matches the past year. Abadon is a great character. Digging this feud a lot so far so I hope the match delivers. 

 

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Abadon's look creates a lot of goodwill with me. I've enjoyed pretty much everything she's done so far.

I never gave any consideration to her actually winning the title in this match, and really don't think it'll happen, but this thread at least put the idea in my head and I think that'll make the match more enjoyable for me.

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Shida's reign this year has been less than spectacular for reasons in the division that have been talked to death so I won't get into them again. Her matches have generally been very good, I do think she's hitting lighter this year and for good reason, she broke Britt Baker's nose at a very inopportune time (not there's ever a good time, but right at the beginning of the pandemic when they only had four women to work with was particularly bad). The majority of her angles as champ have been issuing open challenges and then winning, which has given her a great if unspectacular record, but now we have her opposite Abadon and she's finally getting something to work with and I think it's improved the match already in that there's something of a hook. Abadon is quite young and new and I'm not sure the gimmick, as fantastically original as it is, is wholly realized enough just yet. For her to be champion, they would need enough smoke and mirror gimmicks to cover for any shortcomings, like being an unknown quantity on the mic or really even having worked enough to have her own solid style. Too early for Abadon imo, unless there's a twist coming that adds to her presentation. I could see them putting the title on her for a change of pace, although I said that about Anna Jay's challenge too (and perhaps that should have been the move but that's hindsight booking). I'd be into a few months of creeping out challengers like Tay Conti until Riho comes roaring back (I just read AEW is protecting Riho in Stardom, which if true means they still have big plans).

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I really think they pulled a Fiend with Abadon where she was new to the show, no one got a chance to get to know her and she got thrown right into the championship mix. Much like when they threw Wyatt right into a tile match with Seth Rollins and they got put into a position to both bury the world champion by having him freak out and then damaging Bray by having him having to get murdered to get him to stay down. People weren't ready for either of those developments and if they have had built Bray with some patience by working in the undercard demolishing people, they could have built to a better payoff. We've already seen AEW following his road map and I'm not sure why they are trying to recreate something so universally panned. Maybe they don't have the faith in Abadon to survive weekly television and think they've only got one feud to work with before the people get wise but that seems deeply cynical.

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crawling to the ring is dumb, doubly so for a theme music run-in, because anyone you're presenting as scared of Abadon would just run away, and anyone who isn't scared would just run up and start stomping her while she's down.  But then, much of this is my general problem with the way run-ins are handled in modern wrestling in general; Abadon crawling to the ring just further exposes what's wrong with the process.

I like the idea of having a woman wrestler have this kind of gimmick just because anytime anyone punches holes in the old idea of them Just Being Eye Candy it's still worthwhile. 

Still too many people who deserve the belt more and unless they're going to do some sort of DQ/injury thing to establish Abadon is a freak/monster who doesn't care about titles and just wants to hurt people in the grand Abdullah The Butcher/Cactus Jack/Moondogs tradition, and give Shida an injury excuse for a loss to (Baker?) in her next major defense, it does feel too early [both in a character and worker sense] to put Abadon in this position.  It'd be fun if she could eventually become a dragon for top faces to slay when they need to stay away from the belt for a while, that's always good to have.
 

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Guest Jimbo_Tsuruta

I'd rather have the Impact ladies running through the division, but if Abadon wins hopefully they go down the "rassler just fucking with people's heads" rather than Fiend 2 Electric Boogaloo as Mr Harms said.

Edited by Jimbo_Tsuruta
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The problem is to whom? Nobody else is ready for the title. You need to be able to elevate your opponents and I don't think anybody can do that better than Shida other than Rosa and do you put your title on an outsider (especially with the Kenny Omega stuff going on with TNA)?

I'm guessing Baker beats Rosa and then cheats to beat Shida for the title. Brit's come a long way but still isn't there in ring imo. 

Edited by Jiji
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1 hour ago, Jiji said:

The problem is to whom? Nobody else is ready for the title. You need to be able to elevate your opponents and I don't think anybody can do that better than Shida other than Rosa and do you put your title on an outsider (especially with the Kenny Omega stuff going on with TNA)?

I'm guessing Baker beats Rosa and then cheats to beat Shida for the title. Brit's come a long way but still isn't there in ring imo. 

I was with you before the leg injury (though the Shida match during the Dynamite mega-tapings era was really good), but think that Britt has improved enough since then to be passable as a champ (and luckily, most of her face opponents like Shida, Thunder Rosa, Serena Deeb, and the joshi girls like Riho when they return are all good workers in their own right). Also, as she incorporates more character work in the ring, you can pull off enough smoke and mirrors for 15 or so minute title matches. 

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The thing that keeps me from going all in on Abadon as champ is that it would require AEW to invest more into their women's division than they have by far and I don't think they're set up for that yet. You need the right combination of timing, coaching, and production to pull off something this gimmick heavy on someone this green as the focus of the division, AEW has shown they can deliver that when they want to so if they go that direction I hope they do it justice.

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