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AEW Dynamite - 5/12/2021


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19 hours ago, Casey said:

The whole angle just feels weird. Why did Ogogo need to cover him with the Union Jack, and not, say, a flag with the Factory’s new logo on it or something?

Simple provocation. We all know how Cody feels about unions.

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3 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

You should make it up to her by taking her to see KA or The Beatles LOVE the next time you're in Vegas. 

I'll throw out a recommendation for KA. Took my girl to see it last time we were in Vegas and enjoyed it a lot

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22 hours ago, tbarrie said:

The rankings are an excellent story-telling tool IMO. Like any story-telling tool, they should be used in a way that serves the needs of the larger story, of course. And it's nice if there's some in-universe explanation they can point to that explains why person A is ranked higher than person B. But complete consistency is not needed. If they could come up with a rigorous formula for the rankings and keep to it while still getting results that drive the story they want to tell, that would be both neat and impressive. But that's above-and-beyond stuff.

Regarding your specific example - Page dropped below Cage in the rankings because he lost to Cage. I can't imagine anything more simple and logical than that. And Moxley's raw numbers are almost as good as Page's, but his lone loss is to the champ while Page lost to the #3 contender. So Moxley being ranked higher than Page doesn't strike me as a problem either.

Tony Khan compared AEW’s ranking to the college football rankings, so if you just look at it like that it makes sense.

There’s not an exact formula but you in college football, know that who you beat and how you beat them or vice versa will have an impact on your rankings.

Losing big to a team ranked below you will usually cause a bigger drop than losing a close game to a team ranked above. But it’s determined by people who have biases, so they might be more forgiving of an SEC team than a PAC 12, for example.

I like AEW’s rankings system as it is and think down the road they might even be able to come up with a storyline out of it.

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I am flabbergasted by that tweet that @DreamBroken just posted. Hopefully this is part of a long term.storytelling heel turn. But, probably not. Yikes. All you Cody haters are gonna need a bigger bandwagon because there might be a lot more people jumping on there soon.

 

The upcoming Dynamite looks like a pretty good cool-down episode:

Mox & King v Acclaimed

Christian v Evan Bourne

Ogogo v Austin Gunn

Bucks v Blonds

Deeb v Velvet for the NWA strap!

 

 

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On 5/14/2021 at 11:28 AM, Custos said:

On balance, I enjoy Jericho’s stuff more than I don’t. That said, I feel he often falls into bucket 1 of my arbitrary 3-part recipe for AEW (maybe to be expanded in the navel-gazing thread):

1. Tony’s love letter to his favourite childhood memories e.g. 90’s ECW, FMW, Attitude Era WWF

...

I would personally love less of 1, more of 2 and 3.

You get a Texas-sized 10-4 from me on this one. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the stuff that I like the least about AEW is almost always the stuff that is influenced by 90s ECW and Attitude Era WWF. 

Obviously, I don't have the slightest idea how to book an international pro wrestling company... but if it were up to me mt basic credo would be this: Always ask yourself "What would Vince McMahon and the WWE do?" and then do something else.

In other words:

Spoiler

 

 

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I'm not that mad about Cody's promo. Being a tone deaf American who thinks he's a babyface is art imitating life. Obviously I know it's pretty reality based. It will polarize people, get people talking. Is that really a bad thing? I'm willing to let the is play out. Sure, it could go off the rails if not managed correctly by TK, but I want to see how this goes long term.

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On 5/14/2021 at 11:20 PM, Ryan Faulconer said:

A) 10 wins is 10 wins is 10 wins.  What is the problem?  IF fans/non-fan viewing audience don’t watch at least some matches from Dark/Diet Dark how do you know they haven’t earned their rank/wins?

There are usually pretty good matches on days besides Wednesday/4 Sundays a year.   AEW could fudge things a little by making a Top 5 ranking for the TNT Title.  We could get into problems with someone being “first among equals” with separate rankings if they added another contender list.

B) AEW theoretically wants to be different from the last twenty years.  Endless rematches are on the other channel.  Super pushes like Jinder or JBL don’t come out of obscurity to win the top titles.

C) In boxing the champ fights someone besides the most obvious challenger in a majority of their defenses.  AEW has only had shows for two years.  They don’t have a history to draw from in feuds or rivalries.  There are only so many upper Midcard or higher.  If you aren’t Moxley, MIRO, Archer, Cody, MJF, Jericho, Hangman, Kingston, Christian,  Darby, Omega or Rey Fenix you have less than zero chance at the AEW World Title.  Split that list in half if you want that match in doubt at all.  

The rankings are what they are.  The Top 5 is just giving guys that aren’t considered stars by the masses who need some storyline credibility.

D) AEW could fix a lot of things.  The Top 5s are fine like they are.  Hopefully, if the Blondes can win this week the tag division will open up a bit more.  They will definitely lose star caliber title matches.  If the Bucks lose they can have a lot more parity after you get past YBs and FTR.  Of the thirtyish regular working tag teams there is the top two and then maybe at least ten more teams that would be good challengers.  FTR and the YBs need to put some teams over or they will always be the only full time teams worth the gold.

I added the highlighted letters to the quote to make it easier to relate what I'm saying to what was written. I hope it will make it easier to follow!

A) The problem is that only a 1/3 of AEW's audience watches Dark and/or Elevation so the majority of them have never seen The Varsity Blondes win a match. The idea that they are the top contender1s means no one other than The Young Bucks have won a meaningful tag match on Dynamite in months and in hindsight, I think this might actually be true. A glance puts the last "Tag Team Division" team to win a match was The Jurassic Express more than a month ago against Bear Country. If you actually look The Blondes, beating the AEW equivalent of Barry Hardy and Dwayne Gill doesn't seem to make them worthy of being contenders. If AEW is going to build a true division, the teams in the division not going for the title should be involved in their own things. 

B) If the Blondes win the tag titles Wednesday, that's completely out of nowhere. Remember Dynamite watchers have never seen them win a match.

C) Your 'non zero' list is 12 people long and missed Pac and I wouldn't think it insane if someone added Orange Cassidy. That's HUGE for a promotion and I would argue most successful organizations historically usually center around a lead babyface or heel with a rotating cast of antagonists. Maybe you don't need the field to be so wide open that anyone can be champion tomorrow. Maybe you want to set up a tier system where the (pardon the expression) elite are allowed to go on runs.

D) The Blondes winning the tag titles from anything other than Moxley/Kingston interference is laughable. You are correct that they need to be developing more of their teams but they aren't interested in promoting any of them other than The Bucks. FTR and Santana/Ortiz have been put on the side in their faction battle, The Jurassic Express are doing nothing, Private Party is doing nothing, The Acclaimed are doing nothing...

I just don't understand when you have so much talent on your roster that your additional 4 hours of content a week is so absurdly skippable. Run angles on Dark show highlights on Dynamite and build your roster up by having them do something. Even if The Varsity Blondes pad their records against Baron Black and Ryzing, you involve them in an angle with The Acclaimed and both sides should get over more as a result.

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2 hours ago, Infinit said:

I'm not that mad about Cody's promo. Being a tone deaf American who thinks he's a babyface is art imitating life. Obviously I know it's pretty reality based. It will polarize people, get people talking. Is that really a bad thing? I'm willing to let the is play out. Sure, it could go off the rails if not managed correctly by TK, but I want to see how this goes long term.

Plays out? Long term? The whole point of the angle is so he can call himself The American Dream once, and so the crowd pops hard when he's  announced. He's probably going to beat Ogogo with a Cross Rhodes, and that'll be that. Maybe he'll lose to set up him leaving when the baby comes, but either way, I don't expect the angle to last past Double or Nothing.

I think people are making far too much out of this angle and the promo. It's just a little program to give Ogogo some shine and Cody something to do. The promo was cringey, as is the angle, but ultimately meaningless.

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16 hours ago, El Gran Gordi said:

You get a Texas-sized 10-4 from me on this one. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the stuff that I like the least about AEW is almost always the stuff that is influenced by 90s ECW and Attitude Era WWF.

So what you're saying is ... maybe ... Tony Kahn ... should run AEW like a business? ?

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2 hours ago, Goodear said:

A) The problem is that only a 1/3 of AEW's audience watches Dark and/or Elevation so the majority of them have never seen The Varsity Blondes win a match.

They should really do 30 second highlight packages of these wins before they come out on TNT.

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28 minutes ago, Dog said:

So what you're saying is ... maybe ... Tony Kahn ... should run AEW like a business? ?

Good point, but: Nope. 

I'm just saying what I personally would prefer (or in this case, agreeing wholeheartedly with what @Custos said he'd "personally love." )

That is not the same as saying what Tony Khan should do. Discussing is not the same as demanding change, in my opinion.

By all means, Tony Khan should keep running AEW as a labour of love. No reason for him to give a shit what I'd prefer. AEW already has my Fite subscription and t-shirt/hoodie money. AEW does enough stuff I like. I'm not going to love everything they do and that is OK.

I imagine that if they started to focus-group everything and LCD their "product" and try to please everyone it would kill what makes AEW great and I would completely lose interest (like I have with WWE). If they ran the company specifically to please me (or, say, to please Goodear) I'd have to imagine they'd end up pissing off everyone else who's watching. I'd absolutely hate Goodear's version of AEW, and it's pretty likely he'd really hate mine.

 

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1 hour ago, mystman said:

Plays out? Long term? The whole point of the angle is so he can call himself The American Dream once, and so the crowd pops hard when he's  announced. He's probably going to beat Ogogo with a Cross Rhodes, and that'll be that. [b]Maybe he'll lose to set up him leaving when the baby comes,[/b] but either way, I don't expect the angle to last past Double or Nothing.

I think people are making far too much out of this angle and the promo. It's just a little program to give Ogogo some shine and Cody something to do. The promo was cringey, as is the angle, but ultimately meaningless.

I think you're crazy if you think Cody's not going to be on TV every week WITH his baby after said baby is born.  He's going to have "major announcements" about when she takes her first steps.  Probably a major feud with Raven so he can take out his anger on having to put together an Even-Flo crib.

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33 minutes ago, caley said:

I think you're crazy if you think Cody's not going to be on TV every week WITH his baby after said baby is born.  He's going to have "major announcements" about when she takes her first steps.  Probably a major feud with Raven so he can take out his anger on having to put together an Even-Flo crib.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I was talking about the rah-rah Murica stuff. He's probably going to be in six-person mixed tag matches with the kid and Brandy within four years.

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Shitposting aside, do people really think Cody isn't going to take this opportunity to be written off TV? I mean, it's not like he's been around a ton lately anyway, and it builds up Ogogo, and leaves open the possibility in the future for Cody to return to get his win back or whatever. I know we all like to shit on Cody, and I did it for that fucking stupid pro-USA promo, but I see his match at Double or Nothing opening the show (because it's Cody, and he'll be the first one out for sure) and it also not lasting very long to put over the fact that Ogogo is a fucking beast and they're going to push him. I'm not going to compare him to Brodie Lee, because that's not fair to Ogogo, but I see this match playing out a lot like Brodie/Cody the first time around. Just a squash to put over how dangerous the bigger guy is.

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