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AEW - APR 2022


The Natural

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I think you should lower expectations significantly. There will be good stuff, but they are not giving away Okada/Dragon here. NJPW would want that one for the Dome. We should be looking at this as the kickoff to a long-term period of cross-promotional stuff. They’re not going to empty the chamber right off the bat.

Punk/Kenta seems like a solid bet, though. Especially if Punk is champ. That means more in the US than Japan, and NJPW probably wouldn’t mind feeding Kenta to AEW’s champ.

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11 hours ago, Infinit said:

This will 10000% sell out

I'd be shocked if this didn't sell out on day one. Chicago is wonderfully easy to travel to, with two good-to-world-class airports, and folks will be coming from all over the country.

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If the card is full of tag and trios matches, it will be a big disappointment. It will be the biggest show in AEW's short history in terms of attendance, and after all the buzz created, they need to live up to the hype. Punk and Danielson need to be in singles matches against the likes of Tanahashi, Okada, Ibushi, ¿Shibata?, ZSJ, Shingo, KENTA...

For example, it doesn't make any sense that they are giving away matches like Danielson vs Suzuki or Moxley vs Suzuki on TV (or Youtube), and in the PPV they book a trios match for the BCC, that would be a disaster.

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This or something similar would be a good kickoff event for the streaming service.

You’d have to figure out how to make it work with NJPW long term, but a bundle of AEW/ROH/NJPW content gets you access to about…a million?…sticky die hard fans. If 75 percent of those subscribe, does 750k subs move the needle enough for an HBO Max (46m current US subs)? WWE Network at its peak was around 2 million at the time of the Peacock deal I believe. 

AEW clearly gets more out of a clean “AEW airs on NJ World in Japan, NJPW airs on AEW Network in the US” transaction than NJPW does, so they’d have to figure it out.

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1 hour ago, EVA said:

I think you should lower expectations significantly. There will be good stuff, but they are not giving away Okada/Dragon here. NJPW would want that one for the Dome. We should be looking at this as the kickoff to a long-term period of cross-promotional stuff. They’re not going to empty the chamber right off the bat.

Punk/Kenta seems like a solid bet, though. Especially if Punk is champ. That means more in the US than Japan, and NJPW probably wouldn’t mind feeding Kenta to AEW’s champ.

My guess is that the show will largely be AEW vs AEW and NJPW vs NJPW with a couple big cross promotional matches thrown in there.

My guess is that with the way they framed the show as a Bullet Club/Elite deal last night those matches will probably be Punk/KENTA, Hangman/White and Okada/Cole

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5 minutes ago, ThatTCGuy said:

My guess is that the show will largely be AEW vs AEW and NJPW vs NJPW with a couple big cross promotional matches thrown in there.

My guess is that with the way they framed the show as a Bullet Club/Elite deal last night those matches will probably be Punk/KENTA, Hangman/White and Okada/Cole

Putting Hanger and Jay back together could be dangerous. They had a gonzo match back in 2018. Frightened to think of what they might try to do with higher expectations now.

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We were just about to pull the trigger on tickets to AEW in Milwaukee, but the supershow is just a couple of days later and a little farther away so now I'm thinking about that.  Although the thought of trying to deal with parking and then maneuvering a wheelchair around the United Center is giving me pause.

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1 hour ago, Pete said:

I'd be shocked if this didn't sell out on day one. Chicago is wonderfully easy to travel to, with two good-to-world-class airports, and folks will be coming from all over the country.

Midway is a nightmare, but Ohare is nice at least. Midway is cheaper to fly into I believe while Ohare more and more becomes a giant hub for Spirit airlines.

Also, fuck Spirit airlines. Fuck them so hard. As hard as the cheap plastic seats you have to sit on on their flights.

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31 minutes ago, Jiji said:

Who should win the two Owen tournaments?

I could see it being Lee and Storm. I would very much like it to be Andrade and Hayter.

I think Cole wins. He lost the title feud so this is the way to repair him as a top guy in a KOTR 93 Bret Hart sort of way.

As for who SHOULD win, I like the idea of using it to take Andrade to the next level. I think you either go that way or you make it a real sentimental favorite. Who is the most Owen-y guy on the AEW roster. There are more 1988 Owens than 1995 Owens on the roster maybe (with Cole potentially being the closest to a 1995 Owen actually, as much as I hate admitting it).

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When thinking about possible cross-promotional matches for this show, I think a useful lens may be to consider: 1) Would this match mean more in America than Japan? And 2) How damaging would it be to the potential loser’s promotion?

In that light, Okada vs. Cole would make a lot of sense. Cole never really got to the point of being a big deal in NJPW, so he’d be a pretty mid-tier defense for Okada in Japan, but would obviously be a big draw for AEW fans. And he’s already just been used to thoroughly put over AEW’s champ, so dropping a fall to New Japan’s champ doesn’t really negatively impact anything AEW has imminently cooking.

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What’s funny about Punk/KENTA is that it would be a better match now than it would’ve been 15 years ago. Prime Punk trying to keep up with KENTA at his peak had a high chance of getting ugly. But brokendown KENTA who has to rely on a lot of shtick fits in perfectly with Old Man Punk’s style.

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2 hours ago, EVA said:

When thinking about possible cross-promotional matches for this show, I think a useful lens may be to consider: 1) Would this match mean more in America than Japan? And 2) How damaging would it be to the potential loser’s promotion?

In that light, Okada vs. Cole would make a lot of sense. Cole never really got to the point of being a big deal in NJPW, so he’d be a pretty mid-tier defense for Okada in Japan, but would obviously be a big draw for AEW fans. And he’s already just been used to thoroughly put over AEW’s champ, so dropping a fall to New Japan’s champ doesn’t really negatively impact anything AEW has imminently cooking.

On the one hand, I want less Adam Cole on my TV. On the other hand, I enjoy watching him lose.

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3 hours ago, Matt D said:

I think Cole wins. He lost the title feud so this is the way to repair him as a top guy in a KOTR 93 Bret Hart sort of way.

As for who SHOULD win, I like the idea of using it to take Andrade to the next level. I think you either go that way or you make it a real sentimental favorite. Who is the most Owen-y guy on the AEW roster. There are more 1988 Owens than 1995 Owens on the roster maybe (with Cole potentially being the closest to a 1995 Owen actually, as much as I hate admitting it).

1988 Owen? Dante Martin, him winning puts his solidly at the TNT title level and he's someone they are building too. 1995 Owen Jungle Boy

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12 minutes ago, southofheavy said:

That's how you end up with an Orange Cassidy/Ishii team. 

I'm okay with that.

I saw that tagteam live in Norfolk.  CAssidy was a GREAT Ricky Morton and Ishii was a GREAT Tomohiro Ishii.

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