The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

There's a lot going on in the world of wrestling this weekend that I could talk about (particularly on the Japanese side of things with two big tournaments). For AEW focused people like reprise though, in addition to Collision, Battle of the Belts, and Utami Hayashista making her presence felt in AEW/ROH, Mexico is doing a AAA show. I have no idea why QT Marshall and Penta El Ciero Miedo are having an ambulance match, but I'm hearing it's really great. Also, Kenny Omega is gonna take on El Hijo del Vikingo and there's no way that match won't be awesome. We saw what those two were able to do on Dynamite a few months ago. Tony Kahn has been featuring a lot of great luchadors of late.

I think Kenny is going after the AAA Mega title, which I think Vikingo still holds.

[Raging Justice]

Bloodline angle makes history, at least according to Meltzer

"The Bloodline angle and trial of Roman Reigns set what is believed to be a first in the 75 or so years that pro wrestling has been on television with the 7/7 show from Madison Square Garden.

This is believed to be the first week in history that the No. 1 show for the week in English network television was a pro wrestling show."

https://www.f4wonline.com/newsletters/w ... nd-preview

[Reprise]

Blood and Guts was ehhhh, it was ok. The match was very bloody and went on way too long with far too much of guys just waiting around doing nothing, waiting for spots. It was very clumsy, especially the Buckshot Lariat against Claudio towards the end. Claudio just stood there for what felt like an hour for him waiting for the spot. The dude didn't even look dazed. The weapons were just silly. I think I said it after Revolution 2023 when Mox and Page had their match that I am not really into that style of wrestling anymore (you know, just stabbing eachother with forks and screwdrivers )

In WWE, even during the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression eras, they would build up to these violent spots and there would be a methodical pace. I am not really a fan of "let's just carry forks and screwdrivers to the ring and start stabbing eachother and finding what other garbage we can find under the ring".

FTR vs Bullet Club Gold on Saturday was about a million times better than this.

Still, overall it was a fun match and we had some interesting developments through the match. We had Claudio and Pac not being sure if they can trust eachother which culminates in Pac walking out on the BCC. Then Don Callis pulls Takeshita out and it basically becomes 5 vs 3.

Overall 3/5 and that's probably being generous.

Collision is consistently being better than Dynamite each week at the moment.

MJF and Adam Cole continue to be entertaining as hell. Looking forward to them facing FTR for the tag belts in just over a week. It'll be interesting to see if they pull the trigger on them breaking up in the match/post match or if they will continue for a while, since they are so over as a team. It would be interesting if they won and MJF became a double champion.

I keep thinking this is a way of turning Cole heel and MJF face, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Raging Justice]

Blood and Guts was ehhhh, it was ok. The match was very bloody and went on way too long with far too much of guys just waiting around doing nothing, waiting for spots. It was very clumsy, especially the Buckshot Lariat against Claudio towards the end. Claudio just stood there for what felt like an hour for him waiting for the spot. The dude didn't even look dazed. The weapons were just silly. I think I said it after Revolution 2023 when Mox and Page had their match that I am not really into that style of wrestling anymore (you know, just stabbing eachother with forks and screwdrivers )

In WWE, even during the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression eras, they would build up to these violent spots and there would be a methodical pace. I am not really a fan of "let's just carry forks and screwdrivers to the ring and start stabbing eachother and finding what other garbage we can find under the ring".

FTR vs Bullet Club Gold on Saturday was about a million times better than this.

Still, overall it was a fun match and we had some interesting developments through the match. We had Claudio and Pac not being sure if they can trust eachother which culminates in Pac walking out on the BCC. Then Don Callis pulls Takeshita out and it basically becomes 5 vs 3.

Overall 3/5 and that's probably being generous.

Collision is consistently being better than Dynamite each week at the moment.

MJF and Adam Cole continue to be entertaining as hell. Looking forward to them facing FTR for the tag belts in just over a week. It'll be interesting to see if they pull the trigger on them breaking up in the match/post match or if they will continue for a while, since they are so over as a team. It would be interesting if they won and MJF became a double champion.

I keep thinking this is a way of turning Cole heel and MJF face, but we'll have to wait and see.

So I have some thoughts about the violence. I think AEW overdoes it, and people are getting a bit numb to it. Moxley hasn't helped matters with his obsession with blood. I think also some of the stuff they do in these matches just looks too fake. I mean after the Elite had forks and screw drivers used on them, I remember not even seeing any blood on Hangman's face. All that being said though, as is often the case when some of us complain about something online, the live crowd seemed to dig the match.

WWE arguably has a better approach to gimmick matches (though it's a debatable point). If you watch the Viking Rules match from this week's Raw with Alpha Academy vs the Viking Raiders, the focus in that match was more on fun, creative, spots than it was on blood and violence. WWE doesn't really do blood anymore (not intentionally at least), so no DQ, anything goes, matches tend to focus more on creative spots using whatever weapons are available than straight blood and gore. A great example of this was the good old fashioned donnybrook match between Sheamus and Drew Mcintyre from last year. No Blood, no excessive violence, but a really fun match in spite of that because they just did fun stuff. WWE's Money in the Bank ladder matches are a great example too like the awesome one from the men we got at the last pay per view. When the focus in on creativity versus pure violence, you arguably get better matches. Again though, it's debatable...because some people really do enjoy the blood and violence. I guess I'm sort of playing devil's advocate.

I was a bit busy while Blood & Guts was on, so I missed some parts of it. However, Ibushi seemed like he maybe had some ring rust or something. He did one of his knee moves on Moxley I think and missed by a mile and the camera unfortunately caught it, and Mox sold it anyway. A few other things in the match were a bit off too so I don't want to pick on Ibushi specifically, but he seemed a bit out of his element. Pac's table spot after hanging from the cage was cool. The story of members of the BBC deserting them was cool and I like Mox essentially giving up because AEW tends to make him look too strong, him doing it for Yuta was a nice touch too. I can't believe I heard a "We want fire" chant from the crowd. They never got that though

I think Lucha Underground used to do violent matches better, though they also had the luxury of editing stuff since everything was pre-taped. So you could trim matches down or edit out botches. LU was very story driven so a lot of stuff that happened in those violent matches had meaning, the matches themselves even had meaning. I'll give some examples (apologies if this gets a bit long). Two ladies had an I Quit match because one of them had been tortured by the other as part of an ongoing story line so making her say "I Quit" was a way to get back her power and sense of control from her abuser. This match led to the two ladies at one point fighting high up in the rafters above the crowd and literally bleeding on them at one point (it was reigning blood like that Slayer song LOL). LU audiences didn't seem to mind this sort of thing as crazy as that may sound, but this was long before covid after all. Anyway, they teased the threat of one of these ladies falling off and probably dying or being maimed at the very least. It honestly felt like epic cinema. The match also featured what I believe was the only instance of an F bomb in LU, when the baby face refused to say I Quit to her abuser by yellowing out, "FUCK YOU!!!!". After a gigantic pop from the crowd, she turned the tables on her opponent and eventually got her in a submission move forcing her to desperately scream out, "NO MAS!!!", which is Spanish for I Quit...well, actually it means "no more" but whatever. It was a "No Mas" match

LU also had one of best casket matches I have ever seen. Fenix, who we are all familiar with in AEW now, had a casket match with Mil Muertes, who was like a lucha version of WWE's Undertaker. Fenix had this gimmick of the man with 1000 lives, while Mil Muertes was death incarnate (the deliverer of 1000 deaths), so a casket match made sense. Also, there was a bit of a love triangle involving these two guys and a lady named Katrina, so that made the match personal, which of course meant, blood and violence. In fact, their first casket match was maybe the first time in LU we saw REAL blood and violence on that show. Fenix was one of the top babyfaces in LU (along with the man now known as Ricochet in WWE and the woman from the previous paragraph). That match sky rocketed him to stardom outside of Mexico.

Killshot, today known as Swerve Strickland, had a "Hell of War" match with AR Fox, because their story line was that of two former soldiers, and AR Fox believed that Killshot had at one point in time left him and his friends for dead on the battlefield. This match got so violent at one point you saw a piece of Fox's flesh come off his back and was left on a table.

Penta EL Ciero Miedo had a match where he won after putting someone through a flaming table, that guy was so impressed by Penta's sadism that he then became Penta's mentor.

Penta had another match that I mentioned here once, a gauntlet match against three women from Stardom and a fourth woman who never got in the ring with him but was leading the other three. At the end of the match (well it was more like three back to back matches really) this woman, along with a male luchador who showed up after the match was over, broke both of Penta's arms. This was after months of Penta breaking the arms of every opponent he beat in a match. These two in particular had held a grudge against Penta and finally got their payback.

In AEW, we see crazy stuff all the time like people putting screwdrivers and forks into each other. Well, one guy in LU had his trademark cigar put into his eye when his pals turned on him. From that point forward, he ALWAYS wore an eyepatch whenever we saw him.

The point of me talking about all this is that violence had meaning in Lucha Underground. Many of the most violent matches were personal in nature. This was also a time when violence on pro wrestling television was not common, a time before AEW arguably oversaturated us with violence, so those matches really left an impact on viewers.

Anyway, I won't keep waxing poetic about Lucha Underground, but it was a great show that many wrestling fans missed out on.

I think one of the best violent matches in AEW was a street fight with Anna Jay/Tay Conti vs Penelope Ford/The Bunny on an episode of Rampage. I think it was the New Years Smash. You know why this match was awesome? For one thing, it was short. It did not overstay it's welcome. They hit their big spots and then called it a night. They hit everything perfect too aside from a botch from Penelope that actually made the spot look more brutal as a result. Another reason it was great, Penelope and The Bunny had been abusing Tay and Anna for months constantly attacking them with brass knuckles at every opportunity. This match was not only a chance to even the score, but for Anna and Tay to show that they could be bad girls and get nasty with weapons too. They had something to prove. Also, The psychotic facial expressions the Bunny was making after getting her face covered in blood looked liked something out of a horror movie. Forget Alexa Bliss, this is the woman that should have been paired up with Bray Wyatt in WWE.



If felt as iconic as that bloody shot of Britt Baker's face in her Lights Out match with Thunder Rosa or the bloody face that first got Becky Lynch over as "The Man". Another thing that makes me remember that match to this day was that hilarious moment when Penelope first saw The Bunny's face covered in blood, screamed in horror, then said, "Uh, it's okay honey. You're still beautiful"

Such a perfect, character driven moment between the two blond Barbie dolls who you knew valued their looks. That's the kind of stuff that makes matches even more memorable to me. That Street Fight is still one of my all time favorite AEW matches.

Anyway, I may have to begrudgingly check out that 2 out 3 falls match from Collision. I hate FTR, especially Dax Harwood (he's such a whiner and a crybaby on social media), but I can't deny they have kickass tag matches with pretty much everyone. That was true even back when they were in NXT as The Revival.

I kind of don't want to see Adam Cole and MJF break up as a team at this point, but it seems kind of inevitable.

[Reprise]

So I have some thoughts about the violence. I think AEW overdoes it, and people are getting a bit numb to it. Moxley hasn't helped matters with his obsession with blood. I think also some of the stuff they do in these matches just looks too fake. I mean after the Elite had forks and screw drivers used on them, I remember not even seeing any blood on Hangman's face.

Yes, I meant to mention that too! Both Omega (I think) and Page got "stabbed" with forks and screwdrivers not long after Moxley entered and the cameras cut to Page afterwards and he didn't have even a scratch on him let alone blood. Page was also hit in the torso with either a screwdriver or fork and the commentary team sold it "he's stabbing Adam Page in the chest!!!" and again, not even a scratch afterwards. Did those guys forget their blades or something?

Anyways, your whole post was spot on. I used to watch bits and pieces of Lucha Underground and really enjoyed it. I don't think I ever saw that I Quit match though unfortunately. It sounds amazing.

I find myself in a weird place where I got frustrated with WWE being overly PG now (it just doesn't seem realistic in wrestling, where it's supposed to be a combat sport, where individuals feud and hate eachother and then there's barely any violence) but also feel that AEW just way overdoes it. You're right about the live crowds having different opinions though. One point during the Blood and Guts match they were chanting "fight forever" and I verbally had to say "please don't"

As for the two out of three falls tag match, I feel you'll either be in the category that it's amazing or the "it's overrated" crowd. I can understand the latter though, because I am in that crowd for the Forbidden Door Omega vs Ospreay match.

[Raging Justice]

So I have some thoughts about the violence. I think AEW overdoes it, and people are getting a bit numb to it. Moxley hasn't helped matters with his obsession with blood. I think also some of the stuff they do in these matches just looks too fake. I mean after the Elite had forks and screw drivers used on them, I remember not even seeing any blood on Hangman's face.

Yes, I meant to mention that too! Both Omega (I think) and Page got "stabbed" with forks and screwdrivers not long after Moxley entered and the cameras cut to Page afterwards and he didn't have even a scratch on him let alone blood. Page was also hit in the torso with either a screwdriver or fork and the commentary team sold it "he's stabbing Adam Page in the chest!!!" and again, not even a scratch afterwards. Did those guys forget their blades or something?

Anyways, your whole post was spot on. I used to watch bits and pieces of Lucha Underground and really enjoyed it. I don't think I ever saw that I Quit match though unfortunately. It sounds amazing.

I find myself in a weird place where I got frustrated with WWE being overly PG now (it just doesn't seem realistic in wrestling, where it's supposed to be a combat sport, where individuals feud and hate eachother and then there's barely any violence) but also feel that AEW just way overdoes it. You're right about the live crowds having different opinions though. One point during the Blood and Guts match they were chanting "fight forever" and I verbally had to say "please don't"

As for the two out of three falls tag match, I feel you'll either be in the category that it's amazing or the "it's overrated" crowd. I can understand the latter though, because I am in that crowd for the Forbidden Door Omega vs Ospreay match.

Believe it or not, I still haven't watched Omega vs Osprey yet

I try and keep up with a bunch of stuff in wrestling so I don't have time to watch everything. I did enjoy watching a match between Mike Bailey and Yoshihiko in GCW though that was supposedly poking fun at the match. I think I posted a small clip from it in a previous post.

I think that I Quit match I mentioned is on youtube in full. I have to mention though, Dulce Maria García Rivas (a.k.a. Sexy Star in Lucha Underground) has a bit of a bad rep these days as she legit hurt a wrestler in a match some time in 2017. Apparently, some other ladies were giving her a lot of grief and I guess she took out that anger on her opponent in that match who I don't think had anything to do with those other ladies who were bullying Dulce. Wrong place, wrong time I guess. Dulce got black listed from a lot of wrestling companies after that and I think end up pursuing some stuff in MMA.

There's actually a completely different woman wrestling under the Sexy Star moniker in AAA today.

I still love some of Dulce's work in Lucha Underground regardless though. Like you once said, a lot of wrestlers have some dark stuff in their past. Anyway, I think that I Quit match was probably her best in Lucha Underground. Here it is:

[Raging Justice]

Tony Kahn's amazing. He has Utami Hayashista on ROH, a former Stardom World champion who has had one hour long matches during her title reign. Not only is she in a match with a nobody, but she got the "already in the ring" treatment meaning we didn't get to see her ring entrance at all. WOW

Way to make a major joshi star just seem like a nobody. You know for all the flak Vince McMahon gets and despite some of the accusations we've heard about him, these days if feels like WWE does women's wrestling better than Tony Kahn does. I mean, check out Kairi's debut in WWE:



or Asuka's



Though I guess you can credit Triple H for all of that. He knows who the big stars outside of WWE are and he would never present someone like Utami in such a lukewarm way.

[Reprise]

The only thing I didn't like about Asuka in WWE was she was massively over, had this huge streak and then they had her against Charlotte at Mania (which was a great match, if I remember correctly), but they had to have Charlotte go over, just like they always do, despite her not needing the win.

Now you mentioned that stuff regarding Dulce, I remember reading all the controversy back when it happened. Sounds messed up. I remember loving her work in Lucha Underground though, so will definitely check out that I Quit match.

Haven't been able to watch Collision yet, as I let my AEW+ subscription on Fite expire at the weekend. Not sure I like AEW enough to continue with paying a monthly fee when we get all the shows on free TV a few days later anyways. I saw they got a big spike with the ratings for Blood and Guts, so good for them. I assume it's a temporary spike, since, you know, it's a War Games match on free TV, but it does seem it was a reasonable success for them. Meltzer gave the match 4.75/5, which seems overly generous, but we all know the guy loves AEW and The Elite.

Speaking of women's wrestling and AEW's division, it really sucks that they don't seem to know how to use their female roster. They have plenty of talent, but the women are always an afterthought. Blood and Guts had one women's match and it lasted a couple of minutes. Why? Apparently it was only put on, because they knew people would complain if there was no women's match, so they just threw something quick together. That just seems disrespectful. Britt Baker was doing interviews and said she wants to do a women's Blood and Guts match, I hope Tony listens.

With all these WB discussions going on and rumours of them wanting more PPVs, I wonder if it's the end of Blood and Guts being on free TV. They could probably make it a PPV.

I do think AEW needs some kind of gimmick ideas for PPVs to help differentiate their PPVs and also help give storylines a natural kind of pacing. I always thought WWE really overdid it and it got really silly once they started doing HIAC, TLC and Extreme Rules PPVs. That said, stuff like MITB, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series help keep this kind of consistent pacing going on throughout the year. You always know what you're building towards and it's exciting building to the anticipation of who will win the Royal Rumble and following the build towards Wrestlemania, which then has this feeling of being a season finale. Similarly it's exciting building towards the MITB winner and wondering which stars will break through the glass ceiling.

I understand AEW originally said they wanted each of the 4 main PPVs to feel big and all be equals and that they also wanted to limit them to not oversaturate, concentrate on quality over quantity and allow storylines time to breath, but it's kind of not really working in my opinion. AEW PPVs stopped feeling exciting around Revolution 2022 I feel. I don't know why, but they just started feeling very samey after that. Despite only having a few littered through the year, a couple of times now things have ended up feeling kind of rushed with weak builds and I wonder... how? You have weeks to build to this stuff.

Look at All In! 76,000ish tickets sold, one of the biggest wrestling events probably ever and not a single match announced yet. On the one hand, well done. On the other, it's now a month away and where's the build? What storylines are being developed? Maybe I am premature with this criticism and plenty of Manias have had poor builds and cobbled together cards (and still been very awesome. This year's Mania is probably a reasonable example of that)

They're probably just going to shove Ospreay and Omega together again and wait for Dave's 7 stars

[Raging Justice]

You know, wrestling is really weird sometimes. So like, Utami is back from America. Apparently, some big amazon looking woman that she knows nothing about just...followed her to Japan...like a pet.

Oh, and she also happens to be a Greek goddess...who wants a shot at Tam Nakano's world title



Welp, still more story telling than any woman in AEW has had in weeks

The funniest part is that after the "goddess" beats the crap out of Tam, Utami (completely deadpan) cuts a little promo and then casually calls out Mayu Iwatani and challenges her for the New Japan women's title while Tam is still on the mat

After that business is done, Tam then awkwardly has to pick her self up and do a promo to close out the show while Mayu hilariously cheers her on

Only in the world of pro wrestling. Links below (with subtitles):

[Raging Justice]

The only thing I didn't like about Asuka in WWE was she was massively over, had this huge streak and then they had her against Charlotte at Mania (which was a great match, if I remember correctly), but they had to have Charlotte go over, just like they always do, despite her not needing the win.

Now you mentioned that stuff regarding Dulce, I remember reading all the controversy back when it happened. Sounds messed up. I remember loving her work in Lucha Underground though, so will definitely check out that I Quit match.

Haven't been able to watch Collision yet, as I let my AEW+ subscription on Fite expire at the weekend. Not sure I like AEW enough to continue with paying a monthly fee when we get all the shows on free TV a few days later anyways. I saw they got a big spike with the ratings for Blood and Guts, so good for them. I assume it's a temporary spike, since, you know, it's a War Games match on free TV, but it does seem it was a reasonable success for them. Meltzer gave the match 4.75/5, which seems overly generous, but we all know the guy loves AEW and The Elite.

Speaking of women's wrestling and AEW's division, it really sucks that they don't seem to know how to use their female roster. They have plenty of talent, but the women are always an afterthought. Blood and Guts had one women's match and it lasted a couple of minutes. Why? Apparently it was only put on, because they knew people would complain if there was no women's match, so they just threw something quick together. That just seems disrespectful. Britt Baker was doing interviews and said she wants to do a women's Blood and Guts match, I hope Tony listens.

With all these WB discussions going on and rumours of them wanting more PPVs, I wonder if it's the end of Blood and Guts being on free TV. They could probably make it a PPV.

I do think AEW needs some kind of gimmick ideas for PPVs to help differentiate their PPVs and also help give storylines a natural kind of pacing. I always thought WWE really overdid it and it got really silly once they started doing HIAC, TLC and Extreme Rules PPVs. That said, stuff like MITB, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series help keep this kind of consistent pacing going on throughout the year. You always know what you're building towards and it's exciting building to the anticipation of who will win the Royal Rumble and following the build towards Wrestlemania, which then has this feeling of being a season finale. Similarly it's exciting building towards the MITB winner and wondering which stars will break through the glass ceiling.

I understand AEW originally said they wanted each of the 4 main PPVs to feel big and all be equals and that they also wanted to limit them to not oversaturate, concentrate on quality over quantity and allow storylines time to breath, but it's kind of not really working in my opinion. AEW PPVs stopped feeling exciting around Revolution 2022 I feel. I don't know why, but they just started feeling very samey after that. Despite only having a few littered through the year, a couple of times now things have ended up feeling kind of rushed with weak builds and I wonder... how? You have weeks to build to this stuff.

Look at All In! 76,000ish tickets sold, one of the biggest wrestling events probably ever and not a single match announced yet. On the one hand, well done. On the other, it's now a month away and where's the build? What storylines are being developed? Maybe I am premature with this criticism and plenty of Manias have had poor builds and cobbled together cards (and still been very awesome. This year's Mania is probably a reasonable example of that)

They're probably just going to shove Ospreay and Omega together again and wait for Dave's 7 stars

The feeling I get from AEW these days is a very familiar one that I used to get years ago from WWE. It's that feeling of complacency. That feeling of, "we have our core audience so we don't really have to try anymore"

I don't know what it is, but the roles shifted a bit between the two companies. WWE isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels like they are trying these days. AEW is coasting, happy to be "just good enough" to keep their core fans happy and keep the TV network happy. That's not to say there isn't quality stuff coming from AEW. There's Cassidy's title run. There's MJF/Cole, and there's Collision for the five people who actually watch it. However, nothing really feels big or exciting.

WWE is properly building up things. The most obvious example being the Bloodline story line. There is a reason why Jey pinning Roman felt like a big deal, because they had three and a half years to build up to that. You can also see how they are clearly building up The Judgement Day to be the next big thing after The Bloodline runs its course. You can see how they are building up Gunther so that his eventual title loss (which could happen in two weeks from now) feels like a big deal. You can see how they are building up NXT to be the third brand.

As for PPVs, WWE to their credit really goes big with their PPVs. The events FEEL like a big deal. The venues, the production, the crowds, the celebrities. I watch wrestling with someone who is a bit of a casual "mark" and even she mentions how small time AEW PPVs feel by comparison. This is a problem for AEW. I also think it hurts AEW that they put out great matches on a regular basis. This makes PPVs feel less special. WWE gets criticized sometimes for having throwaway, skippable matches on free TV with the occasional exceptions, but it's kind of a smart business model. You know you're more likely to get those four to five star matches on a PPV because those are the events where things matter. So you'll pay to see it. PPVs feel important in WWE. They don't in AEW, at least not anymore.

Also, if I'm being honest, none of AEW's Blood and Guts matches have come even close to how awesome NXT's War Games matches have been over the years, and WWE managed to do that WITHOUT blood and violence. NXT during its Black and Gold era was better than AEW currently is. So was Lucha Underground. AEW was comparable and on fire for its first two years...and then it kind of fizzled out some time last year. I wonder if it's a combination of the pandemic, Cody leaving, and Punk's meltdown along with all of the other backstage turmoil that was happening at the time that hurt AEW. It feels like a lot of stuff went bad in 2022.

Also, much as I enjoy MJF's current story line with Adam Cole, it feels like a story line for two mid carders, not your world champion. MJF is talented and can get crowds interested in whatever he is doing, but he doesn't feel like a "World Champion" right now. He doesn't have anything even close to the aura that Gunther and Roman Reigns have, and I'd argue he's not even as big of a deal as Seth Rollins is right now, the other big title holder in WWE. Seth is currently in a very heated rivalry with Finn Balor and it's gotten to the point that Balor feels like a goddamn movie villain with a very personal grudge against Rollins that is slowly driving him insane, a grudge that he's built up over SEVEN GODDAMN YEARS. It's fucking awesome and better than most recent world title feuds we've had in AEW quite honestly. Frankly, Orange Cassidy feels more important than MJF right now because he's defending the title and opening shows on a weekly basis. He's fought people from other promotions, and has a storyline in the form of the wear and tear he's taking each week and the increasing lucky and desperate measures he's relying on to win. MJF's title currently feels like it's been put on the back burner in favor of the Adam Cole/MJF sitcom.

Feuds also last too long in AEW. Now you could say WWE is guilty of the same thing with The Bloodline story line going on forever, but WWE has somehow figured out the trick to keep that story constantly interesting with new twists and turns. Triple H has shown a great capacity for long term story telling that Tony Kahn greatly lacks.

And the women, I'm not sure Tony really cares about them beyond doing what little he has to do in order to appease whatever people in the network or among AEW's sponsors actually care about that stuff. Now, I've heard some praise for Athena's title run in ROH and her recent title defense against Willow Nightingale, but nobody watches ROH or gives a fuck about it. AEW has access to the top joshi talent in the world from TJPW, Ice Ribbon, and apparently even Stardom given that they just had Utami on ROH. Tony does NOTHING with them. The guy who runs Stardom is known to not really like the idea of working with US companies. I can't imagine that Utami's recent match in ROH did much to change his mind. Even GCW, a poor, little indie company when compared to AEW made her feel like a bigger deal and they've been pushing the fuck out of Maki Itoh as well. As for non joshi's, Britt Baker hasn't done anything worth a damn in ages. Saraya was a waste of money and has done NOTHING for AEW, which doesn't surprise me. She wasn't bringing much value to WWE before she left and most people remember her mostly for her leaked sex videos and her tumultuous relationship with Alberto Del Rio. Saraya's reputation is on par with a crazy porn star. If I was Tony, I'd have snatched up Emma instead, after she was done with Impact, instead of letting her go to WWE. Emma was always better than Saraya, but for whatever reason WWE pushed Saraya instead of Emma back when the "Women's Revolution" in WWE was just getting off the ground via those two ladies. Emma is a better wrestler and can actually play an entertaining, charismatic character. She is one of the most under utilized talents in women's wrestling and I don't think WWE or AEW realize this but I digress. Emma had an awesome match on a recent episode of WWE's Main Event, which sadly hardly anyone watches. Has Saraya had ANY great matches since arriving in AEW?

Lastly, AEW has too much content right now. Dynamite, Rampage, Collision, ROH (which just feels like another AEW show), two Dark shows on youtube, the worthless Battle of the Belts events. Everyone kind of knows now that Dynamite is the only show where anything important happens. All of this extra stuff kind of deludes their product. WWE has three main shows in Raw, Smackdown, and NXT and they each feel important right now. In fact, it's rumored they want to put NXT head to head against Dynamite again.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling, but man AEW has so much wasted potential. In terms of talent, they've got FAR more available to them than WWE yet somehow have the inferior product. Tony has access to just about every great wrestler in the world, male or female, that is not under contract with WWE, yet somehow fails to generate real excitement in his company. It's insane. Someone on another internet forum listed all of the companies around the world that AEW can easily borrow talent from and It was really eye opening. AEW should be stomping WWE into the dirt with the kind of talent they have access to

Anyway, I'm done rambling