The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

AEW having banger matches on free TV all the time is something I never got. Wasn't WCW criticised for the same thing, by basically having great matches or "big" matches on Nitro to get the viewers in when they were competing against Raw, but dropping the ball with their PPVs? I guess it's not exactly the same, but I was wondering what the hell they are doing by giving PPV-quality matches away for free. Every once in a while it works, but all the time? It makes the PPVs feel like less of a big deal. I remember when Hangman won the title and we immediately got two weeks of back-to-back incredible matches for the title between him and Danielson. Like, wtf was that about? They were amazing, but why wasn't that his first PPV title defence? I seem to recall his first PPV title defence was against Adam Cole, who was so obviously not winning. Danielson, on the other hand, I really don't even remember who he faced, but I can't recall him actually having a decent PPV match that felt like it meant something until his Iron Man match against MJF earlier this year.

AEW doesn't know how to write compelling stories or how to generate real top level heat in their feuds. Not like WWE does. AEW seems to think stories in wrestling should just be really basic almost PS1 Smackdown Season Mode like quality, with just random matches going on week in week out, with the occasional bit of shit talking. They don't know how to do "Sports Entertainment" or soap opera (maybe they and their fans think it's beneath them, I don't know).

Also Collision > Dynamite. Better production, better stage design, looks like a bigger deal, better announcer team, better matches, better writing. Honestly, they should move it to a weekday though. Saturday night is such a weird day for a new wrestling show that is supposed to be an A show. What are they going to do during the sports seasons, other PPVs are on and when WWE does stuff like put Summerslam on a Saturday?

I agree about MJF. I was complaining he felt stale and then they came up with this great storyline between him and Cole. It's awesome, but it also doesn't work well with him being the world champion, because A) it makes him seem like more of a mid-card talent, B) it sidelines the World Championship. I have no idea where they are going with the storyline. We all know it was only supposed to last a few weeks, but was going to lead to a bust up with them having a title match at All In or All Out. I guess with them being massively over they now need to change plans.

Speaking of the World Title. Why is no one in AEW hungry for it? It's supposed to be the biggest prize in wrestling and no one seems to want it? I haven't watched much WWE in years, but in its prime you had all these different guys fighting for it like their lives depended on it. They have a problem with a lack of top stars too. I don't feel they have elevated enough guys over the last four years to be in the title picture. Other than MJF and Hangman, who have they got? That four pillars arc highlighted this weakness as they all looked like mid-carders.

That's another reason why I feel Collision is better, as it feels like they are actually building stars.

[Raging Justice]

Speaking of the World Title. Why is no one in AEW hungry for it? It's supposed to be the biggest prize in wrestling and no one seems to want it? I haven't watched much WWE in years, but in its prime you had all these different guys fighting for it like their lives depended on it.

Funny you mention that, as I was recently thinking about how good of a job WWE is doing of that with Asuka. You'll see what I mean if you watch this brief youtube clip where we see a very frustrated Asuka going on a rant about all of the women coming after her title. It's actually pretty funny:



This is the kind of shit that is so good about WWE right now, it's the little character based things and the story telling.

Also Collision > Dynamite. Better production, better stage design, looks like a bigger deal, better announcer team, better matches, better writing.

Yeah, I've seen similar comments from other people who watch it. Sadly, it's not doing good numbers and I think that has as much to do with the time slot as it does Punk. I've literally seen people say they won't watch the show just because he's on it, which is ironic. I mean, ironic because he's supposed to be the guy that draws in viewers for Collision. Punk burned a lot of bridges last year, not just with fellow co workers but with a significant number of fans too. Don't get me wrong, he has a ton of supporters, but he's kind of split the AEW community. At one time, most AEW fans liked him (myself included), but after all the stuff that happened last year a lot of people have turned on him. You have to remember too that a lot of people are diehard fans of The Elite and very much see AEW as their company, not Punk's.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, Orange Cassidy is producing matches now. So I guess that's sort of a promotion for him. Basically, he's determining how some of AEW's matches play out in the ring now. It's funny considering how his haters always said that he knows nothing about wrestling.

[Reprise]

Yeah, I've seen similar comments from other people who watch it. Sadly, it's not doing good numbers and I think that has as much to do with the time slot as it does Punk. I've literally seen people say they won't watch the show just because he's on it, which is ironic. I mean, ironic because he's supposed to be the guy that draws in viewers for Collision. Punk burned a lot of bridges last year, not just with fellow co workers but with a significant number of fans too. Don't get me wrong, he has a ton of supporters, but he's kind of split the AEW community. At one time, most AEW fans liked him (myself included), but after all the stuff that happened last year a lot of people have turned on him. You have to remember too that a lot of people are diehard fans of The Elite and very much see AEW as their company, not Punk's.

Oh, I know. The AEW discussion groups online are basically split into three teams: Team Punk, Team Elite, Team Don't Give a Fuck and Just Want Everyone to Get Along.

I think it's more the day and time though personally. Still, numbers were up this past weekend, 620,000 I think and it was the top watched show on cable in its timeslot. Dynamite usually does around 750-850,000 each week at the moment I think, so doesn't seem that terrible in comparison?

[Raging Justice]

Yeah, I've seen similar comments from other people who watch it. Sadly, it's not doing good numbers and I think that has as much to do with the time slot as it does Punk. I've literally seen people say they won't watch the show just because he's on it, which is ironic. I mean, ironic because he's supposed to be the guy that draws in viewers for Collision. Punk burned a lot of bridges last year, not just with fellow co workers but with a significant number of fans too. Don't get me wrong, he has a ton of supporters, but he's kind of split the AEW community. At one time, most AEW fans liked him (myself included), but after all the stuff that happened last year a lot of people have turned on him. You have to remember too that a lot of people are diehard fans of The Elite and very much see AEW as their company, not Punk's.

Oh, I know. The AEW discussion groups online are basically split into three teams: Team Punk, Team Elite, Team Don't Give a Fuck and Just Want Everyone to Get Along.

I think it's more the day and time though personally. Still, numbers were up this past weekend, 620,000 I think and it was the top watched show on cable in its timeslot. Dynamite usually does around 750-850,000 each week at the moment I think, so doesn't seem that terrible in comparison?

Yeah, that's an improvement. I'm probably gonna start watching Collision, but not live. I don't want to give it my ratings...and that also gives me the luxury of fast forwarding through all of the Punk parts...and the FTR parts. There are actually other people being featured on Collision that I quite like. I just don't like Punk and his fan club a.k.a. FTR.

Speaking of which, there was a great line MJF said on this week's Dynamite about FTR getting Punk's jockstrap out of their mouths

He also pointed out the annoying way Dax constantly talks about his wife and kids to manipulate crowds into cheering for him. MJF is really good at specifically pointing out EXACTLY what makes people hate certain guys in AEW. It's like he hangs out in all of the internet places where wrestling fans talk. He even did a promo once where he showed some self awareness about stuff people have said about HIM on the internet. If MJF were ever given carte blanche to say whatever he wants, he would do a "pipe bomb" that would blow away any promo Punk has ever done in his life.

I kind of wish the real swerve in this MJF/Cole story line was Strong turning on Cole...cause who really cares about Strong? He's a great wrestler, but a boring personality. I'm always character first, wrestling second. I guess I have the Chris Jericho "Sports Entertainer" mindset. Roderick Strong is very much a "pro wrester"

So I predicted something involving Cassidy and the BCC, I just didn't expect to see Cassidy throwing hands with Jon Moxley tonight

Careful there, Cassidy. You're starting to attract the attention of the big, great white sharks of AEW and you don't have a nice posse of dolphins to back you up since we've seen time and time again that outside of Cassidy and Statlander the best friends are losers. That's why Wheeler Yuta left them. You know, I hate the fact that Cassidy is part of the Chaos faction in NJPW, but the only time that ever matters is when it's Forbidden Door season. Imagine some of those guys backing up Cassidy in a feud with the BCC. Tomohiro Ishi and Kazuchika Okada are two people that would make Moxley and crew take a step backward.

There was a funny moment on the show after the Taya Valkyrie/Britt Baker match where the camera man got a fan sign on camera that said, "The Women's Division needs to be booked better" and the camera stayed on it for a few seconds. I was like, "what the hell are you doing camera guy?!?"

Not long after we get a segment about Shida fighting Nyla Rose

Nobody gives a fuck about Nyla Rose. Find something better for Shida for crying out loud, it's no wonder her and Riho seem to spend more time in Japan these days. Who can blame them?

I'm glad Swerve is starting to get more of a spotlight. He's too good not to. Him and AR Fox on the same team is fun given their intense rivalry back in the Lucha Underground days. Both guys can do AMAZING stuff in the ring as we saw tonight. They'd make a killer tag team.

One thing I didn't like about Dynamite was seeing stuff from ROH and Collision bleed over into Dynamite. Collision was supposed to be like a separate brand and ROH is technically an entirely different promotion. Stop with this shit Tony Kahn. It's one of the reasons the story telling is so bad in AEW. Too much shit happening on too many different shows, including Rampage (which many people don't watch). WWE does a much better job keeping things mostly separate on its three different brands. Smackdown, Raw, and NXT all have separate story lines going on for the people on each brand. It's mostly just the Bloodline stuff that sometimes bleeds over from Smackdown to Raw, though that's been happening less since Sami and KO have been distanced from it. Sami and KO have stories and feuds with other people on Raw now so everything Bloodline related is primarily handled on Smackdown now.

[Reprise]

I find the RoH stuff confusing, as I don't watch it. So I don't understand why they have some guys working in both promotions. I don't even know how I can watch it in the UK (legally anyways). It might be on Fite I suppose, as the PPVs are.

I don't mind so much about Collision, Dynamite and Rampage bleeding into one another to a certain extent. There isn't a formal brand split and neither show has its own championships. Sometimes it feels a little forced though. I don't watch Rampage and don't understand the point of it, unless I am missing something (which is entirely possible, since I don't watch it )

[Raging Justice]

I almost feel like the AEW camera guy and this fan were in collusion...

[Raging Justice]

I'm probably the only one in this thread following Stardom, but here's hoping Saya Kamitani gets well soon. Her and Tam were having a pretty cool match that went outside the ring. Tam did a crazy splash off the stage entrance and I think Saya tried to one up her by climbing up one of the metallic towers surrounding the ring for a pretty epic (and dangerous) splash of her own, and got injured in the process bringing the match to an abrupt end. The crowd was dead silent as the medical staff was checking on her and she was in tears as they carried her away in a stretcher. Tam and Natsupoi looked pretty broken up too, but Tam had to carry on and finish the show leading to that weird angle with the Greek goddess lady. Saya's gonna miss the whole tournament now and I'm sure all of her matches would have been awesome too.



Stardom tends to be pretty safe with spots like this as there is usually a couple of girls surrounding the intended target when someone does a flying move like that. So it's like the group "catches" the person doing the spot, but injuries can obviously still happen. It was a pretty epic looking spot that you can see at the following link, but the outcome is unfortunate. It was nice to see the show of respect she got from the crowd.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/rumor-w ... et-reports

[Reprise]

Still, numbers were up this past weekend, 620,000 I think and it was the top watched show on cable in its timeslot.

740,000 this week. Keeps going up... And that was against UFC and baseball or whatever sports it is Americans were watching. Can't imagine the numbers will be so good this Saturday against Summerslam though, even though that's got crap like Lesnar vs Cody volume 475.

Dynamite is also getting better ratings. AEW is doing pretty well again and seems to be growing its viewership. Hope they don't fuck it up, they usually stumble and trip themselves up along the way.

[Raging Justice]

AEW is decent right now, but on a week to week basis I'm still much more invested in what's happening in WWE. Somehow, everything feels IMPORTANT in WWE right now. AEW is seriously missing that. AEW's only real advantage is the match quality, which tends to far exceed WWE on a week to week basis. As nice as that is though, I find myself caring about even mediocre matches in WWE right now just because I'm invested in the characters and story. I was more interested in Gunther vs Chad Gable this past Monday than any match in AEW last night. Plus, WWE and Stardom give me much better content when it comes to the ladies. Women in WWE have interesting stories and Stardom puts on matches that blow away your average WWE/AEW women's match. Hell, even Impact has a better women's division than AEW right now and utilizes them better.

Random thoughts:

So interestingly enough, Impact had a recent ratings boost after their last pay per view. You don't hear that every day.

Also, if Impact plays their cards right they could end up showing Tony Kahn how to do a real Forbidden Door show. See link below

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/1354764/de ... send-best/

I don't want to get too excited until we see who answers the challenge though

In WWE news, LA Knight is the top merch seller after Cody Rhodes...that's kind of a big deal. He's also getting a little mainstream attention as some weather forecaster was doing his catch phrases. This keeps up and we may have the guy who should beat Roman if they don't go with Jey Uso. He's getting organically over, which is the best kind of over.



Triple H implied that Cody left AEW because he didn't want to be the champion or face of a "secondary promotion". He said that on the recently aired Cody documentary. Ouch, shots fired. He's not wrong though. AEW is firmly # 2 right now and nobody can argue that.

I saw bits and pieces of Collision online. I don't watch it live on TV on principle (Fuck CM Punk). I thought it was interesting that Julia Hart took a bump from Andrade while no one in WWE is allowed to touch Rhea Ripley. Darby vs Suzuki was fun.

Congrats to Shida, bout damn time. Too bad it means little given how shitty the women's division is in AEW. Still a nice moment though:

[Reprise]

Lol at the crowd chanting "read it" when Cole signed the contract for their All In main event match. I really wonder what the angle is here... When MJF and Cole hugged though, Cole motioned stabbing him in the back. It was really clear if you watch back. Could be a red herring though.