Face and heel turns have always kind of amused me, because 90% of them are lik that
To be 'shocking' they have to quite literally be out of character, but if you think about it, real life isn't like that. You don't be the bad guy all your life and then suddenly decide to be good (or vice versa). Obviously there are slow turns though where they do plant seeds over the course of several weeks or months or the heel turns that make sense and you do partially empathise with the character.
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Reprise wrote:If you'd told me a year ago we'd have Swerve, Hangman and Samoa Joe all in a match in the main event for the world title, I wouldn't have believed you. I am so glad we have got it. The match is going to be awesome and I can't wait for whatever happens afterwards.
I think what I love most about it, is that I want all three guys to win.
Bryan Danielson in AEW is such a mixture of emotions.
Arguably, he has had some great feuds, some great matches and his run has been great.
But a lot of the decisions that have been made have hurt not only him, but the talent he says he wants to help and AEW itself.
It's interesting that Punk and Danielson debuted at roughly the same time and with them we had two entirely different extremes of how legends can be booked...
On one hand, you have Punk who was booked strong, barely lost any matches and ascended to being the world champion within less than a year. I can only think of two examples of guys he put over with losses: MJF and Ricky Starks. He also suffered that squash loss to Mox, which I wouldn't even count, as it was an angle (a lame one by the way, I agree with Punk that Mox's Rocky 3 story sucks )
Then you have Danielson who will lose to every Tom Dick and Harry, wants to put practically everyone over, doesn't have any interest in winning the world title and has had more face and heel turns than Big Show.
The thing is, it has kind of hurt AEW. He debuted in AEW just months after he had been in the main event of Wrestlemania. He was a huge deal. If he had been booked more strongly, maybe even had a short world title reign, if his character was more consistent, it would have meant more when he did put someone over and it would have done more for AEW.
Now, he is nearing retirement and they are wasting a PPV match with Danielson against Eddie Kingston. And he's probably going to put Eddie over, because that's the story, right? That none of the BCC respect or like Eddie and he's slowly proving himself against them. Will anyone care? I don't.
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Punk and Danielson can be considered examples of people who had too much input into their own booking. Bryan should have been pushed harder and I would have never had him go heel, the crowd WANTS to cheer for Bryan. They don't really get into him as a heel. This is the Bryan we wanted in AEW:
Punk's early run was lame too, with his lame nice guy act which doesn't work because that's just not who he his. Punk is what his name implies...a punk. Right out of the gate we should have got this guy:
People say AEW shouldn't copy WWE, but when you bring over two of their biggest stars of all time that's EXACTLY what you should have done.
Speaking of people with too much input into their booking, you can look back early in AEW's history, and a lot of people were upset that Omega and The Bucks were choosing to put everyone over. Many feel that they should have been booked strong right from the get go. Hangman is the exception, as it played well into his story. Plus, he wasn't as big of a deal as Kenny and The Young Bucks when AEW first started. The Bucks put over Private Party and in retrospect, what was gained from that? It's only very recently that AEW seems to be booking them strongly again.
Cody is another obvious example, whose handling of his own booking and creative basically turned him into the Dominik Mysterio of AEW. He had to go back to another company in order to be a baby face again and notice how tight of a least WWE has put on him over there. WWE gets it. Triple H once said that Bray Wyatt was brilliant, but some of his ideas were so crazy they had to be veto-ed.
AEW has had a few terrible booking decisions in general over the years. Nyla Rose should never have held a title, and in retrospect, neither should Riho. Riho just doesn't get featured often enough in AEW to justify her being the company's first women's champion. She's not committed to the place. Shida might have been a better choice because we see her more often, but I don't remember if she was with AEW back when it first started.
Scorpio Sky should not have been the first guy to beat Chris Jericho and he never should have been a tag champion either. Scorpio Sky is nothing and yet he has two historical achievements in AEW.
Jade Cargill did nothing for the TBS title, I don't care what anyone says. Her reign may have been long, but it certainly wasn't memorable.
Yeah, those are all good examples too actually. I hadn't really thought about it, but a lot wrestlers in AEW have had poor booking decisions made.
CM Punk has had that problem you mention in AEW and WWE now. It doesn't make any sense, he's honestly best when he just doesn't give a fuck and drops the nice guy act. Ironically, I actually didn't mind his disastrous Collision run because of that, because he was kinda acting like an asshole and heeling it up, but I guess he couldn't help being an asshole off-screen as well
Some AEW news has come out regarding another signing:
Fightful has confirmed Okada is signing with AEW. I guess he might debut the same night as Mercedes at that special episode they are doing. Or maybe they will want to do it another time, so not to take the attention off of her.
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Damn, look at those brutal... chops? Slaps? What even are those?
Finally caught up with last week's Dynamite. The Swerve and Hangman match was brilliant. As for the speculated double turn or heel turn for Hangman, yeah, I am not quite sure I agree either. Maybe he is turning heel, but refusing to give 5 more minutes and basically saying "up yours" to Swerve, given their history and everything Swerve has done to Hangman, doesn't necessarily seem to indicate a heel turn.
The rest of the episode was fine for the most part. I enjoyed Danielson's match and the stuff with CMLL and the tag match followed by the Nick and Matt Jackson beat down was entertaining.
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Ironic that they re-did the Daniel Bryan thing from 2014, yet the modern day WWE version of him (Sami Zayne) has been reduced to a jobber and a sidekick for Cody.
Oh, and Seth Rollins clearly has no pride as he gets overlooked by this whole thing. He was simping hard for the guy who DIDN'T think he was worthy of facing at Mania. He said WWE would be a very dark place if Cody lost to Roman, as if Cody is like the chosen one or something. He also said he wanted to be Cody's "shield" against Roman Reigns
This whole thing is so fucking lame. WWE is basically fellating Cody right now
Seth was literally trying to convince everyone that just because The Rock is supporting him now, Roman Reigns is the biggest threat WWE has ever faced.
