The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

Glad you enjoyed it. I did too. The thing I noticed after your comment about how many matches there were, is how it actually breezed by. I feel like this was possibly the best paced AEW PPV in a while. It just flowed well for the most part, and I watched the whole thing too including the pre-show. I never felt particularly bored. It was much better than Double or Nothing in that regard. It was an improvement over last year's All In. Clearly more went into making it special and ensuring there was a better build. Not every match was a major hit or blew me away, some had some fairly sudden and not exactly great finishes that didn't seem to quite land, but they mostly got everything right.

I liked that the Bucks kept the tag titles, because it means there is a plan for it. I was worried they would hand it to FTR or the Acclaimed, but FTR haven't really done much this year to justify it and the Acclaimed have cooled off a ton over the past year despite their feud with the Bucks/Elite.

My standout matches were the Casino Gauntlet (I love that concept btw), the MJF and Ospreay match and obviously the Danielson and Swerve match.

Nigel McGuiness wrestling got a huge pop from me. I did not expect that at all, it was a nice surprise. Ricochet debuting was cool, but the dirt sheets ruined it a couple of days ago - although let's be honest, it was the worst kept secret in wrestling anyways.

Christian winning was a cool surprise... I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. It was nice, at least, that it was an unpredictable ending and I am not opposed to Christian being in the main event picture.

The crowd were great. Did you see the Welsh crowd at Dynamite and Collision? They went crazy for Big Bill.

Britt and Mercedes was good, but it was a bit slow for a while... Britt kinda looked like she was phoning it in and didn't look great. I don't know what the problem was. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, she's been off for a long time and only recently returned. The crowd were also way more into the Toni and Mariah match. They at least managed to get more into it and had a "CEO DMD" chant going for a short while.

Bryan getting his moment though. Wow! It transported me back to 2014!

[Raging Justice]

Big Bill has been probably the best part of the Learning Tree, I'm glad he's getting over

I also noticed some big pops for Luchasaurus

I didn't watch Storm/May, I went to the bathroom and then got some snacks while it was on. There had to be an intermission for me at some point in this long show and I chose that match. I only really saw the ending of the match. They could have had a 5 star match and I wouldn't care. I hate Timeless Toni Storm and I hate this dumb, soap opera, sitcom, nonsense between her, May, and Shirakawa. I got much more enjoyment out of the Rhea Ripley, Liv Morgan, Dominick Mysterio stuff. It was a story line that was silly at times and comparable to a sitcom or soap opera, but the difference is that it was a storyline built around genuine hatred between two women, both of whom were presented by WWE as serious competitors (not comedy characters like Storm and May), and it also tied into a much more significant storyline regarding WWE's biggest heel faction betraying its two top members and then reforming itself with Liv Morgan replacing Rhea. By contrast, the Timeless Toni/Mariah May storyline has been meaningless, silly nonsense that amounted to nothing important or worthwhile whatsoever. Here's where I have to tip my hat to WWE for just having better storytelling right now than AEW does and also being smarter about how they book and present their top stars. For these reasons, Liv Morgan feels like a FAR bigger star in WWE right now than both Toni Storm and Mariah May despite the fact that May and storm are the current and the former women's world champion. Women's world champions are not a joke in WWE. There's a big difference between this




and this nonsense:






The women's world champions in WWE are involved in serious shit that actually matters. And frankly, this whole storyline that Liv is involved in feels more like pure cinema than all the nonsense we've seen from Storm for several months now

DMD/Mercedes is automatically the better match to me because it was built better and the two participants just felt like a bigger deal because they haven't been made into a joke like Storm and May. Mariah May might as well be carrying around WWE's old 24/7 title at this point, that's how much of a joke the women's title is right now. But I knew I would hate that match no matter what AEW did, you can't make gold out of a turd. The rest of the show was great overall and like you said it just flew by. That's the part that amazes me the most. The preshow had a great lead in with Jamie Hayter returning, then the pay per view itself started strong with that ladder match and ended strong with the world title match.

I had a funny thought when the PPV started. I went up to get a drink and then the match immediately started and I was like, "WTF!? Let me get a drink and some snacks!". That's when I remembered that I was watching an AEW pay per view. A pay per view from WWE would have started with a long introductory video. I'm so used to that so I thought I had time to get a drink and some snacks LOL. The two companies have such a different approach to their pay per views. There is so much wasted time on WWE pay per views where nothing is happening. AEW makes use of literally every minute that the show gets. It's such a stark difference.

AEW crushes WWE with their pay per views, but WWE wins out with a lot of their story telling and just the overall way they present their top talent. Timeless Toni would never be a world champion in WWE with that nonsense.

[Raging Justice]

Main event kind of played out how I expected, though I expected Hangman to do more than he did. One of the few times that security actually did their job.

[Reprise]

I had a funny thought when the PPV started. I went up to get a drink and then the match immediately started and I was like, "WTF!? Let me get a drink and some snacks!". That's when I remembered that I was watching an AEW pay per view. A pay per view from WWE would have started with a long introductory video. I'm so used to that so I thought I had time to get a drink and some snacks LOL. The two companies have such a different approach to their pay per views. There is so much wasted time on WWE pay per views where nothing is happening. AEW makes use of literally every minute that the show gets. It's such a stark difference.

That's why I just generally prefer AEW PPVs.

WWE is like the X Factor or America's Got Talent or whatever big American shows people watch these days, in the sense it's over 50% padding, random adverts, hype packages and trying to make everything seem like a bigger deal than it is.
AEW keeps things fairly straightforward and let's the matches and the crowd do the talking.

AEW's weak link is its television, and then, I guess embedded within that, some of its storytelling and booking.

So I guess we now have two weeks until All Out lol. I wonder if we'll get Mercedes and Kamile vs Jamie and Britt in a tag match. Or if they will scrap the Mercedes and Britt feud and move on. No idea who Bryan's opponent will be or if he will even have a title match at All Out. I think Darby has a title shot coming up, but that is on some Dynamite episode I believe. Obviously Christian will have his match, but it seems he can have it whenever he wants (like the Money in the Bank briefcase, I guess). Moving on to what All Out might look like, I wonder is it too soon for Swerve vs Hangman again or will they do Hangman vs Okada first? Funny how AEW have told a good story here with Hangman and Swerve actually. They sometimes succeed with these long drawn out character arcs.

I wonder who Bucks will ultimately end up dropping their titles too and what the story is going to be. Actually there were reports earlier this year that Motor City Machine Guns were *this* close to signing with AEW and the company had even drawn up big story plans should they choose to sign. I wonder if the hole that has been left in the tag division was something they had planned to fill with them and then when it seemed discussions had fallen through (the latest rumour is they will be signing with WWE instead) and the Lucha Bros also refusing to play ball and re-sign, they have struggled to cobble much together. Maybe I am wrong. Anyways, I M interested to see what they do with the tag division now.

Oh one odd thing, I just realised. Julia Hart never showed up, but there were reports she was in London. Maybe she went for some other reason or maybe those reports were false.

[Raging Justice]

I saw someone on the internet say Darby will be world champion next year



Darby feels so behind MJF and even Jack Perry in terms of overall talent it's not even funny. Darby is a bump machine and a spot monkey, that's all he's got going for him. Perry's got more presence than him right now and better booking, and MJF's promos and even in ring skills are far above Darby.

[Raging Justice]

Time really gives you perspective

I was reading about SummerSlam 2022 and looking at it now in retrospect, it was a completely meaningless, pointless show where nothing worth talking about happened other than Brock Lesnar lifting the ring with a tractor. I think a lot of people (myself included) praised the show at the time.

SummerSlam 2023 was also shit, other than Iyo Sky winning the women's title

This year's SummerSlam was a bit more noteworthy than the last two with the formation of a new Judgement Day and Gunther's first world title win.

All three shows are shit compared to this year's All In though, with Bryan's win alone feeling bigger than anything on all three of those shows.

[Reprise]

I really enjoyed Summerslam 2022, but I thought Clash at the Castle overshadowed it. I haven't watched either in ages though, particularly Summerslam 22. I would probably feel the same. It was the first post-McMahon scandal PPV with Triple H leading creative, right? So I guess that's part of the reason a lot of us praised it at the time. In retrospect, I don't remember much. Didn't Bayley return? Someone returned anyways, I think. Yeah, to be honest, all I remember is Brock flipping the ring with a tractor too

Summerslam 2023 was poor in my opinion and I didn't rate 2024 much, although it was better.

I think both All Ins have been better than the Summerslams from each year. Last year's All In gets a lot of praise because it was the first and they broke a record, but the build was terrible outside of the MJF & Adam Cole stuff (and even that was terrible to some people). And all the weird Collision and Punk stuff was dragging it down. I still found the show very enjoyable though. That said, this year's show was clearly a hell of a lot better.

[Raging Justice]

God I'm getting sick of this forum. I have to try and log in fifty times before it lets me in now, and it always makes me log in one more time before I can submit my post

At some point I'm going to just accept that forums are dead and start posting on discord servers.

It's interesting that so much of All In revolved around Bryan, which is another thing that sort of reminds me of Wrestlemania XXX where he was looming over much of the show. The Gauntlet match had implications that could have effected the main event, and it was fitting that the man who hates Bryan more than anyone (NIgel McGuinnes) came out of retirement for that match. I figured Hangman would get involved in the main event, and maybe losing the gauntlet match gave him more incentive since he wasn't going to get a title match with Swerve if Swerve retained. Ospreay beat MJF because Bryan told him to "do it" and he did do it. Tiger Driver 91! Pac joins the BCC, and they win the trios titles so that they can celebrate later in the show with Bryan. We even had an interview with Brie Bella in the pre-show that was all about Bryan.

This was all rather masterfully done. This was Bryan Danielson's night.

[Raging Justice]

The face of Stardom has lost all of her tournament matches. That's some ballsy booking



There's a certain twisted genius to UNDER booking someone before giving them a huge win. AEW sort of did that with Bryan and Stardom may be doing something similar with Tam. WWE kind of did this to Bayley too, jobbing her out left and right only for people to lose their goddamn minds when she won the Royal Rumble. I'm more intrigued by a struggling babyface than I am with this shit:



Pro wrestling operates under this bizarre assumption that people only get over when they never lose. That may be true for sports, but wrestling is a storytelling medium. There's a little something called the hero's journey. Every writer worth a damn knows this.

[Reprise]

It's amazing how AEW can feel so stale at times and my main major criticism of them is how they lack something that gets me invested in characters, often lacking emotional hooks that really gets me glued to the screen,wanting something to happen badly, and then BAM it just kinda all falls into place in one evening.

Maybe I am still caught up in the moment, maybe it's partly because the crowd was so hot, and because I actually got to watch live and at a sociable hour, and it was in my country, it might even be recency bias, but Bryan Danielson overcoming the odds at All In was almost perfect. You explain so well why it was too, Raging Justice, since so many moments were linked to Bryan.

And for all my criticisms of Bryan's booking, how he came into the company basically saying he didn't want the belt and just came to help put people over and ended up losing left right and centre, if he hadn't been booked like that, that moment wouldn't have been so special. I said a few months back he should have won the belt off Hangman and had a short reign when he first came in and then lost it back to Hangman. I was wrong. This was better.

Of course, AEW still has a ton of issues and I expect I will be complaining about something within a few weeks. I also doubt I'll watch All Out unless they put on a spectacular card and they continue telling some kind of compelling story now with Bryan (we'll see), but right now All In is my favourite show of the year, possibly tied with Revolution at a push. I know I would get laughed off the internet for daring name anything other than Wrestlemania, but it's just my opinion.

Speaking of that, wrestling discussions online are so toxic and juvenile. It's just full of edgelords and shitposting pages posting childish cringey takes and people mocking everyone and everything. It doesn't feel like there are many places for wrestling fans to just have decent, rational and open minded discussions about wrestling.