The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

What an insane final card:

[Raging Justice]

What an insane final card:

Now that's a show I would want a blu ray of, even the bad stuff has potential. I could complain about what Danielson is doing, but he'll find a way to get a good match out of that sack of shit Eddie Kingston. Hopefully, we won't be subjected to Eddie's stupid looking, rapid fire, corner chops. I hate Toni Storm, the constant switching back and forth between color and black and white is so stupid. Last night, she did a stare down with Purrazzo and half of the screen was black and white. So fucking stupid, but I do think those two ladies could potentially have a banger of a match.

Anyway, interesting dirt sheet info about who AEW will be pushing as their big stars going forward:

All of AEW’s wrestlers look the same. They need to mix up the body types by hiring some dudes who like Earthquake and Yokozuna. Basically, they just need some giant dudes who are t all that great at wrestling to make the matches more interesting. Right now, all of their wrestlers, except some of the aging WWE stars, are guys between 5’10” and 6’1” and about 185-215 lbs who are awesome at wrestling. They need some guys who are 6’8”+ and 300+ lbs.

I don't think they look all the same, but it depends on your point of view I guess. We have a Japanese guy, a UK guy, a cowboy, a black guy, a young dude, and Orange Cassidy who brings his own unique look to the table. Plenty of diversity there and a nice reflection of what AEW brings to the table, and that's not even counting the female side of things. You also have Eddie Kingston who just looks like some normal, out of shape, middle aged, dude with a gut. There's literally nothing about him that looks like a wrestler.

If we're just talking size, they do have some big guys, though maybe not quite like Earthquake/Yokozuna. I think Keith Lee is the closest to that body type.

The funny thing is, in this age and age, it's not acceptable for even the big guys to be poor wrestlers, unless we're talking about WWE specifically, Keith Lee leap frogs over people and does other crazy shit that a big man isn't supposed to do. Brian Cage, a big, jacked, roided up, looking freak was doing flips and dives in Lucha Underground just to prove to everyone that he could. Luchasaurus a.k.a. Killswitch is your Kane/Undertaker type, but mixes up the typical big man stuff with kicks and things you would expect from a smaller size wrestler.

Nyla Rose is a transgender wrestling in the women's division. Nyla does bring the female equivalent of that large, Earthquake/Yokozuna type wrestler to the division. Even Nyla is a bit more athletic than a person of that size needs to be. The thing is, while these people all bring something to the table, none of them have proven to be good enough to be a world champion or main eventer yet, except maybe Samoa Joe who has that large, Samoan, look to him. Nyla has also been the women's world champion. Wardlow was getting a big push once, but that kind of flamed out. Recently he's made his intentions clear though of rising up the ranks again and proving he's the best in the company, which means world champion.

There is one guy who may be more of what you have in mind, Satnam Singh, this guy:



but AEW doesn't utilize him much and I think it is because he is limited and AEW doesn't like to feature people who aren't great wrestlers. I don't think they would agree with you that the big guys don't need to be good in the ring. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong though

Here's some other large wrestlers though that we regularly see in AEW. I mentioned some of them already:








Lance Archer is another one, who tends to be a threat not just to people IN the ring :



He's known for regularly attacking people at ringside, people in the back, pretty much anyone he feels like. No one does anything about it, because well:



Yeah, good luck with that

[prfsnl_gmr]

That’s fair. I’d never even heard of those other guys!

[Raging Justice]

That’s fair. I’d never even heard of those other guys!

You would have liked the Scramble match tonight, four big guys in the ring at one point and the crowd started doing "MEAT" chants

[Raging Justice]

Jesus, Storm/Purrazzo was a big waste of everyone's time. Maybe the worst match of the night so far.

STORM IS NOT OVER

CAN WE KILL THIS DUMB GIMMICK ALREADY?!

The crowd didn't give a shit

[Raging Justice]

Pretty good PPV, no big surprises though unfortunately so it wasn't exactly newsworthy.

Christian retained. He's too good to take the title off of him just yet and we know that Garcia will be fine. Christian is also in the process of elevating Nick Wayne and helping him learn and improve.

Cassidy's match was very good, that spot they did on the turnbuckle was insane. One of the bumps of the night, but we had some other sick ones on the show as well. Roderick is ridiculously good in the ring. He's someone I'd be very afraid to have a match with because everything he does looks PAINFUL. Him and Zack Saber Jr. are two guys I would not want to fuck with just based on what they can do to your body. Roderick DESTROYED Cassidy's back tonight. Commentary really put over Cassidy on his way out as the International Champion. On paper, Cassidy really may be the best champion AEW has had. The number of title defenses he's had. HIs incredible win streaks. The variety of amazing opponents he's had. The unbelievable amount of punishment he's taken. He's the best "fighting champion" we've seen in AEW. He's been a goddamn workhorse. They brought all of that up on commentary. What happened post match was interesting, all of Adam Cole's NXT buddies are coming back it feels like. I wonder now if Cassidy is moving on to bigger things.

FTR versus Mox/Claudio was pretty good, but seems kind of pointless in the grand scheme of things. AEW just doesn't know what to do with all of the members of the Blackpool Combat Club. So much great talent there, but with no direction, which leads me to...

Bryan Danielson. I didn't watch the match. I think Kingston won

Takeshita/Ospreay was simply unbelievable, probably the match of the night. Seriously. Probably a match of the year contender. They saved the show after the awful women's title match. Ospreay looked like a goddamn star and I felt like simply being in the ring with him and holding his own elevated Takeshita. They are two of the best wrestlers in AEW in terms of what they can do in that ring and anyone who has a match with them seriously needs to step up their game. Takeshita has some of the most brutal looking strikes in the entire company. You can feel it through the screen when he hits someone. If these are two of the 7 men AEW plans on pushing, good things lie ahead. I think this match is in 5 star territory. It was THAT good.

The 8-Man scramble was fun. Lots of fun moments, I like the double lion sault Jericho and the luchador did. AEW seems to be rebuilding Wardlow. I wonder if he could have a feud with MJF when Maxwell returns. He's definitely not winning the world title, but it's good that he's getting a shot at it.

Mercedes Monet is going to have her work cut out for her. Toni Storm is literally digging the grave of AEW's women's division.

The world title match was great. It showed that Swerve is a top guy and could realistically be world champion, he's got the fans behind him. It firmly established Hangman as a heel and boy, he was really getting booed. It also re-established Samoa Joe's dominance. I love that Hangman had Samoa Joe beat, but couldn't get the three count because he had previously beat up the referee. You screwed yourself there Hangman. I also really like Excalibur wondering on commentary if Hangman tapped out to Samoa Joe out of necessity, or did he just do it to guarantee that Swerve couldn't win. That's good story telling. Swerve looked like he was about to burst into tears post match. Good stuff

Sting's final match had a lot of surprises. I never expected I'd see Sting go back in time in order to bring two of his past selves to the fight with the Young Bucks. That's some serious sci fi shit right there

I love old school Metallica.

I also didn't expect to see Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, nor did I expect to see Ric Flair take double super kicks. Ric Flair doing his part to add to this match helps to make up for how awful Ric Flair's OWN final match was not that long ago.

That Darby Allin spot. Holy fucking shit. I need multiple gifs to express my thoughts:







Great main event, and very good send off for Sting. You never really know if a wrestler's retirement is legit or not, but I can't see Sting coming back to the ring due to his age. He's not utterly insane like Ric Flair.

I'm glad Pac is coming back. His video package was really interesting.

Jay White's promo left us with an interesting tease for "Big Business".

[Reprise]

Pretty decent PPV overall. It didn't have really many surprises, the outcomes of all the matches were fairly predictable (apart from Sting's final match, I was about 60-40 on Sting taking the pin and Sting/Darby losing), but I did kind of expect that, particularly as I am sure they want the focus to be on Sting. I enjoyed everything bar the women's match though. Ospreay vs Takeshita has got to be a match of the year contender. Joe, Swerve and Hangman kept me on the edge of my seat, it was a phenomenal match. Joe retaining is the right decision for now, it will make it even sweeter when Swerve finally wins that title. And Sting's final match was incredible!

The women's match was easily the worst. I don't hate Toni, her gimmick is whatever, but she can be fairly decent in the ring. This wasn't a good night for her or Perrazzo. The match was just so slow and had no momentum. Toni definitely needs to have the title taken off her soon.

I also really like Excalibur wondering on commentary if Hangman tapped out to Samoa Joe out of necessity, or did he just do it to guarantee that Swerve couldn't win. That's good story telling.

I caught that too and thought it was great. I am looking forward to where they go with this.

Jay White's promo left us with an interesting tease for "Big Business".

Was that on the pre-show? I missed that. What did he say?

[Raging Justice]

Jay White's promo left us with an interesting tease for "Big Business".

Was that on the pre-show? I missed that. What did he say?

Yeah, it was the pre show on youtube. You can still watch it for free, it had like two more matches I think, including the only other women's match of the show. Well at first he wasn't saying anything particularly interesting, just saying things to get a reaction from the crowd and get everyone in a good mood for the PPV, but then he said something about him doing something at "Big Business". He was very vague, but basically wanted us to know that he would be doing something at the show. It just sort of came out of nowhere. You'd think it he has something planned AEW would make a bigger deal out of it.

[Reprise]

That's odd. I'll check it out anyways.

I had some thoughts about the other matches, but I forgot what they were now.

The 8 man scramble though, that was fun but I really did hate how they would constantly have at least half the guys outside the ring just pretending to be comatosed for the whole match. It's just silly. I know that's common in multiman matches, but it felt really exaggerated here.

Also, as great as I like seeing Wardlow being rebuilt and them trying to fix the dire booking he faced over the last year or two, I don't know his win or the match itself felt as big of a deal as it should have done, considering it was for a world title shot.

Still, despite my complaints, it was a fun match.

[Reprise]

Oh, one other thing. I mentioned that I was about 60-40 on Sting losing his final match, but one thing that had me thinking Sting might win, was that it meant the tag team titles would be vacated and then Tony could do one of his little tournaments to decide the new champions.

I legitimately find it kinda funny that Tony announced that there would be a tournament to decide the new champions

I get it does actually make sense. But the dude really does love his tournaments