The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

Wait... It's Ospreay vs Swerve at Forbidden Door? Holy shit. Have they pivoted from original plans or was that always the plan?

I don't know who I thought would be the challenger, but I assumed at a minimum they would save Ospreay for All In, if not later.

Edit: So what are we looking at as we head to All In? Hmm.

Potentially, Ospreay takes the title off Swerve at Forbidden Door, in which case, I will say Swerve's reign has been pretty damn bad and he comes off looking like nothing but a transitional champion. But that would probably mean the main event at Wembley would be Ospreay vs MJF for the title, which on paper is awesome.

That said, Ospreay winning the title at Wembley would be a better feel good moment, since he's British. So perhaps there will be shenanigans, maybe involving the Don Callis family and Swerve retains. Then it sets up a rematch at Wembley.

Or maybe Ospreay won't be in the title picture at Wembley at all. He is supposed to be elevating the International championship and making it truly International afterall. But having him lose to Swerve might hurt him, perhaps. Don't know.

This is why I wonder if they have pivoted from original plans, whether it's due to declining ratings or Adam Copeland's injury or a combination of factors. Who knows though.

I see a lot of debate right now regarding who will win Swerve vs Ospreay... that's a good thing.

[Reprise]

Wait... It's Ospreay vs Swerve at Forbidden Door? Holy shit. Have they pivoted from original plans or was that always the plan?

I don't know who I thought would be the challenger, but I assumed at a minimum they would save Ospreay for All In, if not later.

Edit: So what are we looking at as we head to All In? Hmm.

Potentially, Ospreay takes the title off Swerve at Forbidden Door, in which case, I will say Swerve's reign has been pretty damn bad and he comes off looking like nothing but a transitional champion. But that would probably mean the main event at Wembley would be Ospreay vs MJF for the title, which on paper is awesome.

That said, Ospreay winning the title at Wembley would be a better feel good moment, since he's British. So perhaps there will be shenanigans, maybe involving the Don Callis family and Swerve retains. Then it sets up a rematch at Wembley.

Or maybe Ospreay won't be in the title picture at Wembley at all. He is supposed to be elevating the International championship and making it truly International afterall. But having him lose to Swerve might hurt him, perhaps. Don't know.

This is why I wonder if they have pivoted from original plans, whether it's due to declining ratings or Adam Copeland's injury or a combination of factors. Who knows though.

I see a lot of debate right now regarding who will win Swerve vs Ospreay... that's a good thing.

Indeed. I have seen a few people, journalists included, saying they can't call who will win and it is the first time a title match in AEW has felt unpredictable in a while.

But then I have also seen endless bitching... The usual stuff like:

"so they're just blowing their load like that?"
"no big build?"
"why now and not Wembley?"
"where's the story?"
"why is Ospreay getting a shot at the world title when he only just won the international title?"

And so on. Meh, wrestling fans

It's interesting that Fightful reported that the devil storyline last year was supposed to be different, with a match at the end of last year between MJF and Cole being planned and that the idea being thrown around was the Cole would win the title.

Cole is apparently still a long way off from returning so an MJF and Cole match and feud isn't on the cards at the moment. I don't know why they don't just continue to keep Cole as a thorn in MJF's side though, like Punk is to Drew over in WWE. WWE is smart keeping Punk around even though he is injured. I am not saying they should always do it, but it would be interesting to keep Cole around and have him show up every now and again. I really liked those vignettes they did with Cole speaking a couple of times earlier this year. They were really well done.

[Raging Justice]

Wait... It's Ospreay vs Swerve at Forbidden Door? Holy shit. Have they pivoted from original plans or was that always the plan?

I don't know who I thought would be the challenger, but I assumed at a minimum they would save Ospreay for All In, if not later.

Edit: So what are we looking at as we head to All In? Hmm.

Potentially, Ospreay takes the title off Swerve at Forbidden Door, in which case, I will say Swerve's reign has been pretty damn bad and he comes off looking like nothing but a transitional champion. But that would probably mean the main event at Wembley would be Ospreay vs MJF for the title, which on paper is awesome.

That said, Ospreay winning the title at Wembley would be a better feel good moment, since he's British. So perhaps there will be shenanigans, maybe involving the Don Callis family and Swerve retains. Then it sets up a rematch at Wembley.

Or maybe Ospreay won't be in the title picture at Wembley at all. He is supposed to be elevating the International championship and making it truly International afterall. But having him lose to Swerve might hurt him, perhaps. Don't know.

This is why I wonder if they have pivoted from original plans, whether it's due to declining ratings or Adam Copeland's injury or a combination of factors. Who knows though.

I see a lot of debate right now regarding who will win Swerve vs Ospreay... that's a good thing.

Indeed. I have seen a few people, journalists included, saying they can't call who will win and it is the first time a title match in AEW has felt unpredictable in a while.

But then I have also seen endless bitching... The usual stuff like:

"so they're just blowing their load like that?"
"no big build?"
"why now and not Wembley?"
"where's the story?"
"why is Ospreay getting a shot at the world title when he only just won the international title?"

And so on. Meh, wrestling fans

It's interesting that Fightful reported that the devil storyline last year was supposed to be different, with a match at the end of last year between MJF and Cole being planned and that the idea being thrown around was the Cole would win the title.

Cole is apparently still a long way off from returning so an MJF and Cole match and feud isn't on the cards at the moment. I don't know why they don't just continue to keep Cole as a thorn in MJF's side though, like Punk is to Drew over in WWE. WWE is smart keeping Punk around even though he is injured. I am not saying they should always do it, but it would be interesting to keep Cole around and have him show up every now and again. I really liked those vignettes they did with Cole speaking a couple of times earlier this year. They were really well done.

I agree. We'll see what happens, but it felt like MJF put that feud to bed at the pay per view

I don't know if you've watched Dynamite yet, how they actually got to Ospreay vs Swerve was fun and interesting. Someone else nearly took Ospreay's spot

[Reprise]

I don't know if you've watched Dynamite yet, how they actually got to Ospreay vs Swerve was fun and interesting. Someone else nearly took Ospreay's spot

Nah, I haven't watched it yet. I will check it out though. I always tend to watch the shows before and after a PPV where I can and I saw some good stuff being posted by AEW on social media.

[Raging Justice]

I don't know if you've watched Dynamite yet, how they actually got to Ospreay vs Swerve was fun and interesting. Someone else nearly took Ospreay's spot

Nah, I haven't watched it yet. I will check it out though. I always tend to watch the shows before and after a PPV where I can and I saw some good stuff being posted by AEW on social media.

I'm a little bit higher on Double or Nothing than I was on my first viewing, and I think this Dynamite was a nice follow up to it. I read somewhere that Tony Kahn had some TV execs in the audience for this show. I thought the show had a few nice surprises and the main event was wild. I think even The Learning Tree has "grown" on me after last night...(me in my Chris Jericho voice) get it, "grown". That was good wasn't it?

[Reprise]

Double or Nothing was a lot of fun. I wasn't blown away, but I don't think there were a single bad match. Even Toni's match was decent and I didn't think the FTW match was terrible. I stand by our comments though that it's too freaking long and at least 2 or 3 matches could have been on Dynamite.

I just saw someone call Swerve vs Ospreay at Forbidden Door the most unpredictable world title match in AEW's history and I think I might agree. I think nearly every one that has happened over the last couple of years has been fairly predictable.

[Reprise]

Hey, Dynamite just had a pretty big ratings increase. Good for them, I hope things start to improve and they get back to where they were last year.

[Raging Justice]

Double or Nothing was a lot of fun. I wasn't blown away, but I don't think there were a single bad match. Even Toni's match was decent and I didn't think the FTW match was terrible. I stand by our comments though that it's too freaking long and at least 2 or 3 matches could have been on Dynamite.

I just saw someone call Swerve vs Ospreay at Forbidden Door the most unpredictable world title match in AEW's history and I think I might agree. I think nearly every one that has happened over the last couple of years has been fairly predictable.

Yeah, I guess it was easier for me to enjoy Double or Nothing on a re-watch because I could pick and choose what matches to watch. When you are watching it live though, it can feel like such a slog cause it's so long and it can make you a little grumpy and ranty LOL. LIke it was very easy for me to watch and enjoy Anarchy in the Arena because I watched it separately from the rest of the PPV. So I wasn't worn out from watching like 4 hours of wrestling beforehand. I also re-watched the Black/Copeland match on its own and found that I enjoyed it more

Hey, Dynamite just had a pretty big ratings increase. Good for them, I hope things start to improve and they get back to where they were last year.

I guess Double or Nothing did something right

[Reprise]

Yeah, I guess it was easier for me to enjoy Double or Nothing on a re-watch because I could pick and choose what matches to watch. When you are watching it live though, it can feel like such a slog cause it's so long and it can make you a little grumpy and ranty LOL. LIke it was very easy for me to watch and enjoy Anarchy in the Arena because I watched it separately from the rest of the PPV. So I wasn't worn out from watching like 4 hours of wrestling beforehand. I also re-watched the Black/Copeland match on its own and found that I enjoyed it more

Yeah, I guess I didn't think of that. I wasn't watching live. Plus I was looking after the kids (it was a public holiday on Monday, so no work but also no school and nursery), so I made sure I watched the bits I wanted to and tuned out a bit when less interesting stuff was on *cough FTW title match*, *cough Toni Storm*

I then rewatched it in the evening without so many distractions and just watched the International title match, the TNT title match and the three "main events" and it flowed much better without all the padding.

I guess Double or Nothing did something right

Maybe. Could be the MJF return or a number of factors. It was a fun, albeit uneven PPV. A lot of it seemed to be setting storylines for the Summer, which isn't neccessarily a bad thing, even if it doesn't neccessarily produce as many great matches.

Not everyone is happy. Saraya was supposed to wrestle last night and her match was cut at the last minute. She went to post some cryptic stuff on Twitter before deleting it. At the same time this happened, Dave and Bryan reported that Tony has been booking the shows pretty much on the fly and has been cutting and changing things multiple times sometimes right up until an hour before the show is due to go on air. Of course this is drawing comparisons to 2019 WWE when Vince was doing the same.

[Raging Justice]

Yeah, I guess it was easier for me to enjoy Double or Nothing on a re-watch because I could pick and choose what matches to watch. When you are watching it live though, it can feel like such a slog cause it's so long and it can make you a little grumpy and ranty LOL. LIke it was very easy for me to watch and enjoy Anarchy in the Arena because I watched it separately from the rest of the PPV. So I wasn't worn out from watching like 4 hours of wrestling beforehand. I also re-watched the Black/Copeland match on its own and found that I enjoyed it more

Yeah, I guess I didn't think of that. I wasn't watching live. Plus I was looking after the kids (it was a public holiday on Monday, so no work but also no school and nursery), so I made sure I watched the bits I wanted to and tuned out a bit when less interesting stuff was on *cough FTW title match*, *cough Toni Storm*

I then rewatched it in the evening without so many distractions and just watched the International title match, the TNT title match and the three "main events" and it flowed much better without all the padding.

I guess Double or Nothing did something right

Maybe. Could be the MJF return or a number of factors. It was a fun, albeit uneven PPV. A lot of it seemed to be setting storylines for the Summer, which isn't neccessarily a bad thing, even if it doesn't neccessarily produce as many great matches.

Not everyone is happy. Saraya was supposed to wrestle last night and her match was cut at the last minute. She went to post some cryptic stuff on Twitter before deleting it. At the same time this happened, Dave and Bryan reported that Tony has been booking the shows pretty much on the fly and has been cutting and changing things multiple times sometimes right up until an hour before the show is due to go on air. Of course this is drawing comparisons to 2019 WWE when Vince was doing the same.

Yeah, I read about that stuff. The comparisons between Tony and Vince are kind of interesting. I'm not big on Saraya, but some of her recent appearances on TV haven't been too bad. If she's motivated and can bring it in the ring I think she can be an asset to the company. Saraya was a big star once upon a time, if she can tap in to some of that greatness again I'm all for it. I can understand her being a bit upset because they had advertised her having a match and then it didn't happen. I just hope she doesn't overreact. Sometimes, pro wrestlers can get a little immature and childish when they don't get their way (especially with social media these days). Though her cryptic tweet could just be frustration at the haphazard way Tony seems to be running things

Dynamite had a few flaws that I didn't really feel like talking about (especially since you haven't seen it yet), but I think the good greatly outweighed the bad. It's rare to get a perfect wrestling show so I'm just looking for more hits than misses