The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

The funny thing is AEW have been quite smart. They had Swerve sign a new contract live at All In. This was intentional. It got people talking, particularly the dirt sheets and those online. Not only did it create doubt in people's minds that Bryan would beat Swerve (because if you re-signing the world champion live on PPV for a lucrative new deal, there's a good chance you will book him to retain, right?), but it also led to Swerve's name being talked in the wrestling media.

"Swerve re-signed on a highly paid new deal"
"Heads in WWE believe Swerve is being paid above his market value"
"Is AEW overpaying its stars?"

Then they hit the public with this feel-good story that Swerve is using the money from his new contract to buy his old childhood home. They told this story with a complete straight face. They went so far with this, that apparently the Hangman angle was kept secret from a lot of people within AEW, to the point that people were congratulating Swerve on buying his old home and he went along with the lie and didn't let on to anyone that it was actually an angle. Wow!

The subsequent clip on social media has been received very positively and has performed very well, from what I have read.

AEW keep capturing these great moments. I wish they could maintain momentum a little better than they do. When they want to, they can tell great stories. I wasn't even going to watch All Out, but now the show feels like a must-watch event.

As for Toni and Mariah, you aren't wrong. I am already confused that Mariah isn't defending the belt at All Out. And to be honest, it feels anticlimactic her being the champion. They could save it by continuing the Toni feud. Make Toni unhinged. Turn her into Hangman and have her cost Mariah the belt to someone else.

What pisses me off though is Toni isn't even very good in the ring. The actual match at All In, crowd and audience investment aside, wasn't actually particularly great from an in-ring perspective. Yet I see people shitting all over Mercedes and Britt whilst claiming with a straight face that Toni and Mariah was a great match.

[Raging Justice]

Man, All Out could have been called "Personal Animosity: The Pay Per View"

So much hate:

Garcia/MJF
Statlander/Willow
Moxley/Bryan
Hangman/Swerve

It was a running theme throughout the show, and I really dug it. Two great back to back PPVs from AEW.

I also love that we are in the era of AEW where we are seeing arson, attempted murders, people being literally hanged, and pyromania. Someone told me, "AEW is really not for kids" and I thought, "Yeah, and that's why I love it"

[Reprise]

I saw someone else make the same observation. I didn't manage to watch it, but it sounded like a great PPV. I'll catch up on it at some point.

I wonder what the story is with Mox/BCC and Bryan. I saw someone make the link between Darby having a title shot against Bryan and Mox asking to speak to Darby... I wonder if they want to take him under their wing and groom him to win the title and retire Bryan. Maybe Darby will turn heel. I could be wrong (and I really don't know how I feel if he actually is the chosen person to both win the world title and retire Bryan, or him doing it as a heel), but the story has me intrigued.

The only thing that makes me concerned for AEW (well not concerned as such) is Swerve and MJF apparently are both being written off for a while and Daniel Garcia was supposedly booked to go over clean, but they changed the ending because he still hasn't re-signed. I hope Garcia stays and MJF and Swerve are not gone too long.

[Raging Justice]

Having MJF and Swerve gone isn't great, but I like how things played out with both of them on the pay per view.

Hangman's match with Swerve was one of the most compelling things I've seen in wrestling in quite some time. It's the sort of match that left you feeling kind of sick, because there was no hero in this story. Both of these men are heels, but there are still glimpses of humanity in both of them. So watching them doing morally depraved things to each other...was kind of sad. I think the commentary team did a good job of getting that feeling across.

I was rooting for Hangman, but at the same time it was sort of sad to see him turn into this monster. The classic tale of revenge corrupting you. Swerve deserved the punishment that Hangman wanted to give him, yet there were moments in the match where you still couldn't help but feel sorry for Swerve.

Watching that match gave me conflicting feelings. Great stuff.

Ospreay/Pac was the sort of show stealer you'd expect.

Willow/Statlander was good, but I strongly disagree with Solomonster on youtube saying it's the best women's street fight we've seen in AEW.

Mercedes/Shida was...okay. Probably the weakest match honestly. Something with Mercedes is just not clicking in these matches. I don't know what it is. I feel like we've yet to see her establish any real chemistry with anyone in AEW. I'm kind of surprised by how little Mercedes, Mariah May, and Mina Shirakawa have brought to the table. I think the women's division has been given a lot more attention since Mercedes signed with AEW, but there are still things that aren't clicking. Maria May had a segment with Sky Blue on the pre show that was absolutely awful. Her character is nearly as terrible and cringeworthy as Timeless Toni Storm. She is getting a feud with Queen Aminata. I imagine the match will be great, but I don't know about the story telling. I'm already ready to see May drop the title. It's looking like her reign will be as awful as Storm's was. At this point, I'd rather see the title on Deonna Purazzo or someone from ROH like Aminata or Athena.

Garcia and MJF was really good.

The four way match for Okada's title really gives the impression that people want to see an Okada/Takeshita match.

Perry delivered strongly in the main event spot he was given. I don't know if Perry will ever reach the level of true main eventer, but he was very good here.

[Reprise]

Maria May had a segment with Sky Blue on the pre show that was absolutely awful. Her character is nearly as terrible and cringeworthy as Timeless Toni Storm.

Ah yeah, I forgot to say that I watched a lot of the pre-show despite not watching the main PPV.

I saw that segment and it immediately took me back to late 90s attitude era WWE, and not in a good way. It reminded me of the cringe Divas era stuff, with women acting like ditzy barbie dolls, whose only purpose is to serve as sex appeal. She reminds me of a Tori Wilson or Stacie Keibler type of character.

They haven't established Mariah with a strong enough personality. They filled the void left by her finishing her arc with Toni Storm. And what they are trying to do is lame.

It's just cheap and tacky and not compelling in the slightest.

[Raging Justice]

The Swerve/Hangman feud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4WGQmWcrbs

The best part of this storyline will be the day that they become bros.

Does WWE deserve criticism for not protecting the status of their world titles? I ask this due to me seeing an interesting statistic about Stardom today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/stardomjoshi/c ... n_history/

In 14 years Stardom has only had 3 two time world champions:

Mayu Iwatani - The icon of Stardom, or the "protagonist" of the company as some people view her
Iyo Sky - Well known today to WWE fans, she once had a very dominant run in Stardom and I remember a time years ago where she was called the best female wrestler in the world
Tam Nakano - The face of Stardom, who only achieved this feat within the past few weeks. She almost doesn't count given that her first title reign ended due to injury. She wasn't defeated by anyone.

In AEW, the only people to hold the title more than once are Moxely and Punk, which is embarrassing and some of that is due to all of the shenanigans that Punk created when he was in the company. Still, AEW has protected that world title. The women's title, has only been held more than once by Shida, and unfortunately Toni Storm. I wish AEW had made that Shida's gimmick, the only women to win it more than once. She deserves that more than Storm does. The TBS title has not had one woman win it more than once. AEW has protected its big singles titles fairly well. I guess you could argue that the TBS title isn't really a world title, but it certainly does feel like the top women's title right now. I mean they just set up a feud for Mariah May with someone who is a nobody in the AEW eco system, even though I like Queen Aminata. Storm devalued that title and made it a secondary title, but I'm getting off topic. Meanwhile, in WWE we have:

John Cena - 16 times
Charlotte Flair - 13 times

I could list more WWE people, but you get the idea. Food for thought

[Raging Justice]

CM Punk/Drew Mcintyre feud:

[Reprise]

So Drew vs Punk in HIAC? Could be fun.

The Swerve/Hangman feud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4WGQmWcrbs

The best part of this storyline will be the day that they become bros.

Lol that video isn't available in my country, but I already know what it is from the title. Very true.

I hope they eventually team up. That will definitely be the best part of the storyline. They would be an unstoppable force.

Speaking of AEW, there's a rumour going around that their new deal with WBD is nearly ready, but that they will no longer have exclusivity, with AEW being in talks with Fox for a brand new show. This is getting a bit weird, but I guess it's no different to WWE having Raw and Smackdown on different networks.

As long as this doesn't affect us in other countries, I don't care. I can currently watch all AEW programming for free on domestic television with a couple of days delay or pay monthly for Fite to watch live or on demand. It'll be a pain in the arse if they switch to a Raw and Smackdown model with two A shows and one of them is on some channel I can't watch (at least legally haha).

[Raging Justice]

AEW on Fox would be cool, one more thing for AEW fans to brag about in this ongoing tribal war between AEW fans and WWE fans

I actually want to see a Peter vs Chicken style fight between Swerve and Hangman. They could be fighting throughout the backstage area, and the fight should just come out of nowhere. Right in the middle of Excalibur talking about something else he should be like, "Wait...I'm getting something in my headset. Something going on backstage". Then we see Swerve and Hangman fighting for like ten minutes. I want to see other people become collateral damage, like AEW staff who happen to be back there (or Tony Kahn). Eventually the fight spills outside of the building and we're following them as they keep fighting, eventually getting near a dock or something, they both end up in the water and are still throwing punches at each other. Then they try drowning each other, eventually they got out of the water, and they're fighting into a nearby street and then you have some guys paid by AEW to drive cars around the two of them as if they are interrupting civilian traffic, then they fight into a department store or a mall and people inside are like, "What the fuck is happening!?" and you hear someone pull out her cell phone and call the cops, and you could just keep going with this for several minutes with them fighting all over the building, smashing through the glass windows of a shop in the mall, then they grab some items in there and start using them as weapons and then they just keep fighting until the cops show up, then Hangman and Swerve start beating the shit out of the cops.

Next week we see a segment filmed by AEW where we see both men behind bars in a police station

In separate cells of course

[Reprise]

AEW on Fox would be cool, one more thing for AEW fans to brag about in this ongoing tribal war between AEW fans and WWE fans

The Fox show will be called AEW Shockwave. The trademark has already been registered, so I guess it's all but confirmed. I wonder what will happen to Rampage and Collision. The latter has been a complete flop, mostly due to Punk's shenanigans. They have already had budget cuts to Collision, it just got historically low ratings two weeks in a row (to be fair it moved timeslots and went against Smackdown last week).

I imagine WBD will cut AEW down to just two shows and a third show will be on Fox.

But who knows?

I actually want to see a Peter vs Chicken style fight between Swerve and Hangman. They could be fighting throughout the backstage area, and the fight should just come out of nowhere. Right in the middle of Excalibur talking about something else he should be like, "Wait...I'm getting something in my headset. Something going on backstage". Then we see Swerve and Hangman fighting for like ten minutes. I want to see other people become collateral damage, like AEW staff who happen to be back there (or Tony Kahn). Eventually the fight spills outside of the building and we're following them as they keep fighting, eventually getting near a dock or something, they both end up in the water and are still throwing punches at each other. Then they try drowning each other, eventually they got out of the water, and they're fighting into a nearby street and then you have some guys paid by AEW to drive cars around the two of them as if they are interrupting civilian traffic, then they fight into a department store or a mall and people inside are like, "What the fuck is happening!?" and you hear someone pull out her cell phone and call the cops, and you could just keep going with this for several minutes with them fighting all over the building, smashing through the glass windows of a shop in the mall, then they grab some items in there and start using them as weapons and then they just keep fighting until the cops show up, then Hangman and Swerve start beating the shit out of the cops.

Next week we see a segment filmed by AEW where we see both men behind bars in a police station

In separate cells of course

That would be cool actually. Very cool. Like a modern twist on some of the Attitude Era stuff.

Actually it kind of annoys me that AEW struggles to think of creative segments like that. That's the sort of thing I could imagine going viral and actually would be compelling. After they are done and they're in jail, what else is there for them to do then talk out their problems and then that could lead to them eventually putting differences aside and working together.