Before I watched those months of AEW the only thing I knew about Kenny, the Bucks, the Lucha Bros…any of those guys…was from from what John and Wai talked about. Never watched New Japan. Never watch ROH. That’s why I wanted the shows to be built around them. To see things I had never seen befote. I heard a lot about Kenny and Okada and about the Golden Lovers and 6 star matches. From what I’ve watched in AEW and that is all that I have watched of Kenny Omega, Kenny isn’t as good as Seth Rollins. Based solely on what AEW has presented to me how could I possibly have any other opinion?
In your situation and for what you want and are looking for, your opinion is valid.
But do you think the majority of fans are also feeling that same way? The ones who didnt know these guys before AEW? I personally dont think so. I think they’re more likely to get a WWE fan, who wants to see these WWE guys do better and then grow fond of the other talents, rather than someone who is coming into it, like you are.
Who cares. It would be one thing if they pushed Brandi to the top of the Woman’s division since she is definitely not the most talented woman there. The Bucks and Kenny are the top guys, there is no disputing that. The anti AEW audience is going to bitch regardless.
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The show was definitely a downer. That’s not to say it was a bad show, but something was not clicking last night for AEW (as it also didn’t clicked for me too, as my cats got in a HUGE fight and now they can’t stay in a room together after 2 years of friendship, WTF??). I guess it was one of those nights that bad decisions were made and stupid things happened, and even though you also saw some good stuff on the program it just leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth,.
I think the average WWE fan does not spend time on message boards and doesn’t know much about other wrestling companies. It was different during the attitude era because wrestling was everywhere. It’s different now. Your average WWE fan watches RAW and Smackdown because it’s in regular TV. If they found AEW on Wednesday night, they’d pay attention and watch Jericho and Hardy. They’d recognize Ambrose and maybe the Revival, Cody and Brodie Lee depending on how big of a fan they are. But what is going to make them stay on that channel or check it out the next week? It’s the Bucks and the Luchas blowing their minds in a tag match. It’s Kenny Omega in the main event. Something they’ve never seen. The average wrestling fan doesn’t give a rat’s ass if Luke Harper was or wasn’t used properly. Much of the IWC does apparently. AEW needs to grow beyond that 850,000 weekly fans. They need to headline with their best. Some people will never become main eventers. Remember when everyone said Shawn Spears became a star? What is he doing now? Matt Cardona? Love his podcast, but on TV? Hard pass. Enough with the ex WWE guys. None of them are going to get your company higher because we’ve all seen them already. I just want compelling TV wrestling and right now, it’s nowhere.
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HAPPY BDAY DAVIE!!
Not my week LOL, not my week at all.
They really need to re-evaluate things after this mess of a show. It badly needed a Cody match - something solid in the ring that made sense.
Allin and the Lucha Bros need to be pushed much harder as baby faces. They got some of the biggest reactions of the night. Ideally the Lucha Bros shouldn’t even be a tag team as Fenix is one of the most talented wrestlers on the planet.
Something also needs to be done about JR. I love the guy but he doesn’t have to be there for every single match. He didn’t add much to the broadcast.
Kahn also needs to learn not to listen to the internet so much. The Baker/ Swole thing was embarrassing and one of the worst show openers I can ever remember. It was the right call to have that in the pre-show, you should always open with something hot and that was the complete opposite.
I don’t blame them. Especially the personality vacuum that is Kenny Omega. Brody Lee looks like Dusty, Flair or The Rock by comparison.
Exactly. They are just too arrogant to see this.
Yeah, I think now that we’re a year in, we can look across the board and critique who they’ve decided to place in a better spot than they were last year. Overwhelmingly, the two guys that you can point to of being in a “better spot” last night are Orange Cassidy and MJF. The latter lost and would seemingly be heading back to where he started and Orange Cassidy has somehow overtaken Jungle Boy and Darby Allin, both of which I’d much rather they have had in this role. Don’t get me wrong - I love Orange Cassidy, but once he goes from gimmicky fun guy to legitimate wrestler, they can’t really go back. And he doesn’t really feel like a guy you can plug in any higher than he is now. Imagine if Allin had this spot instead and what his ceiling would look like today with that kind of win.
If we want to have the discussion of AEW’s future growth, I think I fit into the kind of wrestling fan they’d be building to grab in this second year - someone who wasn’t ready to just jump to them at the moment they were created who had enough wrestling in his life between WWE/New Japan and needs something different to get me there. But I look over and I understand a lot of the gripes people have with who has been used.
It’s really hard to describe what lets me down about Omega. I think it’s because he’s been irrelevant as a singles star since last year’s Full Gear. There’s been basically just the PAC and Guevara matches…and really his one important moment came in ending the Stadium Stampede. I get the idea that The Elite doesn’t want to make themselves really obviously the entire show, but it already feels like the show is largely passively revolving around their stories anyway. Omega is a real draw for someone who loves New Japan like myself and is basically the only part of The Elite I actually miss there…so his lack of singles action is a missing draw.
It seems like they’ve used a ton of bandwidth under the idea that they need to show that they can do better with WWE run offs…and it’s had so-so effect. A good distillation of this is the Dark Order match where Scorpio Sky was the only intriguing part of their future to me and was largely just there in a story involving Lee and, for lack of a better name, the Nepotism Nightmares. Would love to see Lee-Sky. Have no desire to see Brodie Lee-Dustin Rhodes.
To end on a positive note - thank goodness they’re doing something big with Lance Archer again. That’s not a guy who should ever be relegated to AEW Dark.
I honestly think last night was the beginning of the Omega everybody’s been asking for over the last year. I think his “clean break” comments could certainly be taken that way, and will lead the way to a proper singles run.
I also believe he’ll be the one to beat Moxley, and come full circle on their rivalry from last year. Moxley beat Omega in an unsanctioned match - and we will see Omega get the better of him in a proper “wrestling” match.
Slight fantasy booking, but feels like a natural direction.
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I can understand people not being super high on Kenny but the bucks would be perfect as the face of the company.
Agree to disagree.
I’d say the TV has been very compelling, especially “in these uncertain times”…It’s the $50 PPVs that have consistently under-delivered.
And that’s not to say that AEW is bad, b/c it’s easily the most interesting American company…It’s just that they still have room to grow.
As far as listening to the fans, it’s a double-edged sword. Part of the gains that the company’s made over the past year has been specifically because they checked the temperature in the room. Reducing the amount of comedy on the broadcasts, re-tooling the Dark Order, trying to improve the women’s division (a work in progress)…That doesn’t happen if you have a company who is stubborn & doesn’t listen to their customers. But the other side of that coin is you get matches or segments or characters that don’t always hit.
Overall, I thought All Out was fine (a 6/10 show, much like Full Gear)…But for $50 bucks, it needs to be better than that. 
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You mean the AEW PPVs? Cause this is the first one that I (and as far I can see everybody else) can say it under delivered. 6/10 (above) average I’d say it’s not that bad, though for $50 I understand you’ll want better. But think how much of this rating (pleasure of viewing, how much it distracted you from the rest of the show) goes down because of the Matt Hardy debacle. You still had the Bucks vs the Jurassics, the Tag Team Titles match and the Women’s Title match, The Dark Order vs The Nightmare Family was a good match too that actually served several purposes (Cabana’s slip and Dustin’s shot at the title that came because of it), the Main Event, even though not an instant classic, was still a fine match with a smart finish.
OC vs Jericho was there, I guess. If nothing else it provided that shot of the latter swimming in his natural habitat. I’d say after the hot start they’ve lost the pulse of this feud and I think it is because the matches after the first one under delivered.
So, they had their first actually bad Battle Royal (and I don’t think bad is the exact word here) and a wacky cinematic match, which, I thought, they could do a few more re-shootings on some parts - I don’t think wrestling companies are actually using the full potential of those, even though AEW to me are doing better job at them in general (that Stadium Stampede match I was howling at some points), but this one was not that gem. Matt Hardy vs Guevarra, judging from the reactions, took a lot of people out of the show and I guess this is why they are critical to the rest of it, which I’m not sure is fair.
I’ll have to say something and about the crowd and the voicing of the crowd - it was horrible (missing) and took like 1* from every match they did. It just didn’t felt lively and more like something that we’ve watched in the beginning of the pandemic. They have the same problem with their Live weekly shows and they need to mic those people better ASAP.
Edit: I just saw Meltzer saying that AEW released a statement that Matt’s test came out and he is CLEAN out of concussion. So now doc. Samson’s decision to let him finish the match is actually legit? I mean, it was a scary situation and yes, they should’ve announce it like a no contest… but seems to me that Matt dodged a HUGE bullet here.
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He hit his head HARD, and could barely stand afterwards. This sounds like PR work to me. Even if it wasn’t a concussion, letting them off the hook is results oriented thinking.
For example, if I grabbed a gun and tried to shoot someone and missed, I should still be held accountable because regardless of the results of my actions, they were irresponsible. I shouldn’t get a pass because no damage was done. Now of course my gun example is an extreme, but the same logic applies here.
Regardless of the results of the test, Khan & Sampson made a bad decision. Its not as if they just had Matt take a pin, he climbed a damn scaffold afterwards, imagine if he collapsed while he was up there, he did slip at one point, he literally could have died. This is one of the worst cases of negligence I have seen in a long time in any sport. No excuse in 2020.
I’m not arguing it was not a good decision, just pointing what the doctors from the hospital concluded. I’m sure it will serve them as an earring (like we say here), but let’s hope no one gets there again (ha-ha).
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Ya I hear you, I dont mean to imply that you are defending anything. Did they post the results of the test? Or are they just saying it was not a concussion?
I remain unconvinced Brother Nate!
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No one’s going to take The Young Bucks seriously outside of the people that have loved them before AEW started up.
What a bizarre blanket statement. What evidence do you have that you can stand by this?
I can understand your personal bias - but this is a baseless argument.
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