During Saturday’s AEW Revolution pay-per-view, the promotion announced a two-ring ‘Blood and Guts’ match for March.
While not mentioning the term ‘War Games’, it is their version of the match with the re-branding capitalizing on the comment made by Vince McMahon on an investor’s call when asked to comment on AEW. During the promo spot, the phrase ‘This Is War’ was included.
The match is scheduled for the March 25th edition of Dynamite from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Wonder what NXT will do to counter this, with it being so close to Wrestlemania, they can’t exactly load up the show otherwise it’ll might interfere.
Mind you they could bump up the Rhea/Charlotte to that episode.
I’ve always thought that there’s an NXT Reunion show that WWE have been keeping under their sleeves. There’s probably a reason why Roman/Bray were kept off that Survivor Series go home episode of NXT.
With a title like Blood & Guts, it makes me think of what exactly they can get away with on TNT, I wonder if it’s going to be a blow off to one feud or are they going to merge feuds together for this match
The answer is they won’t do anything it isn’t like they have counter programmed every episode with big matches announced. It won’t greatly shift the ratings from what we already get week in and week out.
I’ll definitely watch the show but god it’s an awful name. I know it’s a small shot at Vince and his nonsense statement a while back but it sounds like some crap video game on steam rather than a must watch TV show.
Yeah they need to stop this WWE mocking/copying stuff and just don’t their own thing. Call it your own title and own it. Don’t use a phrase he threw out.
It’s also like Cody copying HHH with Motörhead and having his band out that sucked. Just stop it and be original
I don’t feel like downstait playing is a copy or anything, they’ve done a few songs for aew now and it can create a big entrance moment. The bigger problem is that it just wasn’t very good and they were hidden at the back behind a load of jobbers in matching tracksuits.
Steel cage matches, Iron Man matches, “Blood & Guts” match, a cruise ship show, Bash At The Beach… People say NXT are blowing their load when they hype up one or two matches for weekly TV but they stay quiet when AEW go far, far beyond that. The hypocrisy shows no sign of stopping.
As for the trolling name, not surprised. Most of the executives have basically made their names being internet trolls that have a YouTube show before AEW came into existence.
It’s ok NXT has two steel cage matches this week. Oh, and I guess they’re also doing a show from their developmental building because they’re too scared to try and run an actual building for TV.
Don’t forget a ladder match with all the women coming up for Takeover. They haven’t done one since November, way too long. They love ladders.
But calling it a “Blood and Guts” match is very lame.
Why does everything AEW does have to be about what WWE and NXT are doing? If something is good, it’s good no matter what is on the other channel. If something is bad, it’s bad.
You can’t go on and on about how low the bar is, and then celebrate when you clear it.
It is more about burning out matchups rather than churning out gimmick matches. I feel like we’ve seen that with PAC to some extent, and also with the Lucha Bros. More than anything with NXT it just feel like since TV went live they have been rushing through feuds with a ton of PPV builds (simultaneous Wargames/SS, then They built up the last show of 2019 as a big show, then straight into worlds collide, then Portland. So they have been running a much faster monthly PPV style rather than spread out Takeovers. I mean look a Dream vs Roddy. They did not drag that out at all, Dream came back and they had the match like the next week.
I may be wrong… But in six months they’ve done one Cage match, one iron man match, I think one street fight on Dynamite… and then at the end of this month, War Games.
So, four gimmick matches over seven months of television. Do you honestly think they’re burning through things?
Add in PPVs to that, they’ve also had two Unsanctioned matches between today and July 2019.
I’d say they came close to burning through those Lights Out matches as they did do three within a short span (Fighter Fest, Full Gear and an Episode of Dark). But I also think they’ve learned that lesson and probably will hold off for a long time before the next one, as Omega / Moxley won’t be copied for a while. None of these were presented as part of their weekly TV though.
I’d say they’ve shown some restraint in gimmicks on TV and PPV.
Also, I don’t think you can say that the Cruise ship show or Bash at the Beach, are comparable to a gimmick match. It’s simply a slightly different setting for TV. And I would assume that it sets up an annual event during those weeks in January.
You left out a ladder match, and 3 Battle Royals, and a whole bunch of triple threat fatal 4 way etc matches. I honestly think that is the thing they are running into The ground to some extent. Need a championship challenger have a battle Royal, or a fatal 4 way. Other than that I don’t think much has felt over used (other than the lights out thing you mentioned).
Pointing out that AEW rely heavily on gimmicks doesn’t seem to have gone down well…
I also don’t think that AEW have done anything wrong by relying on gimmick matches and gimmick shows (so far as it’ll all become too normal soon). The issue is the lack of consistency from people when judging AEW. Pointing out something obvious seems to be taken way too personally by some.
@TheBenjamin mentioning NXT doing gimmick matches a few times everyday on the forum is whatever but saying “yeah but you know that AEW rely on gimmicks more” once is too much.
I specifically tried to avoid any whataboutism in my response. That said, in all fairness, it’s very difficult to avoid doing.
I really think that AEW has done a good job at standing on its own when presenting television, and usually things that are meant to be special, actually feel that way.
It reminds me of being a fan growing up, where gimmick matches meant something - and it wasn’t dictated by the PPV of the month (outside Rumble and Survivor Series, and then Wargames in WCW). It’s nice to see.
I shit on bad WWE stuff and I shit on bad AEW stuff. Doing one seems to anger people (especially some on here) more than doing the other which leads them to behave as if they’ve been personally attacked and a discussion becomes impossible. The least I can do is help them see their hypocrisy.