Can’t lie…They got me with that “Captain America: Civil War” homage.
Not a perfect match (it dragged in parts, and we definitely need an AEW commercial-free cut uploaded sometime this weekend), but it was a perfectly acceptable spectacle. 8/10.
4 Likes
I feel like the Civil War thing worked better in Stadium Stampede, but maybe that was just me getting my hopes up that the Heels were actually going to be smart.
Yes. Traditional War Games match rules - which this followed - have always been “Submit or Surrender”.
So let me get this straight… Sammy was the one most openly fighting with MJF during his IC time (with many convenient plot holes). Sammy gave away the advantage in BnG. Sammy was (I think) the one to officially surrender.
I’m still convinced Sammy is going to betray Jericho and join up with MJF and the Pinnacle.
I’ll almost be disappointed if that is not the case.
The match was great. It felt like a fight and a war and not a spot fest like the NXT War Games matches, which is what it needed to be. I’m glad the doors didnt open and the idiots stopped to throw in tables and trash cans. They just ran right in there to fight.
The commercials sucked and I think this should be on PPV next time, but I didnt watch live, so it was ok for me. I expected this exact ending when I saw the graphic of the cage a couple weeks ago, but I thought it was going to be Guevara getting thrown off. Was it a perfect finish? No. But it makes sense and yes, he got thrown onto “pillows” but what the fuck were people expecting? A 50 year old man to get thrown 20 feet onto steel? How fucking stupid. If you want to criticize the camera angle, for sure go ahead. They definitely could have used a better angle, but to even bring up the pillows is just flat out moronic.
1 Like
To me with the finish is just don’t pretend it is concrete if you are going to do a bump through the stage. They didn’t need to say that, let it be wood and “metal” or just don’t do the spot. They seem to have an issue with just not doing things just like with the explosion the match was over the spot afterwards wasn’t even needed and including it made things worse not better. It isn’t that I want them to throw anyone onto concrete, it is that I don’t want them to pretend that is what they are going to do and then do it in a really fake way.
Really think a straw man has been built around “what did you think they were going to do, throw him onto concrete” etc, stuff. No one is asking for Jericho to be crippled. People just don’t want the fantasy to be ruined by seeing something that looks fake and these are things that can be practiced beforehand to make sure they look good. This is two straight big AEW events where “we’re going to do it right” ends with “well, what else did you expect?” as a pardon for it. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to be mad when proper prep isn’t done.
1 Like
Either my hearing is going bad, or you watched the spanish feed where they said something different, because not once did the announcers say anything about concrete, wood, metal, plastic, tissue paper etc.
The worst thing about it, was the camera angles. They were shit. The announcers acted like they should have acted.
Infact, it wasnt just this part that the cameras were shit. They constantly kept filming Jericho with his eyes open afterwards. I’m pretty sure they caught Jericho blading after being hit with the ring and then talking to MJF telling him to throw him.
I totally get what they were trying to do with the finish but it was sloppily done. Camera work was bad, too much awkward standing around by MJF and Jericho.
Great idea but the execution was poor. I felt like the announcers did the best they could but the timing was off and it just didn’t work.
But the actual match was the best War Games style match of this generation. Not silly weapons attached to the cage, it had a roof and no one put a garbage can on their head and jumped off the top rope. It’s supposed to be a bloody brawl, not goofy shit with weapons.
There was one Hell in a Cell where Shane jumped off the cell(it may have been the Owens match) and “fans” were losing it because there was a crash pad(that you could barely tell was there.)
It does not matter what these companies do, because people will find any little thing to whine about, but it never seems to be the actual legit things that they should have issues with. Complain about the camera angles, I get it. There were several bad ones. Complain about idiot refs. There were a couple spots in the QT/Cody match that were ridiculous.
I think we can manage through what’s dumb gripe and what’s a bigger gripe and things fell apart a bit at the end there. Barely seeing a crash pad is one thing, but a lot about the ending was sloppy and you have distinct lack of coordination between timing (of MJF/Jericho just standing there for too long before the throw); of production (close ups of a stage that was very obviously made up of cardboard and foam fakes of the usual one); talent (Jericho not realizing they were going to be close up on him for no reason and opening his eyes several times); and the announcers (with Tony not calling it as if this is a career-threatening event, which is the only way Inner Circle actually forfeiting in fear of it makes sense).
And I think AEW hypes these things up (and selects to compare themselves with others) in ways that when enough things come off sloppy, you don’t really get to waive it off because you’ve chosen to market yourselves as the people who get these gimmicks right.
1 Like
If you can’t make something look good and real, just don’t do it. MJF could have slammed Jericho’s head off the cage one last time and left him there to bleed out and it would have been more effective storytelling than tossing him through some pizza boxes on to a crash pad, which just looks goofy.
Plus, you don’t HAVE to throw someone off the cage just because it’s there. Leaving a tease for something bigger to happen in the future isn’t the worst thing in the world either. Now whenever they they announce the next Blood and Guts they have already shown their hand as to what the biggest spot in the match could be. Just teasing the audience could be enough to make people think, “nobody got thrown off the cage last time, what if it happens next time?”
But of course it’s AEW so they have to do every single huge crazy death-defying spot in every single match, for better or worse.
2 Likes
Also when Jericho and MJF were fighting on top of the cage the cameras would occasionally point down into the ring below and you could see people just standing around watching from underneath. Like not even selling just standing around waiting for the next spot.
I agree. I didnt like that either. All of that shit is way worse than a guy falling on a crash pad. I have to suspend my disbelief enough in wrestling, for 95% of moves, that are impossible to pull off. I can accept that a guy got thrown onto a crash pad and it didnt look “real”.
What bothers me is the other shit. Allowing camera operators to catch these certain things is ridiculous. When Jericho was about to blade, you could see it coming for a few seconds before, they should have quickly switched cameras, instead they showed him blade and I’m pretty sure they showed him drop the blade down to the ring. I’m not 100% sure on that last part, but I could swear I saw him drop it.
I just think the spot in question is getting too much heat, when there was much worse.
Any complaints I have, I wouldn’t put onto the wrestlers themselves. Production and camera angles would have solved most of the issues. The in ring talent worked their asses off, and I really enjoyed it.
2 Likes
Literally 5 mins from the end of the show
MJF does the ring punch walks to the edge and looks down.
Tony: “He’s not thinking…
JR”: “We don’t know what he’s thinking…”
Excalibur: “He’s looking…This concrete stage here!”
They literally said it was concrete.
It was tiled with gimmicked diamond plate steel sheets.
So literally we are led to believe it is concrete with steel on it. And he broke it by falling. If it was just a stage we assume maybe wood which wrestlers fall through all the time, and metal on top. It would still work ok. But they literally said “concrete stage”
So I don’t know what feed you watched or if you just didn’t listen but it was there, and it shouldn’t have been if this was the plan.
That whole exchange was hilarious and why I still like JR. He was right, why did the announcers think he was going to throw him off the cage? Made no sense
My issue with the match were if it is going to be a bloody brawl don’t do stuff like reset to a 5 on 5 when all the participants enter. Up to that point I thought it was great, after that I think things went south, capped by the bad ending which like the explosion match is easily remedied by just not doing the spot which wasn’t necessary and played no role in the outcome of the match.
To me it felt like the announcers (or at least Excalibur) felt the need to push how lethal the fall would be which prompted quitting the match. Without that guys take huge bumps all the time and don’t quit. Which is fine, but then don’t throw him on it once they quit and reveal the lie. I mean MJF kicks Jericho in the nuts atop the cage and stands tall while running his mouth would work just fine, and have been better than what we got. To me this was Exploding bar wire 2.0. Good-great match with a crap ending that detracts from the match.
1 Like