Mootinie

I would be stunned if New Japan allow AEW to do Omega vs. Ospreay twice. I'm sure the deal was probably for two matches - Omega goes over in Japan, Ospreay goes over in North America. RevPro is running their biggest show ever during the All In weekend, it's their Anniversary show at the Copper Box Arena. Will Ospreay is wrestling Shingo Takagi and the Undisputed British Heavyweight title is held by Great-O-Khan. Considering RevPro have done tremendously well by New Japan in terms of both importing their talent for supercards and taking in wrestlers on excursion, I think NJPW will help their British friends in drawing a packed house and will withhold their talent from working the Wembley show.

Because it makes sense for a plucky heel to try and steal his thunder? It's an angle? It's creating and advancing a story? It's actually doing something on the show? Punk came out and said he had been absent because of his injury and then proceeded to talk about owing apologies and the fan favourites being soft. Am I the only one that thought the whole deal made no sense? I don't really follow the sheets, nor I do really trust them, but AEW's failure to acknowledge Brawl Out is so frustrating to me. I hate the wink wink nudge nudge crap they continually pull, it's intelligence insulting. They should really hire a press agency and start actually talking about what's going on internally. When do they ever tell you when a wrestler is injured? If you didn't have Wrestling Twitter, a sub to Fightful Select or a membership for the Observer, how were you supposed to know what Punk was going on about? I find it all really dumb. I do. Maybe I'm alone in this, whatever. WWE are doing a lot of stuff that is working, how much of it is worky shooty insider rubbish? Basically none of it. Smart company.

That Punk promo was a brilliant advocate for this company hiring writers. I genuinely had no clue what he was on about for most of it. Vince Russo wrestlecrap nonsense. Why didn’t they just have Jay White interrupt him straight away?

D'Amore basically runs TNA now and has done since Callis stepped away.

The Jericho match was absolutely awful in my opinion. It was low energy unconvincing tripe with a weak finish. I don't think they were even trying out there. As a performer, Jericho is simply pathetic. Nothing he does look good. The fans were laughing at this match. The less I say about Cole's "punches" at the end the better. Garbage. A total DUD. Wardlow was brilliant, that was a main event performance in my opinion. Dude went out there and wrestled like he had a point to prove. Great stuff from the big man. I have an issue with Hayter dropping the belt if she's hurt but if you're gonna do that just have her get pinned. They had to do loads of crap outside the ring with run ins and weapons first. There's so many gimmicks. Her shoulder is hurt, that should be the story. But we get Britt Baker running in again, we get Shida with the stick, we get Ruby and Saraya interfering, we get an exposed turnbuckle, we get a false finish, all on top of an injury angle in a match that was THREE MINUTES LONG. Why on earth did they turn Ruby Soho heel if her role is now to play cheerleader? I thought they were turning her so she could fight Jamie for the belt without their being an odd face vs face dynamic but instead, she's now doing basically nothing. What was the point in turning her then? She could be fighting Storm for the belt now. Terrible booking all round there. And why promote a match if you can't do one? If Jamie is hurt then vacate the belt. We didn't get a proper match and on a PPV that's unforgivable. I'm reliably informed this is a STACKED roster, that's what you guys keep saying. What's the excuse here? Running a three minute crapshoot on a show your fans are paying for just to get the belt off Hayter is not good business. I love Jamie, she's my girl, we're the same age, I've followed her career for a while and I think she's fantastic, one of my favourite wrestlers period. But if she went through with this nonsense because Britt has been running her mouth about Thunder Rosa not wrestling hurt then hopefully she has a word with herself. They easily could have vacated and ran Shida vs. Storm and given us an actual match. Four Pillars match was excellent. Wrestled like they were the best damn four guys on the roster, gave it socks and took it home. I watched guys on this card who turned up like they were wrestling a house show on Monday and then I saw MJF, Jack, Sammy and Darby giving it 110% to entertain this crowd and all of us at home. Breathless for 27-odd minutes. A five star classic. MJF is seriously one of the best wrestlers I have ever seen, he's so good at absolutely everything. The Blackpool Combat Club are so much better now Regal has hit the bricks. All in all, pretty good show. 7/10. But time to scale back the overbooking.

The fact that people call them "AEW fans" and "WWE fans" is exactly part of the problem. The tribalism is absolutely pathetic.

WrestleTix is suggesting the number of tickets sold may well be over 60,000 now...

I just think it's a mistake running a Four Way rather than MJF vs. Darby in a singles match. Whatever people's opinions are on Jack Perry and Sammy Guevara, it's clear to me that Darby has trended upwards in a way that those guys have not. The best segment of this whole storyline was Sting and Darby verbally sparring with MJF so I am a wee bit disappointed that TK saw that and thought the Four Pillars Match was still the right direction. Then again, Tony is very much a wrestling booker who does what he writes in his legal pad. There's a domino effect when plans change and he obviously doesn't like flying on the seat of his pants when it comes to putting shows together. I have no doubt the match will be a banger and the TV build will matter nought, that's how these things work. Nobody talks about WrestleMania X-Seven and mentions that they built Rock vs. Austin with a squabble over who Debra was managing. But, yeah... personal bias and all, World title matches to me should always be singles matches to me and I wanted Darby to get the call.

WB were not interested in ROH because shows that get cancelled generally aren't very appealing to a TV exec of any stripe. It's why many cancelled shows just wind up on Netflix and, yeah, sometimes they get a shot in the arm and become something awesome. Cobra Kai is great, well done to YouTube for dropping it. But there's also a reason that Netflix is the only destination willing to take them on. ROH was a media property being dumped by Sinclair. Nobody was going to touch it just because of the optics involved. It's a tainted brand, it's somebody else's garbage. It's a different man's seconds and it always will be, you just don't shake that. IMPACT have their spot on AXS TV only because Anthem own the network and the promotion. If it wasn't for that particular intervention, you would be witnessing the same deal with them. Spike cancelled them, nobody will go near them now. They'd probably be streaming on Twitch or on FITE or on IWTV if it wasn't for Anthem purchasing AXS. Execs don't want cancelled shows and second-hand properties. Hannibal was bloody brilliant but we only got 3 seasons and it was cancelled after its second season when the finale was a legit 10/10 blockbuster of an episode. The ratings were crap, it's a cancelled show, it doesn't even matter that it's flipping awesome because nobody wanted to touch it. But here's the deal with CM Punk: he has a contract. He was always coming back. Capitalists are not going to pay you to not work. Not unless we're in the midst of a pandemic but I digress. I would guess that the Khans spoke to Punk about a buyout, the dollar figure was too high to be justified and it probably came with all sorts of conditions like withholding a no compete. Essentially, it was pay me my whole contract so I can leave and go elsewhere and get paid or let me come back and work for you and do business. I'm not sure Tony had much option. Imagine what other dudes would pull this crap and try and get a buyout if they wanted out. Andrade? Miro? It's a bad precedent. Punk has to come back and they have to make it work. If they think Collision is the avenue then that's that, we'll see how it goes I guess...

Does TK do everything? It's pretty well known that Tony Schiavone and Chris Jericho are go-to dudes backstage. QT Marshall has been writing TV all along. Pat Buck and Sonjay Dutt were promoted in creative roles and they put out a press release, Jarrett has a role, they have coaches like Big Show, Mark Henry and Billy Gunn, they have Omega & The Bucks as EVP's. I seriously doubt all those dudes are just bumming around and doing nothing. I wouldn't be surprised at all if TV is now a case of Tony simply signing off on whatever they have put together. There is a rumour that The Young Bucks have been writing TV for a while now. I'm not sure where it originates from, but the Pillars storyline doesn't seem like the sort of thing Tony would put together. It's been more sports entertainment and less wrestling supercard since Revolution.

I really have no idea how they're going to do 4 hours of A-show television every week when they have struggled mightily to produce 3 hours. Rampage has been borderline useless for the majority of the time it has been on the air and I would never have advocated for it to go 2 hours in its recent presentation. I wonder if Collision is going to viewed in a similar light to Thunder in terms of stretching the deck too thin simply to meet the wants of a demanding provider. Time Warner saw WCW as this short term thing they needed to milk dry for all it was worth and I really hope WBD don't view AEW similarly. The mere idea of 5 hours of television, plus Dark, plus ROH TV... it's insane. This roster is not that deep.

I'm still having a hard time working out what that blank check deal was all about.

AEW need to get a move on in christening Darby Allin as the #1 Contender for the title belt so I can start getting excited for Double or Nothing. You just know that dude is gonna market the life out of his first ever PPV main event. Fully deserved too. Got his head down, did the work, never complained and worked the programmes. Ethan Page? It was great. Brody King? It was great. Cinematic stuff? Awesome. Everything with Sting has been gold. He was Samoa Joe’s best opponent in years. Yes, absolutely the top contender. Get that marquee up already Tony!

I think some people find the business end of wrestling to be interesting and I don't think it's fair to delegitimise their attitude or their approach towards wrestling. This is a community, there are always going to be different lines of discussion and since it's an internet forum engagement is a choice. If you don't want to talk about "bringing in new fans", you can always ignore that dialogue and just make your points about wrestling as an entertainment medium instead.

Thanks to the NBA lead in, one of AEW's most watched segments in the history of the promotion is now Aussie Open defending the IWGP Tag Team titles against Best Friends. This promotion, man. They ain't even your belts and two of the four people involved in the match aren't even signed...

One of the primary differences is that WWF was running the UK regularly through to 1992 as part of their ordinary touring routine. Bulldog went over but many of those fans had been seeing WWF shows in England before that big PPV so it made sense to run with that sort of vehicle on top. They needed something to push it versus a normal WWF card of the time. It's the same for WWE with Clash at the Castle. You're already running that market so you need a little extra push to sell the PPV over the house show loops and TV you do when you come over. For AEW, this is the first time hitting the market. The priority should be getting the talents on the card that the UK fans will want to see live and in person. Omega, The Bucks, Sting, MJF, Darby, Jungle Boy, Hayter, PAC... I can think of a few others too but that's the main thing. You don't need a big broadway or a massive story to sell this, it's done 50,000 presale tix already, just do a normal show. That is what fans want to see, not some British fairytale to make absolutely sure we're all aware that AEW is in England.

English fans don't want English wrestlers booked on top just because the show is in England. If Will Ospreay was a big star here, RevPro would have booked him in larger venues than York Hall. Same for Sabre Jr., he's been booked by RevPro forever and it ain't like they book Wembley Arena and sell it out. Nobody here will even know who David Finlay is and it's not what English fans want to see, we're not a patriotic bunch that will be swinging Union Jacks above our heads and singing God Save The King. No, AEW should be putting the "hometown hero" deal aside and keep their focus firmly on promoting the sort of show that brought them to the dance in the first place. The Young Bucks need to be in a wicked tag team match. Jamie Hayter needs somebody to have a banger against. Get Sting out there, get MJF out there. PAC should wrestle. Omega should probably wrestle a singles match, he probably does lose the IWGP United States title back to Ospreay here. I'm assuming CM Punk will face MJF between this show or All Out, maybe save that one for the States and just do a live promo in the UK. It would be cool if The Hardy Boyz could wrestle. Christian needs to be on the show. But they should absolutely not do a SummerSlam 1992 and have a wrestler win that they have no plans for. AEW is the brand that has sold 50,000 seats, just run a normal show, it's what all of us want to see over here.

Cody Rhodes is an AEW guy with his AEW theme and his AEW gimmick. Vince has a proven track record of refusing to run with talents that aren't his own creations. He put the WWF title in the midcard when he put it on Flair, he never ran with Luger when the cupboards were bare. He never gave Vader a run when his business was lower than ever. He held back Booker T, he horribly exposed Goldberg, he brought in Sting just to job him out and it took him 4 years to see dollar signs in Rob Van Dam. If you aren't a WWE creation, you immediately have a ceiling imposed on you. The only wrestler who bucks this trend is probably AJ Styles and even then, he had to go through with a "soccer mum" haircut and lose to James Ellsworth whilst he was WWE Champion before dropping the belt and being shunted back to the midcard. I'm not saying the WrestleMania creative was good, but... folks we have been here before. For like 30 years we have been here before. People never see it coming but it's a Vinceism, he doesn't run with guys he didn't make.

What was next for Cody if he won the belt? I don't think him defending against Solo or Jey or Jimmy is really the ticket. Seth Rollins has been done and he probably shouldn't be losing again to Cody again. Lashley, maybe? I reckon they might do Roman vs. Lashley as a make good for Bobby since he was left off WrestleMania and really did deserve a spot on that show. I think they're looking at Money In The Bank in July. It's in London, Gunther will probably challenge there, it makes sense given that he came into WWE through NXT UK and really made his name over here. They probably think Reigns surpassing 1,000 days and defending against Gunther is better creative than doing Cody vs. Gunther. They'll probably then do Reigns vs. Orton at Summerslam since they originally wanted to that last year until Randy got injured. The thing is too, business is great for them right now. There's not much argument for a significant shift in promotion. They're still pretty hot, it's still a strong ticket, I don't see a reason for drastically changing it.

Charlotte is superb is on, she's just isn't on a lot of the time. That match with Ripley ruled. The main event was pretty great too and they finished the story in absolutely the right way. Kevin Owens being a two-time WrestleMania main eventer is lovely. I still can't past the ads and the overall rampant commercialism of their product though. Having an ad after a video package for the main event and stuff like that just took me out the moment. I hope this is a phase but I doubt it is.

Rey Mysterio's Hall of Fame speech was lovely. Konnan is the kind of hype man and mentor I need in my life.

Dante Martin getting injured doing that spot on Supercard of Honor is everything that is wrong in modern day wrestling. Wrestlers these days no longer keep up the pretence that wrestling is fake but is supposed to look real. They're either pissing all over wrestling with stupidly contrived and overly cheorographed spots or they're taking dumbass stunts to nearly kill themselves. I've never seen a company full of injured guys as regularly as AEW, it's crazy, these guys be killing themselves for 800,000 viewers whilst fans be talking about CM Punk's lastest Instagram story. 😭 It was a ridiculous bump and I hate to kick a guy when he's down but if he's out for a year, it's his own fault for agreeing to take something so goddamn stupid in the first place. A Canadian Destroyer off a ladder through tables, on an ROH show that about 15,000 people will have been watching... what an absolute idiot.

Soooooo darn close to my first 100-rated match 😅

Riho vs Emi Sakura on Rampage absolutely ruled. Best match of the week in my opinion.

I did really enjoy MCMG vs. Bailey & Gresham recently. I don't watch this show all the time but I enjoy cherry picking the Sabin, Shelley, Kazarian stuff and I'm super glad they stick it on YouTube.