The All Elite Wrestling Discussion Thread

[John Lions]

I've been fine with the All Out build - Punk vs Moxley has been the big question mark, but AEW's earned a "let it play out" from me. Regardless of the build, both men were great on Wednesday. Not every match can be a multi-year story, and there are a ton of matches on the All Out card that ARE long-term builds.

I guess my only "complaint" would be that it feels like the show is too overstuffed. I think a different approach than a two-night PPV would be really going all in on having the "PPV week" be 3 big shows. You could move some of the matches from Zero Hour/All Out to Rampage and give Rampage a real "big-fight" feel, and make the whole weekend special. Dynamite had this with the trios match but for being the last Dynamite before All Out the matches on paper could have been more meaningful (not to say they were bad - Hager has been honestly pretty great, and the women's tag was a stand out match, but those matches plus the fatal four way felt thrown together for sure).

Example - the Miro/Darby/Sting vs HOB match SHOULD be a huge deal. It's going to be an amazing match. But it's one of 13+ matches on a card with a ton of other matches with more build or higher stakes. The Athena/Jade match is a match we knew was going to happen the moment she debuted at DON and has been kicked down the road for three months, and the heat is completely gone from it. Imagine Rampage as just a 3 match card, with the Best Friends/Dark Order finals, Athena/Jade, and a big spotlight on a crazy spot fest of Miro/Darby/Sting vs HOB? Treat the go-home Dynamite and Rampage like All Out, and you will get more people buying combo tickets and you can stem that fatigue of having a 5 hour marathon on Sunday.

[milamber]

8 hours ago, John Lions said:

I've been fine with the All Out build - Punk vs Moxley has been the big question mark, but AEW's earned a "let it play out" from me. Regardless of the build, both men were great on Wednesday. Not every match can be a multi-year story, and there are a ton of matches on the All Out card that ARE long-term builds.

I guess my only "complaint" would be that it feels like the show is too overstuffed. I think a different approach than a two-night PPV would be really going all in on having the "PPV week" be 3 big shows. You could move some of the matches from Zero Hour/All Out to Rampage and give Rampage a real "big-fight" feel, and make the whole weekend special. Dynamite had this with the trios match but for being the last Dynamite before All Out the matches on paper could have been more meaningful (not to say they were bad - Hager has been honestly pretty great, and the women's tag was a stand out match, but those matches plus the fatal four way felt thrown together for sure).

Example - the Miro/Darby/Sting vs HOB match SHOULD be a huge deal. It's going to be an amazing match. But it's one of 13+ matches on a card with a ton of other matches with more build or higher stakes. The Athena/Jade match is a match we knew was going to happen the moment she debuted at DON and has been kicked down the road for three months, and the heat is completely gone from it. Imagine Rampage as just a 3 match card, with the Best Friends/Dark Order finals, Athena/Jade, and a big spotlight on a crazy spot fest of Miro/Darby/Sting vs HOB? Treat the go-home Dynamite and Rampage like All Out, and you will get more people buying combo tickets and you can stem that fatigue of having a 5 hour marathon on Sunday.

 

The timing isn't really right for that. We just had an AEW PPV followed by Forbidden Door, Blood & Guts and other themed weeks (which were basically just sponsor tie-ins with regular cards) and Grand Slam Week is coming up soon.

Edited September 2, 2022 by milamber

[Matt_Black]

Plus, I don't mind PPVs having TOO many big matches. That's why I'm paying $49,99, to get big matches! It's not like "Subscribe to this streaming service to see our premium live event, featuring a heel vs heel contest for a midcard title!" No, thank you.

[The Swanton825]

9 hours ago, Jaysin said:

Ace Steel dropping the F-bomb was a great instance where using a curse/cuss word enhanced a promo. I hope he's one of the coaches helping with the younger talents' promos because in a weird twist of fate, he had a better promo performance than Punk. Punk's promo felt hardcore rehearsed whereas Ace felt like he was speaking from the heart. 

I was always a huge Ace Steel fan. The old video sharing wrestling group I was in back in the early 2000s had a lot of his stuff. 

I feel bad now that my only exposure to Ace Steel prior to this was that godawful Trump vs Rosie O'Donnell match that is still seared into my brain after all these years. Ace was so awesome in his promo that part of me wanted him to rip the contract out of Punk's hands and sign it himself.

[Jaysin]

My biggest issue with All Out is how ridiculous the run time is going to be. There's already 14 matches and TK hinted on a media call that there's potentially more matches to be added. 

Three hours is the ideal ppv length in my opinion. I understand the desire to try and give customers more bang for their buck, but it really degrades the match quality when the show seems neverending.

[Makhai]

4 hours ago, Jaysin said:

My biggest issue with All Out is how ridiculous the run time is going to be. There's already 14 matches and TK hinted on a media call that there's potentially more matches to be added. 

Three hours is the ideal ppv length in my opinion. I understand the desire to try and give customers more bang for their buck, but it really degrades the match quality when the show seems neverending.

Yep. More is not always better, sometimes its just too much. This all stems from the very beginning when everybody told TK not to oversign, not to collect toys, not to deviate from the gameplan that was working. 

Now here we are, a bloated roster of ex-WWE guys all who are unhappy because they either can't get on TV, or can't get out of their contracts to get back to the WWE. With an entire alternate company in limbo because you can't get TV for it, and now you gotta do 20 match PPV cards, and scattershot TV to make no-one happy. 

Self inflicted wounds.

[The Blonde Bomber]

This is why tony shouldn’t have been running the promotion. He should’ve hired someone to book and learn from. That way in the future maybe he’d have learned something and have restraint when signing booking and being able to put wrestlers who are giving him a hard time in their place. Instead of just ghosting them. 

[BrokenCycle]

11 minutes ago, The Blonde Bomber said:

This is why tony shouldn’t have been running the promotion. He should’ve hired someone to book and learn from. That way in the future maybe he’d have learned something and have restraint when signing booking and being able to put wrestlers who are giving him a hard time in their place. Instead of just ghosting them. 

Name a guy you think would have been good for that.

[djskeemask]

You guys know of a site to watch re-runs? I know there used to be sites that would host DailyMotion vids of PPVs and what not. Not sure on the legality of those, but I've done worse, so I'm not scared to utilize those sites. I missed Dynamite on Wednesday, would like to watch it before Rampage later tonight. Or did I even miss anything that special? I suppose I could google for one of those sites, but I'd rather hear it from one of you guys pointing me in the direction of a safe site with less click-bait.

[John Lions]

If you have 4 big PPV events, where AEW is "in-town" for the whole week, and you are selling bundle tickets for the whole week, make the WHOLE WEEK feel like the PPV. I don't see why other big shows being around the same time as All Out is relevant. If you want people to buy a bundle ticket for Dynamite/Rampage/All Out, make the Dynamite and Rampage before feel just as big as the PPV.

Dynamite felt big, but Rampage, even with it being live, feels like another skippable show which is really frustrating. I watch everything (including Dark + Elevation) and Rampage used to feel a lot more important, especially live Rampages. Move some of the PPV matches to Friday, give them more time to breathe, and reduce the total run time of All Out. Set a precedent that All Out Week is a big deal, not just the big event.

I was able to get my wife, her siblings, and one of her co-workers into wrestling and AEW is the first and only wrestling they have EVER watched. I went to DON weekend (my wife's first time ever really watching wrestling), and we've been watching since. This will be their first Sunday "AEW" PPV (we watched ROH and Forbidden Door) and while all of the matches have build and hype, it's just going to be so long. DON felt the same being there - I powered through but my wife pretty much entirely skipped the mixed trios match.

[djskeemask]

35 minutes ago, BrokenCycle said:

Name a guy you think would have been good for that.

I definitely think he should have hired a booker. Especially now that he owns ROH too. I think running and booking 2 companies is too much to have on your plate. Maybe Tony should buy a copy of TEW to get some practice! 😄 I would approach Jim Ross about booking. That man is a walking wrestling encyclopedia and always caught up to all the news and trends. I know people hate him, but Jim Cornette would be a decent booker choice as well. I think MOST wrestlers would respect either of those guys choices when booking matches. There are always a few that don't agree. As much money as Tony Khan has, it would be nothing to add a head booker to payroll.

[djskeemask]

5 hours ago, Jaysin said:

My biggest issue with All Out is how ridiculous the run time is going to be. There's already 14 matches and TK hinted on a media call that there's potentially more matches to be added. 

Three hours is the ideal ppv length in my opinion. I understand the desire to try and give customers more bang for their buck, but it really degrades the match quality when the show seems neverending.

14 matches?? I haven't watched WWE in ages so they might have hit that mark by now on Wrestlemanias. But I can't think of any PPV that had 14 matches. And I'm sure if Mania did hit 14 matches it was on a 2-night event.

[Jaysin]

37 minutes ago, djskeemask said:

14 matches?? I haven't watched WWE in ages so they might have hit that mark by now on Wrestlemanias. But I can't think of any PPV that had 14 matches. And I'm sure if Mania did hit 14 matches it was on a 2-night event.

There's three on the pre show, but when that pre show features Eddie Kingston vs Ishii, the pre show is must see. At least for me. Tony Khan also hinted at adding more matches to the card.

Also, WrestleMania 34 officially hard 14 matches including the three pre show matches.

[djskeemask]

13 minutes ago, Jaysin said:

There's three on the pre show, but when that pre show features Eddie Kingston vs Ishii, the pre show is must see. At least for me. Tony Khan also hinted at adding more matches to the card.

Also, WrestleMania 34 officially hard 14 matches including the three pre show matches.

Anything with Ishii is must see! lol

[milamber]

5 hours ago, Makhai said:

Yep. More is not always better, sometimes its just too much. This all stems from the very beginning when everybody told TK not to oversign, not to collect toys, not to deviate from the gameplan that was working. 

Now here we are, a bloated roster of ex-WWE guys all who are unhappy because they either can't get on TV, or can't get out of their contracts to get back to the WWE. With an entire alternate company in limbo because you can't get TV for it, and now you gotta do 20 match PPV cards, and scattershot TV to make no-one happy. 

Self inflicted wounds.

On the other hand, without shiny new toys on the roster like Punk & Danielson the honeymoon period would have cooled off sooner with a stale roster, too many rematches and probably lower viewership. TV renewal is still over a year away and it will be key to the company's long term survival.

But I agree TK has gone overboard with male talent, and signing talent for ROH before getting a TV deal has exacerbated that. Female talent acquisitions has been slow and steady, which would be fine if TK weren't signing 5 male talents for every 1 female.

Edited September 2, 2022 by milamber

[djskeemask]

51 minutes ago, milamber said:

On the other hand, without shiny new toys on the roster like Punk & Danielson the honeymoon period would have cooled off sooner with a stale roster, too many rematches and probably lower viewership. TV renewal is still over a year away and it will be key to the company's long term survival.

But I agree TK has gone overboard with male talent, and signing talent for ROH before getting a TV deal has exacerbated that. Female talent acquisitions has been slow and steady, which would be fine if TK weren't signing 5 male talents for every 1 female.

I would say going back to or leaving for WWE wouldn't be something workers want. However, it seems that many workers are friends with or at least respectful of Triple H, so that may change now. Although, I still wonder how many strings Vince is pulling behind the scenes.

[The Blonde Bomber]

2 hours ago, milamber said:

On the other hand, without shiny new toys on the roster like Punk & Danielson the honeymoon period would have cooled off sooner with a stale roster, too many rematches and probably lower viewership. TV renewal is still over a year away and it will be key to the company's long term survival.

But I agree TK has gone overboard with male talent, and signing talent for ROH before getting a TV deal has exacerbated that. Female talent acquisitions has been slow and steady, which would be fine if TK weren't signing 5 male talents for every 1 female.

He has to become more okay with releasing people.

[djskeemask]

Anybody have thoughts or know who the 8th man is in the ladder match?

[Makhai]

5 hours ago, milamber said:

On the other hand, without shiny new toys on the roster like Punk & Danielson the honeymoon period would have cooled off sooner with a stale roster...

Punk and Danielson are no brainer hires for literally any company in the world that can afford them. They aren't the over hires. The overhires were guys like Buddy Murphy, Mark Henry, Paul Wight, The Hardyz, Malakai Black, Ruby Soho etc. Clearly had no plans for them beyond a debut angle, and back in the toy box.

 

All came in, and moved out younger guys who should have had those spots. Look at what has happened to Jungle Boy and Darby, and Brian Pillman Jr. Remember that great few months John Silver had. Poof, gone.  It's sad man. It really is. Making all the same mistakes TNA and 98+ WCW did. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Makhai

[Makhai]

4 hours ago, djskeemask said:

I would say going back to or leaving for WWE wouldn't be something workers want. However, it seems that many workers are friends with or at least respectful of Triple H, so that may change now. Although, I still wonder how many strings Vince is pulling behind the scenes.

Understanding is a vast majority of the former WWE guys want to go back ASAP. Names include Claudio, Samoa Joe, Malakai Black, Andrade, Miro and Regal are the ones being kicked around ATM. Black has already asked for his release, Andrade probably right behind him. Miro has been linked with a lot of scuttlebutt too. 

This is on top of apparently Kenny Omega's backstage meeting that went over like a wet fart. And Sammy Guevara doing his thing with Kingston. Lockerroom has completely come apart and they're now a million viewers behind RAW again. Where they'll likely be forever. They can't think these 40 year old guys are gonna be here forever either way. Why this MJF thing is so insane that they're gonna let him go because they don't want to pay him half of what Mark Henry got or w/e. 

The bloom is certainly off the rose at this point. No potential for growth left, ratings going down, not up, and a roster of guys either aging out, or buried 20 ft deep under them. Sounds like 99 WCW to me. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Makhai

[djskeemask]

In my eyes, those names are no big loss to me and gives more time to other talent. MJF is a loss though. Claudio too, I guess. I wonder though if it is because of AEW or because of Vince being, for all intents and purposes, out of the picture in WWE. I know most workers issues are almost always with Vince himself. I think I would watch how the product develops with Triple H in charge before I would just jump ship so quickly. Also, who, backstage, is going and who is staying? Many of the backstage at WWE are all of Vince's cronies. Not likely to change their tune to Triple H's, at least that's what I think. Although, maybe he can get rid of the senior citizens and bring in some younger creative and staff. I think the best thing for Tony Khan to turn around AEW at this point would be to hire some top talent minds for booking. I say minds because if it was my money, I would hire a team of bookers. I know when I book in TEW, there are times I could use a few ideas from outside sources. Although, I am pretty stubborn, so a team could cause problems.

[CGN91]

6 hours ago, djskeemask said:

Anybody have thoughts or know who the 8th man is in the ladder match?

Not read anything but I would jump up and down if it's the "Golden Star"

[The Swanton825]

5 hours ago, Makhai said:

All came in, and moved out younger guys who should have had those spots. Look at what has happened to Jungle Boy and Darby, and Brian Pillman Jr. Remember that great few months John Silver had. Poof, gone.  It's sad man. It really is. Making all the same mistakes TNA and 98+ WCW did. 

While I agree that AEW are making a lot of the same mistakes, I don't get how Pillman Jr. is one of them. The dude is a pale imitation of his father. Yeah, a pale imitation of Brian Pillman is still a good worker and all that, but I don't understand people's hype for this guy. If Cody Rhodes gained 200 lbs. and started talking with a lisp we'd all mock him, yet it's okay that BPJ doesn't even try to be his own man in any way?

[Dalton]

7 hours ago, Makhai said:

Understanding is a vast majority of the former WWE guys want to go back ASAP. Names include Claudio, Samoa Joe, Malakai Black, Andrade, Miro and Regal are the ones being kicked around ATM. Black has already asked for his release, Andrade probably right behind him. Miro has been linked with a lot of scuttlebutt too. 

This is on top of apparently Kenny Omega's backstage meeting that went over like a wet fart. And Sammy Guevara doing his thing with Kingston. Lockerroom has completely come apart and they're now a million viewers behind RAW again. Where they'll likely be forever. They can't think these 40 year old guys are gonna be here forever either way. Why this MJF thing is so insane that they're gonna let him go because they don't want to pay him half of what Mark Henry got or w/e. 

The bloom is certainly off the rose at this point. No potential for growth left, ratings going down, not up, and a roster of guys either aging out, or buried 20 ft deep under them. Sounds like 99 WCW to me. 

I'm fascinated in how you even came to the conclusion that they "want to go back". Black is the only one of that group that there is any indication that they asked for their release, and all reports state that it was health related because he said he battled a career ending injury recently. Define "kicked around"???? 

Where'd you read the Kenny speech went over poorly? 

You still think MJF was a shoot?

Ratings are down but yet they're on the best ratings streak they've ever had with 14 straight weeks in the top 2? Back to back million+ for the first time in January? Buyrates continuing to increase and Forbidden Door doing way more than it had any right to do?

Comparing AEW to 99 WCW is unfounded. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Dalton

[Dalton]

7 hours ago, Makhai said:

Punk and Danielson are no brainer hires for literally any company in the world that can afford them. They aren't the over hires. The overhires were guys like Buddy Murphy, Mark Henry, Paul Wight, The Hardyz, Malakai Black, Ruby Soho etc. Clearly had no plans for them beyond a debut angle, and back in the toy box.

 

All came in, and moved out younger guys who should have had those spots. Look at what has happened to Jungle Boy and Darby, and Brian Pillman Jr. Remember that great few months John Silver had. Poof, gone.  It's sad man. It really is. Making all the same mistakes TNA and 98+ WCW did. 

Buddy Murphy - PPV match tomorrow

Mark Henry - Doesnt take TV time away from anyone

Paul Wight - Doesnt take TV time away from anyone

The Hardyz - Were scheduled to win the titles but Jeff pulled a Jeff. Matt led a faction in his name for over a year. 

Malakai Black - PPV match tomorrow

Ruby Soho - PPV match tomorrow

"Clearly no plans beyond a debut angle"

 

Jungle Boy - PPV match tomorrow

Darby Allin - PPV match tomorrow

Brian Pillman Jr - Horrific wrestler

John Silver - PPV match tomorrow in a title match lol

 

Definitely TNA/WCW esque.