The All Elite Wrestling Discussion Thread

[Jaysin]

My other thought is Nick Aldis who reportedly is a free agent post Slammiversary 

[aXminster]

I swear Paul Turner is the worst ref in the history of the business. EVERY match he's in there's a ref bump or distraction. It's getting old now.

[Jaysin]

1 hour ago, aXminster said:

I swear Paul Turner is the worst ref in the history of the business. EVERY match he's in there's a ref bump or distraction. It's getting old now.

Rick Knox is way worse. In TEW terms, his ref stat is like 32 and even worse in tag matches. 

[Matt_Black]

Well, that was a glorious spectacle.

[aXminster]

9 hours ago, Jaysin said:

Rick Knox is way worse. In TEW terms, his ref stat is like 32 and even worse in tag matches. 

Knox I find funny, because he's so bad that it's crazy. They call him the tag team specialist and he's always completely lost.

--

That dance-off had me dying laughing. People think Cole will turn but it's MJF we're talking about here, he's always one step ahead. Curious to see where Sammy and DG go now that JAS is dead and Jericho is joining Don.
The Britt match made no sense. Just a quick squash with no beatdown, no promo, no follow-up, no direction. But I guess that's just the AEW Women's division. Just gotta get that one match on the show somehow.
Blood and Guts was good. It was the first time I saw Ibushi wrestling, I was not really impressed tbh. Pac vs Claudio will be a banger, but I'll wait to see if they announce something else that I like or I'll just not buy the PPV and get the results later. BCC has three defeats in a row against The Elite. Time to add one or two people and move on for a while.

[MidKnightDreary]

I'm actually about to start reffing myself, hopefully I can do a better job.

 

[Matt_Black]

1 hour ago, aXminster said:

Knox I find funny, because he's so bad that it's crazy. They call him the tag team specialist and he's always completely lost.

--

That dance-off had me dying laughing. People think Cole will turn but it's MJF we're talking about here, he's always one step ahead. Curious to see where Sammy and DG go now that JAS is dead and Jericho is joining Don.
The Britt match made no sense. Just a quick squash with no beatdown, no promo, no follow-up, no direction. But I guess that's just the AEW Women's division. Just gotta get that one match on the show somehow.
Blood and Guts was good. It was the first time I saw Ibushi wrestling, I was not really impressed tbh. Pac vs Claudio will be a banger, but I'll wait to see if they announce something else that I like or I'll just not buy the PPV and get the results later. BCC has three defeats in a row against The Elite. Time to add one or two people and move on for a while.

From what I've heard, Ibushi has only wrestled a very, very few number of matches this year, and you can tell. The ring rust is very obvious. That said, the standing moonsault on the bed of nails looked nice, and the exchange with him and Takeshita continuously reversing each other was good (though I winced a bit when he took that piledriver).

Absolutely agree about the representation of the women's division. A squash match and a throwaway appearance by Statlander while the real focus is on Orange and Darby? Also, her appearance was to announce a match with Shafir; why is she continuously on TV over other people? I mean, yeah, I'd rather her eat pins than Abadon or Riho or any of the other wrestlers in the division that actually have talent and charisma, but STILL. I get last night had a LOT going on, but you could have absolutely cut those two Marvez segments and lost nothing, giving more time to the Britt match.

[MidKnightDreary]

13 minutes ago, Matt_Black said:

From what I've heard, Ibushi has only wrestled a very, very few number of matches this year, and you can tell. The ring rust is very obvious. That said, the standing moonsault on the bed of nails looked nice, and the exchange with him and Takeshita continuously reversing each other was good (though I winced a bit when he took that piledriver).

That was his third of the year, and third since late 2021

[milamber]

- Jack vs Hook (c) was good. Thought Jack was burying Hook in the vignette lol.
- These MJF/Cole skits are gold.
- DMD vs Sparks was pointless.
- Garcia & Sammy vs MJF & Cole was great. Mash-up theme, dance-off and big package lol. Double Clothesline!
- Shafir getting her random bi-yearly TBS title shot. She should ask Cassidy for a shot at his title.
- Blood & Guts was my MOTN. PAC & Takeshita leaving was good storytelling. I hope they stay together and feud with Lucha Bros. PAC vs Claudio at the ROH PPV should be fun.

With a proper women's match this might have been a Top 5 AEW show.

[Wrestling Machine]

How in the world could you use Britt Baker that bad is beyond me

[Mootinie]

Where is the logic in having Willow win the Owen Hart Foundation tournament just to be jobbed out to Athena on the B-show a week later? They will probably have her fight Toni Storm now and we will all be expected to care like she hasn't already been made to look a goof on the developmental promotion. I just don't understand AEW now, nothing they do booking-wise seems to make any sense.

Imagine if WWE ran King of the Ring, gave the win to LA Knight and then their next move was having him lose to Carmelo Hayes on NXT? Why? Where is the sense in doing this?

[Jaysin]

Watching Rampage before I watch DBD and Toa Liona is really slimming down. He's still a hoss, but he looks like he lost a considerate amount of weight. I think he has tremendous upside. Same with Kaun. 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Jaysin

[Matt_Black]

5 hours ago, Mootinie said:

Where is the logic in having Willow win the Owen Hart Foundation tournament just to be jobbed out to Athena on the B-show a week later? They will probably have her fight Toni Storm now and we will all be expected to care like she hasn't already been made to look a goof on the developmental promotion. I just don't understand AEW now, nothing they do booking-wise seems to make any sense.

Imagine if WWE ran King of the Ring, gave the win to LA Knight and then their next move was having him lose to Carmelo Hayes on NXT? Why? Where is the sense in doing this?

The WWE kind of did that a year or two ago, when Xavier Woods and Zelina Vega won their respective tournaments, then went on to do nothing notable.

The women's division has been more of a mess this week than usual. Out of 3 hours of television, they got 10 minutes approximately, with no storyline advances.

The actual match on Rampage was good despite only being 5 minutes. 

[aXminster]

8 hours ago, Mootinie said:

Where is the logic in having Willow win the Owen Hart Foundation tournament just to be jobbed out to Athena on the B-show a week later? They will probably have her fight Toni Storm now and we will all be expected to care like she hasn't already been made to look a goof on the developmental promotion. I just don't understand AEW now, nothing they do booking-wise seems to make any sense.

Imagine if WWE ran King of the Ring, gave the win to LA Knight and then their next move was having him lose to Carmelo Hayes on NXT? Why? Where is the sense in doing this?

That's the biggest problem in Tony Khan not acknowledging ROH what it should be - AEW's developmental company. It's the same thing as when he tried to convince everybody that Rampage was not a B-show yet the card was always really weak.

The women's division is in a terrible state right now, even when you count the ones that are out of action. If they started trying, the maybe, just maybe, in six months it could be passable.

[Jaysin]

Willow vs Athena was quite good though. Probably my match of the night honestly. I wonder who they're saving Athena's loss for?

Athena showing Willow respect was a nice wrinkle to a potential long term booking plan. 

[The Blonde Bomber]

50 minutes ago, aXminster said:

That's the biggest problem in Tony Khan not acknowledging ROH what it should be - AEW's developmental company. It's the same thing as when he tried to convince everybody that Rampage was not a B-show yet the card was always really weak.

The women's division is in a terrible state right now, even when you count the ones that are out of action. If they started trying, the maybe, just maybe, in six months it could be passable.

The unfortunate thing is people have been saying that since the start. “Put some effort in and in 6 months the division could matter.” He never does and I don’t know if he will. AEW shouldn’t have attempted to start three divisions all at one time. They should’ve overtime established titles when fans clamored for it. 

[aXminster]

15 minutes ago, The Blonde Bomber said:

The unfortunate thing is people have been saying that since the start. “Put some effort in and in 6 months the division could matter.” He never does and I don’t know if he will. AEW shouldn’t have attempted to start three divisions all at one time. They should’ve overtime established titles when fans clamored for it. 

The Women's Division was always steps behind and that's okay. AEW was founded because of the perfect storm with The Elite, Jericho and Mox being available at the right time. The idea was to feature more joshi talent, but then covid happened and they had to scrap it.

But we're four years in and there's still no clear direction. Nowadays is not like the 00s, because there's actually skilled women out there and it should be easier than ever before to create stars. Still would be impossible to compare to WWE's Women's Division, for example, because it's been 10+ years now that they shifted from models to actual wrestlers and they're reaping the benefits.

Let's look at Taya, for example:
Debuted in March, four wins on Rampage, three being squashes, then lost a TBS title match against Jade.
One month later, beats Lady Frost, gets another TBS title shot, loses to Jade again.
Two weeks later, beats Trisha Adora in 3 minutes, another TBS title shot, another loss. This time to Statlander.
Next week, loses to Shida, then squashes a jobber and gets a World title shot, which she loses.

Four months in and she lost four title matches. She has a match on Collision tonight against Skye Blue. How is anyone supposed to take her seriously?

[aXminster]

Good show tonight. I like the pacing of the show, minus CM Punk getting 30 minutes every week. Oh, and Paul Turner being an abysmal referee.

Starks with the Kevin Nash pyro lol
Jay White is incredible. I'm really getting into BC Gold.
Miro is still as over as he was. I liked that Comoroto attacked Miro during the entrance.
HOB's presentation is the best one right now. The lighting is amazing. Daddy Ass possibly retiring.
Taya getting a match with Britt lol

Next week's Collision looks better than Dynamite on paper. The Tag Title match and on top of that we are getting Buddy vs Andrade in a Ladder match.

[Matt_Black]

19 hours ago, aXminster said:

Let's look at Taya, for example:
Debuted in March, four wins on Rampage, three being squashes, then lost a TBS title match against Jade.
One month later, beats Lady Frost, gets another TBS title shot, loses to Jade again.
Two weeks later, beats Trisha Adora in 3 minutes, another TBS title shot, another loss. This time to Statlander.
Next week, loses to Shida, then squashes a jobber and gets a World title shot, which she loses.

Four months in and she lost four title matches. She has a match on Collision tonight against Skye Blue. How is anyone supposed to take her seriously?

It doesn't help that she's gone from face to heel to face to heel in the span of 3 months. Even Paul Wight didn't have that many turns!

[Wrestling Machine]

Which show is your favorite to watch? Dynamite or Collision?

Personally I think Collision has been wayyyy better so far, probably because it feels like an actual pro wrestling show lol

[Jaysin]

Whoever is in charge of picking when to change cameras needs fired or re-trained because holy moly they are missing a lot of big moments...like the finishes to matches. Why would you cut away as Jay is hitting the Blade Runner? Like they lingered on him as he started the move and cut away. This also happened at Blood & Guts where they didn't show Mox giving up to save Yuta, it just sort of ended. 

It's an issue that's been going on awhile, but seems like it's getting worse. It's frustrating. It's like they have an extreme case of ADHD and have to cut away every second. WWE is guilty of this too, but nowhere near as bad as AEW is getting. 

[milamber]

On 7/22/2023 at 7:19 PM, Mootinie said:

Where is the logic in having Willow win the Owen Hart Foundation tournament just to be jobbed out to Athena on the B-show a week later? They will probably have her fight Toni Storm now and we will all be expected to care like she hasn't already been made to look a goof on the developmental promotion. I just don't understand AEW now, nothing they do booking-wise seems to make any sense.

Imagine if WWE ran King of the Ring, gave the win to LA Knight and then their next move was having him lose to Carmelo Hayes on NXT? Why? Where is the sense in doing this?

Losing a close 20 minute PPV main event that many are calling the best women's match of the year in US is not being jobbed out. My only issue is who can even beat Athena now. Her reign has been great but she has to lose it eventually. I supposed she could turn face so she can face different opponents but she's too good as a heel.

Edited July 24, 2023 by milamber

[milamber]

Spent the last 2 days catching up on AEW, ROH, Stardom and TJPW shows while trying to avoid spoilers. So much wrestling.

ROH show was good. Garcia vs Shibata and PAC vs Claudio were great. Willow vs Athena was a MOTY Contender. Aussie Open cementing their legacy with more gold.

Rampage was decent. Women main eventing ROH & Rampage felt like an apology for the B&G squash.

 

Collision:

- Ricky with the massive pyro budget! Punk & Ricky in a bag vs bag match? Random appearance from Totally the TNT Champion Christian. Darby laying it on too thick with Punk.

- Lots a security for Andrade.

- Andretti & Darius vs BCG was good.

- Miro vs Comoroto was OK. Miro needs a proper feud soon.

- House of Black (c) vs Assclaimed was disappointingly short. Billy in shambles.

- FTR not winning over the crowd.

- Taya vs Skye was solid. Jobber entrance for Skye Taya needs to join the Outcasts next week.

- Christian & Starks vs Darby & Punk was my MOTN.

Edited July 24, 2023 by milamber

[Stennick]

I was really skeptical of Collision and I'm not always the biggest Punk fan in the world and overall the guys that were originally slated for Collision seemed like an island of misfit toys some good, some meh. All of that being said I loved this last weeks show. The Punk/Starks/Christian segment was one of the best segments in the year in my opinion. It wasn't crazy over the top but the character development and continuity for everyone involved was perfect. I'm still not a Darby fan after all this time. His in ring work is fine but anytime I see him on the mic or interacting with one of the major players he just comes across as less than to me. I'm sure its not a popular opinion but he's just somebody I can't get into. 

[Jaysin]

AEW updated the roster page and Santana and Ortiz have profiles referencing Proud and Powerful. Seems they could be returning together. Hopefully they mended whatever fences needed mended. It's always sad when friendships end.