Mr Butternut Squash

Ultimate Warrior was dead and replaced by Texas Tornado.

I still can't get over how bad that Cody/Penta match was. That Canadian Destroyer spot, no-sold as a transition into the 'Cody Cutter', Penta kicking out of a bunch of rushed finishers, snapping Cody's arm, then losing to a roll up. Fucking hell. Cody always had his quirks and did random shit that didn't quite fit but now he's gone off at the deep end. It's like he's trying to ape John Cena during his PWG phase but completely failing to grasp his psychology and use of big spots. This guy was the best babyface on the planet a year ago. Now he feels so grabby and disingenuous. I'm getting closer and closer to slotting him into the Seth/Charlotte/Shane auto fast-forward part of my brain.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Rosa vs Britt was really special and will be talked about for years to come. Between the big violent spots it was a proper scrap. Especially loved the blood soaked Britt, blindly and desperately kicking out at thin air as Rosa prowled.

Some of the most memorable facials and reaction shots in a match I can remember.

Awesome.

This is where hiring the Hardy's, Big Shows and Christians of the world could come back and bite them.

WWE must have it's own mini promotion by now of all the promising talent being kept in limbo.

There's only one man I give a shit about being inducted into the HOF.

Cody's been tragic ever since the tattoo.

They should sign Jim Johnston or at least license more entrance music. If there's one relatively easy fix that's holding AEW back at the moment, it's the lack of big time entrance music. Punchy themes that grab you and tell you all you need about the character. The Pinnacle's music for example is such a wet fart.

Best hardcore match they've done IMO. Loved it, but I'm a mark for juice. Britt's a superstar.

Also loved Tully's promo and MJF getting serious again.

Cody fucking sucks though. I swear he'd be getting booed out of the arenas by now. Him and his crew of losers (Dustin aside) are the worst thing on the show and his shitty spots and matches make no sense and stink of desperation. Take a break dude.

He's clearly lost a step since his injury tbf.

But yeah, total spot monkey.

😂 I can't get enough of this. Blind leading the blind.

On a taped show as well!

Poor Shida's had to sell some bullshit lately, though. Ryo's comedy 'chops', Vickie and Reba's pathetic weapon shots and Itoh lightly tapping a mic on her head. I get this stuff has its appeal but they should be more careful in protecting their champion and dragging her potential challengers down with it.

Cracking episode this week, best in ages. 

Moxley/Kingston and Page/Dark Oder are my favourite things right now. Fun, likable lads that feel real and natural interacting with each other. Moxley and Kingston could have said any old bollocks to explain the dud away and it wouldn't of mattered, because their cool, electric chemistry overshadows all. Them fobbing off Impact was fucking GOLD. More of this!

Omega was back to his infuriating dickhead best. He really should stick to live in-ring promos instead of the location meta stuff, he's sneaky good (although Callis had an off night). The fake countdown tease and "69 me Don" was piss funny and genius in the way that it diverted the chatter and memes from Sunday's dud. It'll be interesting seeing the reactions to Christian going forward because Kingston vs Omega feels like the natural path. They could have a Daniel Bryan situation on their hands.

The closing angle was big daft wrestling fun. Can't wait to finally see MJF break away and do his thing. The smirk on Tully's face as he handed him the bat has me dizzy at the potential this grouping. Such a no frills bunch of boys will make MJF stand out all the more, and if Shawn Spears has to be on tv, at least he'll be in the background in the Jake Hager role.

Penta looked mint stepping up from the commentary booth to berate Cody. His physical charisma is off the charts. I'm loving the elevation of him and Fenix and I can't wait until he breaks that insufferable prick Cody and sends him packing.

Britt and Rosa cutting promos on each other would've been preferable to bogging them down with frivolous crap. Main event next week sounds cool though. It's a shame the announcement was preceded by such a trainwreck of a match.

Darby/Sky was a corker. Scorpio is lame but I'm willing to give him time. Darby continues to shine.

QT Marshall and Best Friends continue to be utterly worthless. Like Spears, it's just blatant Cronyism. 

Only thing I really disliked is the constant yanking about of Lance Archer. He's never getting that momentum back. Him vs Sting and/or Darby sounds decent if he hadn't already just turned. But they've Big Show'd him in record time.

He's one of the best wrestlers in the company as far as I'm concerned. I value selling over everything else, and he's the best. The look of fear and desperation as he went to save Moxley from the dud just made it all the more tragic and was better than anything the Bucks and Omegas could ever do in their lives.

1 hour ago, Chris B said:

To be fair, it seems to be the execution that's the issue here far more than the storytelling. That's generally been pretty effective, and something they've been mostly praised for.

Week to week, pretty much every match on here had some fair build. Plenty going on in each one, and a fair few had decent heat going in. For every Young Bucks/Cody mess, they've got a Hangman/Dark Order, Mox/Omega, Inner Circle, Team Taz/Sting & Darby... everyone's there for a reason. It was one thing that struck me at the end of the Tag Battle Royale match - there wasn't a bad option in the final half-dozen or so. 

Not saying they can't tighten things up, and they certainly need to keep an eye on production, because last night was all over the shop, but their storytelling has been pretty strong for the most part.

I skipped the PPV unfortunately because the build and the card itself was weak. The Sting stuff is good and the Inner Circle story decent (although feeling dangerously close to fizzling like some of the previous long term angles) but I'm not with you on the rest of it.

Moxley tried to make it feel big and like a blood feud but Omega undercut it with his meta comedy bullshit. Hardly anybody cared for a rematch until they threw the gimmick in. The Page/Hardy contract stuff was insulting, illogical bollocks and a waste of Page. The Miro stuff is irredeemable shite. The ladder match had zero heat or story between the participants and felt like a bunch of names pulled from a hat. Shida/Ryo had no story at all.

Also, Baker/Itoh/Riho/Rosa were stuck on the pre-show despite being ten times more over and interesting with more going on than Shida/Ryo. And the Battle Royals feel like they're overdone and being relied on instead of building teams up with consistent booking.

Meh.

EDIT: also the Moxley/Omega build was so convoluted that Moxley was actively taking the piss out if it for a couple of weeks. 

Part of me thinks serves them right for the way they've relied on whacky gimmick matches, stupid stipulations and "huge, huge surprises" to mask their poor, ineffective storytelling. Then I see that gif of Eddie Kingston hugging Moxley as sparklers go off and I think you poor, poor bastard. Utterly hilarious image and desperately sad at the same time. A rematch is the last thing they need. Just forget it ever happened. Keep it simple stupid. The PPV's backlash and NXT moving nights should be an excuse for Tony to tighten shit up. Get the basics right first and cool it with the desperation booking mate. 

Fingers crossed it's Christian then. About the only likely one I could possibly give a fuck about. I mean what are you supposed to do with 2021 Kurt Angle?

Also love how Tony K said that it's a big signing and people have gone completely mental running with it. Just working themselves into tears at bedtime.

The rating doesn't really surprise me either way. Despite bringing all these big names in, Dynamite still feels like a dizzying mess to an outsider. Maybe that's the appeal. Still, I can never work out if they're content in singing to the hardcore choir or if they're just a bit rubbish at aiming for more.

Good

JJ Dillon is here! Guy looks identical to what he looked like 35 years ago. I also marked the fuck out for Tully's robe and the classic US title. Lovely Crockett tribute complete with Dillon putting his shoe to good use. Tully looked knackered though haha, although I did feel sorry for him having to sell Luchasaurus' awkward indie bollocks.

Mixed tag was fine for what it was. Kudos to Shaq on that massive table bump, didn't see that coming. He looked better than expected although he was dressed like shit. Cargill looked like a future star.

Young Bucks had their best night in company history. Finally delivering something coherent, some backstory and building themselves as salt of the Earth white meat babyfaces. 

MJF had a cracking night. "Turkey tits" had me rolling.

Really cool and effective Omega/Moxley hype video. Awesome surprise seeing Onita on TV. Of course AEW didn't even bother giving him a name graphic.

John Silver is fantastic and I like him and Page as a high impact babyface tag team. Them being two guys that JR is genuinely enthusiastic about helps set them apart too.

Ricky Starks. Guy is a superstar.

Bad

I wasn't particularly thrilled to see The Big Show on my television. Nice bloke, great wrestler, and all that. But I fear he'll never shake off the staleness.

Bit worried about this other signing too. RVD is my worst fucking nightmare. 

Shitty booking of the women's tournament. The match this week took me back to the dark days of Emi Sakura and Kris Statlander, where they'd stop mid-match to do cutesy Chikara bollocks and kill the match flow dead. Way to sell the importance of the final. Fast forward.

How long before Shawn Spears and Scorpio Sky fall off the face of the Earth again? What half-arsed, go nowhere angle will they be involved in next? It's hard to care. And is Sky a babyface because BOY, if he is, he fucking suuuuucks.

Nightmare Family or The Gunn Club or Whateverthefuck continue to come off like complete tossers.

I saw it coming but still HATED preview battle royal brawl at the end. For a company that thinks it's beyond WWE shite they sure love copying their absolute worst tropes. Guys running out like idiots to get involved with a superspreader scramble, just in case you're too thick to remember what their 3000th battle royal or ladder match will look like. How is that meant to sell the match? What happened to promos? Just some 15 second inserts across the show would do.

What a bottomless cunt, Christ.

There's enough decent characters knocking about between WWE's brands, it's just the storytelling and match making is wretched horseshit.

Don't care about any of the new lot, although I'd pay to see Chigusa kick Yoshiko's face off.

Any HHH match that doesn't involve gimmicks or Daniel Bryan.

I remember thinking John Morrison looked like a superstar with his long hair, buff bod and cool flippy shit and he would break away from The Miz to be the "next Shawn Michaels" and, well . . . 

I really liked the whole deal with Varsity Blondes and Team Tazz. The Blondes have that blowjob babyface tag team energy about them, Garrison in particular is fun to watch, like an explosive young Sam Houston. The brawl and Darby Allin on the zipline felt super hot and continued to give this feud some feeling after weeks of standing about. Tony, unfortunately, did sound a bit Michael Cole on commentary while hyping the segment. Despite Starks sticking out like a sore thumb, Team Tazz is awesome and fun and feel more like a unit than the Inner Circle ever did.

Omega and Callis are clowning way to much now for my tastes. It's a shame, they've shown flashes of being a hot main event level act when they stop pissing about. But they can't resist the bad comedy and nudge nudge, wink wink insider bullshit.

That beatdown of Papa Buck with the Ketchup on his face was embarrassing to watch.

The women's division feels like it's finally turning things around. In fact, I'd say in 2021 it has pissed all over WWE's, which is bonkers considering where it was not too long ago. Both Nyla vs Britt and Lance vs Fenix were such uncharacteristically odd matches for AEW to book though. I can't even remember the last time I saw Nyla Rose. Her snuffing out rising star Britt from out of nowhere felt strangely deflating and seemed like the sort of thing that would lead to Baker receiving sympathy cheers. 

I was distracted during the main event and will watch it back later, but the bits I caught of it looked predictably fun. Archer's babyface run has been fairly weak so far and I'm just itching for him to dump the glomming tosspot Jake Roberts and go smashing through a bunch of dumb heels.

20 minutes ago, TomJones233 said:

A fantastic heel. He's not meant to be liked. Wrestling has lost its way, a heel shouldn't be cheered!

 

Three or four years ago, yeah. He might've got actual heat. Now though it's almost impossible to care. The guy's been a complete jobber since he got Shane O' Mac'd into oblivion. 

2 minutes ago, Yakashi said:

It’s not edges fault either though. Who could possibly give a shit about these shows, no matter who is in title programs? That’s like blaming Drew for Raw losing half of its audience. 

Yeah I'm not blaming the wrestlers, even if Edge is booking his own way to Wrestlemania. There's only one man that has the final say at the end of the day.

They just don't care anymore. Now less than ever. It's just mindless content to fill time.