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AEW Double or Nothing


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25 minutes ago, LEGIT said:

I still don't understand why Tony Khan is going around saying AEW is going to be a "serious, sports based product" yet the show is chokka with comedy, ludicrous gimmicks, ridiculous spots and shitarse jobbers. Something in the middle would be nice. Is he just trying to dupe fans into thinking it's something that it's not?

To be fair, I wouldn't like to see a "serious, sports based show." But it's odd to be claiming to be one when from what we have to go by it clearly isn't

I watched an interview with Cody the other day and he spoke a bit about this and wins and losses mattering. There's no doubt that some of this stuff is just shit they're throwing around because they want to pick up people who aren't happy with WWE and I don't think he even knows what they're going to do with it but the gist is that they want wins and losses to matter. Khan is involved in real sports and sees value in stats and records. They also see value in things real combat sports do, like weigh ins and fight build specials. Be interesting to see what they do with that.

In the meantime, it's hard to judge. They are months off having a TV show, they have a pretty eclectic roster and no real outlet for building anything aside from YouTube. They're playing to a very specific audience at the moment because of that. I'm not going to judge what they look like until they're up and running. For now, it doesn't all add up.

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Impact, ROH, Lucha Underground, Wrestling Society X - they all look different to WWE.  They make choices about video presentation, lighting, ring style, commentary, etc.  This AEW show looked just like Raw or Smackdown.  Hell, even NXT look more different than AEW.

Again, not a criticism.  I think it's a wise course of action.  I think their product looks professional and appealing and will attract WWE viewers.  But I am surprised how close to the WWE template the whole show was, given the amount of hype they gave about being different.

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I honestly think Goldust was the best wrestler on the entire card and got the most out of his match. Carried Cody throughout and his last bits of fire at the end of the match were incredible.

I think comparing AEW to WWE is ridiculous, especially after Double or Nothing. I think their PPV's (as I have no idea how they're gonna set up their TV shows) would benefit greatly from experienced agency for the matches. There were way too many repeated moves/spots (bridging suplex/submission-combo, deadlift Germans, all manner of superkicks and drivers) and most matches lacked storytelling and where just a bunch of spots strung together.

The SCU rallying promo at the start(which started the show for me) was not a good way to open the show. They didn't explain why they were cool or why they were there or who they were in the first place. Just a bit of "Ain't we great?", which felt out of place. The entire match was very 2003, in my opinion.

The six-woman-tag with the Japanese ladies was very pleasant. They were all very competent and seemed very relaxed. Enjoyed Aja Kong smacking one of her opponents real hard and following it up with 4 "i'm so sorry are you ok?!"-slaps. Warmed my heart.

The tag-title match was nothing special, in my opninion. I already knew that Penta is great and Fenix is insane and this was prominent in the match. The Bucks did absolutely nothing for me. They really have a horrible look. They also do abosultely nothing to suspend my disbelief. The Elvis get up was a misfire as the collars were way too floopy(as was Cody's) and we already know Flying Elvises. They were the shit and no Elvis-themed wrestler will ever surpass them.

The HHH-throne thing made me curse out loud. The fuck was that? Not a good look, at all.

Finally, did any of you notice the plants? I don't doubt them being plants, on account of how obvious they were. There was the mid-western, flanel clad, trucker cap etc.-man. There were numerous shocked heavy set ladies covering their mouthes. There was even a little play where a heavy set lady was shocked and mid-westman slung his arm around her and slid back into his seat, well assured she'll be wanting to see what happens next. They all had more seating room than other fans and were very aware of the camera postitioning. I'll try my best to cap them and post the pictures.

 

 

 

 

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Sorry to change the subject, but you know what? The build to the Rhodes match was wasted. 

I know they have little avenue for hype, but if the ultimate plan was for the brothers to emotionally embrace as a team/family at the end, the whole build up should have been the bros not feeling like brothers, wanting to fight each other, with little trust, love or remorse. I know it was touched upon, but it should have been hammed up far more, and it would've made the ending mean more and be more appropriate. The whole attitude era shit was meaningless and emphasises to me how there's not much planning or reason to what they are doing. Was Cody a heel? The direction for me was messy. 

Edited by LEGIT
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7 minutes ago, Loki said:

Impact, ROH, Lucha Underground, Wrestling Society X - they all look different to WWE.  They make choices about video presentation, lighting, ring style, commentary, etc.  This AEW show looked just like Raw or Smackdown.  Hell, even NXT look more different than AEW.

Again, not a criticism.  I think it's a wise course of action.  I think their product looks professional and appealing and will attract WWE viewers.  But I am surprised how close to the WWE template the whole show was, given the amount of hype they gave about being different.

They clearly have a crib sheet of things they think WWE don't/won't do.

* Unique sets

* Pyro

* Blood

* Weapons

* PPVs under 8 hours

Etc. You're right, this looked like WWE years ago rather than being anything new. I'm not sure that's a problem. Lapsed/casual WWE fans are clearly an audience they desire in the medium term.

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53 minutes ago, LEGIT said:

I still don't understand why Tony Khan is going around saying AEW is going to be a "serious, sports based product" yet the show is chokka with comedy, ludicrous gimmicks, ridiculous spots and shitarse jobbers. Something in the middle would be nice. Is he just trying to dupe fans into thinking it's something that it's not?

To be fair, I wouldn't like to see a "serious, sports based show." But it's odd to be claiming to be one when from what we have to go by it clearly isn't 

 

Having now done their show, it’s very clear that  this kind of talk from Khan and Cody is just buzzword bollocks pandering to anti-WWE folk. The funny thing is, it’ll probably work, at least for a while. The pandering creates such goodwill that it’ll blind the true devotees to the content - many of whom parrot the “push the cruisers, no gimmicks needed” stuff without really thinking about it anyway, they’re just copying stuff they’ve heard rather than relating it to what goes on on Raw or Smackdown. Similarly, they’ll take “this is real serious wrestling” as gospel without relating it to what is actually on an AEW show.

Orange Cassidy is real serious sports based wrestling, in the same way that Jon Moxley doing run-ins with double arm DDTs on people is different from Dean Ambrose doing run-ins with double arm DDTs on people. 

I am very much looking forward to more stuff like Orange Cassidy, personally. The ideal wrestling show for me is “like WWE, but less fucking boring.” And AEW is the closest thing to that there is.

Edited by King Pitcos
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Problem with basing wrestling on combat sports presentation is that most real-life fighters don't tend to face each other more than four or five times at the absolute most in their careers. For the larger part, they fight each other once, and done; a rematch if it was close or a dodgy finish or if enough time has passed (unless it's the UFC now).

Also, fighters usually fight once every few months at best. Wrestlers wrestle every week.

It's just not viable, I think.

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Just now, Carbomb said:

Problem with basing wrestling on combat sports presentation is that most real-life fighters don't tend to face each other more than four or five times at the absolute most in their careers. For the larger part, they fight each other once, and done; a rematch if it was close or a dodgy finish or if enough time has passed (unless it's the UFC now).

Also, fighters usually fight once every few months at best. Wrestlers wrestle every week.

It's just not viable, I think.

It's not viable to do it if you're booking like WWE. It is if what you present matches it. If your big guys don't wrestle every week. If you build to selling PPVs and you use the appropriate promotional tactics to do so. If you're not promoting a PPV every 3 weeks.

Even with out that, there are loads of elements you can take from it. You can't half arse it though. It needs to be well thought out. If they think they can book like WWE and then expect anyone to care about someone who has a win/loss record of 87/83 then they'll be mistaken.

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They said on commentary and in interviews since that the wins/losses matter is something they are working on and will be phased in. Can see it being more recent form mattering, than career history given volume of contests wrestlers have in a year never mind their whole career

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4 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

It's not viable to do it if you're booking like WWE. It is if what you present matches it. If your big guys don't wrestle every week. If you build to selling PPVs and you use the appropriate promotional tactics to do so. If you're not promoting a PPV every 3 weeks.

Even with out that, there are loads of elements you can take from it. You can't half arse it though. It needs to be well thought out. If they think they can book like WWE and then expect anyone to care about someone who has a win/loss record of 87/83 then they'll be mistaken.

I think that's the problem, though - now that WWE have set the standard, would anyone accept a wrestler not wrestling every couple of weeks at least? In the 80s and early 90s, when it was a comparative rarity to have guys wrestling on the regular programming, and have them only really have matches on the PPVs every few months, they might have gone for it, but now, I'm not so sure an audience would go for that.

Not to mention I don't think there's any promotion that would be able to hold their nerve and keep it up until audiences did go for it.

EDIT: Actually, an idea comes to mind (but not necessarily a good one): they could portray it as the matches that happen on TV are "exhibition only" and do not count towards their win/loss record, but the ones on PPV are "competition matches" and therefore do count.

Edited by Carbomb
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7 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I think that's the problem, though - now that WWE have set the standard, would anyone accept a wrestler not wrestling every couple of weeks at least? In the 80s and early 90s, when it was a comparative rarity to have guys wrestling on the regular programming, and have them only really have matches on the PPVs every few months, they might have gone for it, but now, I'm not so sure an audience would go for that.

Not to mention I don't think there's any promotion that would be able to hold their nerve and keep it up until audiences did go for it.

That's where you've got to be different to WWE though. Can you book your show so that guys wrestle sporadically? Can you build up matches with skits, interviews and packages? Can you keep two guys apart and talk people into spending their money? That's the challenge. And it's pretty removed from the current WWE method of giving peple everything, every week and hoping they want more.

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Lucha Underground is the closest product I have seen from being a proper alternative to WWE. Even then, you had a LOT of inspiration from WWE- but that's because WWE has shaped the industry as we know it.

But Lucha Underground really had a different feel to it than anything else I've ever seen. The production was fantastic, with movie-style segments that I enjoyed far more than the unnatural contrived backstage shite you get in WWE. Having it held in a themed venue was a stroke of genius in terms of presentation and getting around not having a massive crowd- it looked underground but in a fucking cool way. By comparison, ROH has always looked a bit wank.

The hour-long show format was much better too, and I think having a season break worked well too- you had something to build to (Ultima Lucha, wasn't it?) at the end and then a break so you aren't burnt out and tired from it. The only thing I struggled with was the pace. I don't mean the pace of the wrestling (but yeah, sometimes that too) but the pacing of the storylines and feuds. If you missed a couple of weeks, you missed a shitload. Very little was stretched out and I stopped watching after falling back a few weeks and never catching up. You also had Aztec Warfare, which was around halfway through the series I think, which was something fun to build to as well. If I were to start my own promotion with a TV slot, and try to distance myself from the WWE style, I would certainly look at some of the things Lucha Underground did.

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30 minutes ago, King Pitcos said:

I am very much looking forward to more stuff like Orange Cassidy, personally. 

I am personally not, but hey ho. I was duped and watched AEW expecting less shit comedy. The likes of Orange Cassidy, where do you take that? If you find it funny in the first place, fair enough, but then what, when he's appearing on a weekly TV show?

I unlike others think comedy has a huge place in wrestling. But my definition of comedy is seemingly different from others. Vince McMahon/Mr America lie detector was comedy gold. Billy and Chucks wedding, lots of Austins face and heel run, same with Rock, had great comedy value. Your main event faces acting like doofuses, your PPV being loaded with comedy shitarses is not great comedy, IMO. I honestly think, in the indies at least, we've got loads of in-jokes that that the wrestlers find funny, they amuse each other, and fans are expected to lap it up. And most do, but I've got a feeling it's in a fake "yeah I'm clever, I'm in with the wrestlers jokes" kind of way. 

Then, as you rightly say, Tony Khan is just working the crowd with the "serious, real wrestling" shite and all the fans are lapping it up too. Enjoyed it or not, there was nothing 'real' or 'sports like' in the show I watched. Maybe Khan is gonna be a carnie fit for the wrestling world. 

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People seem to be really latching onto this win/loss thing. It probably will be a thing, but could just be as simple as not having a guy lose at the last PPV and then into a title shot a month later. 

The best aspect of this show taking aspects from other sports were the open interviews after the show with the talent. Thats how you give your guys personality.

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