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The AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite Thread


MPDTT

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Brilliant match throughout, one or two odd spots, but that end was just another damp squib, one they could have done without after the exploding death match. I remember the Bucks taking the piss out of the NXT crash mats, then Jericho lands on a nice comfy memory foam with some posters of metal over the top. Daft thing is, I don't think the match itself needed a high spot, it was just 10 lads belting the absolute shite out of each other. 

Fancy letting Wardlow in, during a picture in picture break, the guy is an absolute specimen. The visual of the two teams running at each other full pelt was fantastic, then they hit the ropes in the middle and it felt awkward.

Sammy was the MVP of the match for me, fantastic showing for him and took some serious punishment. Spears going with headshots with the chair can get to fuck, though.

Still really strange seeing so much blood in a match in 2021, but it was proof that used properly and not in every match, it is very effective. 

EDIT: Just seen people who were there live on twitter saying it looked great in person, which is more frustrating that if they opted for a different camera angle, it would have been the money shot. Mind you, it's a fine balance between this and Kevin Dunn's epilepsy inducing camera angles during a wrist lock. 

Edited by Nick James
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Yeah, the spot at the end just broke immersion and sucked the heat out of the presentation for me. 

There's a completely doable middle ground between looking like shit and wanting the performers to risk breaking their necks - and for the second time in a couple of weeks for AEW, this wasn't it - so there's no excuse for some of those holier-than-thou takes that are going on out there in defence. There's numerous ways you can manipulate cameras, lights, placement, use black curtains etc to just hide the whole thing and make it look devastating but again they've opted here for a half hearted tribute-to-the-good-old-days approach which makes it look like they want the fun of the Attitude Era stunts but with the safety of doing it on a videogame.

It's not something they'll want to develop a habit of doing, to be honest, since there's no evidence that any of this stuff is even a draw anymore. If they can't pull it off, don't bother trying. You could have just had MJF shaking apoplectic about to drive a hammer or bat down into Jericho's face atop the cell to force the surrender. 

Zero risk, perfectly effective heat. 

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I think it's a clever finish if you shoot it differently. Everyone expects a high spot these days so as soon as MJF goes up the cage, the crowd are on the edge of their seat. It's using all our preconceived notions in a smart way. IC surrendering rather than having him thrown off makes total sense too. The guys all did a good job with it. The heat then is in MJF pushing him anyway and that was lost by commentary not hitting the point.

I don't mind the landing. Not sure what we expect. WWE have been panned for years for this stuff but it's safe so fuck it. It's never bothered me but I did hear a pod recently where someone was still moaning about Rikishi falling into that truck that time so maybe others do cry more.

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Its not even worth the risk of falling onto the crash mat if its gonna look that shit.

As @Gay as FOOK said, you just gotta find a different way of doing it if you're gonna do massive stunt like that. You can sit there and pretend you suspend your disbelief for it but when it looks awful it takes you right out of it. 

 

Edited by Egg Shen
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@Nick Jamesyou completely nailed it. At times it was great. But other times the pacing was off. At one point the IC were all standing tall, everyone was a bloody mess and no attempts for anyone to win. It was odd. The finish was too drawn out by far before the inevitable which reminded me of Kanyon in WCW getting thrown by Mike Awesome. 
 

The episode as a whole was pretty good, but when your aiming to drag extra viewers in you need to nail it, and they didn’t. This was no stadium stampede.

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12 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The episode as a whole was pretty good, but when your aiming to drag extra viewers in you need to nail it, and they didn’t.

What's the evidence for this? Don't worry, I don't know the answer but it seems like a Meltzer statement based on god knows what? Who are these extra fans? What do they want? Jericho killing himself? 45 mins of fast paced action? Big moves? Old school characters? Or a Bloody battle sold like it matters?

As I say, I don't know the answer either but I don't think this is far off what anyone could possibly have expected from this match. They're not the Dangerous Alliance and Sting's Squadron.

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7 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

What's the evidence for this? Don't worry, I don't know the answer but it seems like a Meltzer statement based on god knows what? Who are these extra fans? What do they want? Jericho killing himself? 45 mins of fast paced action? Big moves? Old school characters? Or a Bloody battle sold like it matters?

As I say, I don't know the answer either but I don't think this is far off what anyone could possibly have expected from this match. They're not the Dangerous Alliance and Sting's Squadron.

AEW is now without competition. You have a WWE fan base of older fans getting more disgruntled with that product looking for an alternative. If you hype a show for weeks before it takes place, you expect to see a ratings bump, or else why promote something. Not sure what’s so hard to understand. I don’t listen to Meltzer, but the aim is always drive up viewership and the best way to do so is with events, like Smackdown are doing this week with its retro show. 

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9 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

What's the evidence for this? Don't worry, I don't know the answer but it seems like a Meltzer statement based on god knows what? Who are these extra fans? What do they want? Jericho killing himself? 45 mins of fast paced action? Big moves? Old school characters? Or a Bloody battle sold like it matters?

As I say, I don't know the answer either but I don't think this is far off what anyone could possibly have expected from this match. They're not the Dangerous Alliance and Sting's Squadron.

The extra fans are all the ones that tuned in to the first episode and left and then the ones that tuned into the first week without nxt and left. I don’t expect the wrestling fans to appear from nowhere, but those two numbers are examples of people that were interested in checking it out and then didn’t watch again. It’s not a massive number, but those people are there. I have no idea what they want though and what would turn them into regular viewers. Dynamite has a bit of everything really.

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6 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

You have a WWE fan base of older fans getting more disgruntled with that product looking for an alternative. 

Not having a dig when I ask this, but is there any evidence to back that up? I thought WWE's leading demo was the older fanbase (and that was part of the problem for them)? Also if that is the case, is there anything to suggest those fans definitely looking for an alternative wrestling product and not just opting for one of the myriad of other entertainment options available? You might well be 100% correct, but I'd just be curious to see some figures that reflect that.

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I enjoyed the show for the most part, although Cody/QT was what it was. I'm interested in Cody/Ogogo though, if only to see how good Ogogo actually is at this stage. 

As for the finish, I wish they hadn't done that and the Darby spot - which actually did look (and probably was) dangerous - on the same show. People seem to have forgotten about Darby's ridiculous bump, and are obsessing over Jericho's. 

The Blood and Guts match was a mixed bag, though I enjoyed it for the most part. It felt very awkward when the Inner Circle were dominating but not even trying to win. The commentators should have tried to explain it in some way, by saying they were looking to inflict maximum punishment, or that they were looking to make an example of MJF or something (perhaps they did, and I missed it, to be fair)

As far as Jericho's fall goes, I don't think it's worth defending - it's not like they were forced into doing it, and it wasn't a risk worth taking after the Exploding Death Match debacle. The match had already been suitably violent, and as far as bumps go, they'd already done something crazy with Darby. 

They should have recognised early on how obvious the padding was, and actively avoided filming it. But they didn't. 

Don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near as bad as the exploding ring stunt, but why leave yourself open to mockery like that? It just takes away from the risks taken during the match, and the risk taken earlier in the show by Darby. 

On another note, I wish that AEW would stop revealing the outcome of number one contender matches. They did that a few weeks ago with a Young Bucks/SCU angle, and they seem to have done it again with Orange Cassidy. 

I like the idea of Omega/OC on PPV, but if that's what they're going to do, I feel even more strongly that the show should close with Shida/Baker. In the long term, Baker will be (or should be, at least) a much bigger star for AEW than OC, so give her that show-closing moment. 

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13 minutes ago, mim731 said:

Not having a dig when I ask this, but is there any evidence to back that up? I thought WWE's leading demo was the older fanbase (and that was part of the problem for them)? Also if that is the case, is there anything to suggest those fans definitely looking for an alternative wrestling product and not just opting for one of the myriad of other entertainment options available? You might well be 100% correct, but I'd just be curious to see some figures that reflect that.

WWEs fan base being old men is a new thing though. They aren’t making new fans so every year the demo gets older and older. It’s basically people that have watched forever. The fans are obviously disgruntled as they’ve lost millions of viewers over the last few years. They do seem to want an alternative as seen by the fact that when NXT moved to tuesdays they gained basically none of AEWs audience. That means those 700 to 900k ish people that watched dynamite every week are fans that don’t want to watch NXT. I know it’s NXT and it Raw, but it’s still a damning statistic. And let’s be honest, there’s no AEW fans that were created from scratch. They almost universally were wwe fans at some point seeing as the average audience age of AEW is in the 40s and that’s the audience that watched wwe when it wasn’t the shits. I don’t see how you can look at WWEs alarming loss of popularity and look at the massive success AEW have had and the international growth of New Japan and think fans don’t want an alternative. I think it’s a combination of the horrible product, deplorable business decisions and general disdain for the fan base. Wrestling fans are fat and ugly. We just want to be loved.

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3 minutes ago, Yakashi said:

WWEs fan base being old men is a new thing though. They aren’t making new fans so every year the demo gets older and older. It’s basically people that have watched forever. The fans are obviously disgruntled as they’ve lost millions of viewers over the last few years. They do seem to want an alternative as seen by the fact that when NXT moved to tuesdays they gained basically none of AEWs audience. That means those 700 to 900k ish people that watched dynamite every week are fans that don’t want to watch NXT. I know it’s NXT and it Raw, but it’s still a damning statistic. And let’s be honest, there’s no AEW fans that were created from scratch. They almost universally were wwe fans at some point seeing as the average audience age of AEW is in the 40s and that’s the audience that watched wwe when it wasn’t the shits. I don’t see how you can look at WWEs alarming loss of popularity and look at the massive success AEW have had and the international growth of New Japan and think fans don’t want an alternative. I think it’s a combination of the horrible product, deplorable business decisions and general disdain for the fan base. Wrestling fans are fat and ugly. We just want to be loved.

I appreciate what you're saying, and again much like with Soapdish I am not suggesting you're incorrect at all. But a lot of this is based on assumptions that the AEW viewership is the same as those no longer watching WWE. Those stats certainly do reflect that the AEW and NXT audiences were separate entities, but that doesn't completely answer my question about evidence to confirm that viewers aren't simply choosing non-wrestling alternatives, and it is as simplistic as disgruntled WWE fans seeking an alternative.  With the fracturing of how media is consumed in recent years I'm not sure without a certain level of market research (beyond the flawed, antiquated Nielsen system) that it can be definitively shown either way, but I was curious if there was perhaps some evidence I had not been privy to that bore this idea out in a more concrete way. Again, just curious to see how that all shakes out with the numbers. 

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Why can't anyone just do a fucking war games match anymore? It doesn't need stunts. Don't give me the "fans expect highspots now" bollocks. It's lazy. 

The spots people remember from War Games are the turnbuckle stabbing, Brian Pillman getting murdered with a powerbomb and Ric Flair getting decapitated with a door. All were nastier looking than the overplayed "wrestler gets thrown from a great height onto a crash mat." 

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The match absolutely ran 10 minutes too long. When Santana and Ortiz hit a second set of piledrivers on the boards to take up some time I realised that the pacing was completely off. It was a good match, slightly let down by a stupid finish.

OC coming out has all but guaranteed his match with Kenny, which again just seems stupid that they've given the result away, but a decent program with the Bucks and Kenny Vs Best Friends and OC isn't such a bad shout, especially with Mox and Kingston there to even up the Good Brothers numbers too.

Britt Baker is phenomenal and I can't wait for her to be champion. It has to be the main event, nobody is expecting OC to win, but there's still some guess work on if they'll pull the trigger on Britt.

SCU to split next week and have a blow off match at the PPV between Kaz and Daniels? I always liked them against each other in TNA so I wouldn't mind seeing that match one final time.

I noticed the announcers making a lot of Dean Malenko being out there to check on Jericho. How likely is he to still be able to wrestle, for the novelty I'd love to see him against MJF.

Darby getting thrown down a flight of concrete stairs and bouncing off the ground did make me jump. Miro winning the belt next week when he mauls him is gonna be ace.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Vamp said:

Why can't anyone just do a fucking war games match anymore? It doesn't need stunts. Don't give me the "fans expect highspots now" bollocks. It's lazy. 

The spots people remember from War Games are the turnbuckle stabbing, Brian Pillman getting murdered with a powerbomb and Ric Flair getting decapitated with a door. All were nastier looking than the overplayed "wrestler gets thrown from a great height onto a crash mat." 

This is not simply an AEW thing (WWE and just about everyone who does a cage match is also just as guilty), but I would be happy if no-one did a throw/dive off the top of a cage structure for another decade. A complete moratorium on it for a good while, so when it does actually happen again it means something. It's a massively overused trope of that sort of match now, and the rate of return diminishes every time.   

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