AEW Dynamite Thread 2022

[Guest]

MJF has set up a thing to feel a little sadness for him. Which will be used against us when he does something heinous against CM punk who we love. It’s movie level storytelling when we have spent 20 years in home and away Level stories. You should feel uncomfortable, it’s not meant to be enjoyable. It’s fucking art 

[Arch Stanton]

I'm somewhere in the middle with the MJF promo. I thought it was brilliant but wrestling really doesn't do layered storytelling well at all, and even if it did, I'm not sure how well it translates to a bigger, or casual TV audience. Good on them for trying it though. 

Personally, I enjoyed the Kingston and Jericho exchange more. For how good MJF is on the mic, there's still a feeling that he's a guy playing the role of a pro wrestler. Very competently, but still acting. Kingston just looks and sounds so authentic and the dynamic between his character and Jericho's Mr Sports Entertainment one is fascinating. I'm predicting their match gets a hotter fan response than the dog collar match at the PPV. 

[DavidB6937]

11 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

I'm somewhere in the middle with the MJF promo. I thought it was brilliant but wrestling really doesn't do layered storytelling well at all, and even if it did, I'm not sure how well it translates to a bigger, or casual TV audience. Good on them for trying it though. 

Would you not consider the Hangman story to the title to be layered storytelling?

[Arch Stanton]

35 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

Would you not consider the Hangman story to the title to be layered storytelling?

Yeah, it was certainly an attempt at it and I didn't rate it, nor did the casual audience. They took so long to move Page into the top spot that by the time he got there his beer was flat. What did they achieve by it? He's currently the worst champion they've ever had, in feuds with midcarders whilst the big stars (Mox, Bryan, Punk, MJF) fight amongst themselves in hotter matches. 

[Supremo]

Last week’s promo is what put this feud on the same level of Hangman’s Tale for me. It went from a really good episodic storyline that I can enjoy in the moment, to something I’m thinking about days later, making me feel emotions for pro-wrestling characters I’ve never felt before.

Hangman was a pure babyface that I rooted for, but equally I’d be left frustrated and angry with him for making bad decisions and not getting himself sorted. MJF is still a horrible prick, but now I understand why he’s the way he is.

That’s the real genius; it’s not only turned this entire CM Punk feud on its head, it’s completely contextualised everything Max has ever done. Even the absolute worst of Max’s act, all the one-note, edge-lord stuff, where he’s going for low-hanging fruit and cheap heat. I’ve got a whole new appreciation for it now. He’s a tragic, entitled little Twitter troll, masking past trauma and personality defects. Of course he manipulates people and all his relationships end in conflict. Deep down, he’s a wreck of a man hoping if he dunks on people enough nobody will notice his insecurities.

I hated this feud at the start, when they were doing shitty “battle,” promos and trying to make the crowd go, “oOoOoOh!” But now? It’s the smartest, most perfect thing they could have done, with MJF emulating his hero and trying to hide all these issues bubbling below the surface. Real, authentic, complex characters that can exist in the real world. Exactly the type of, “shades of grey,” character and story work Cody thought he was doing but didn’t have the chops to pull off.

It’s funny - in the immediate aftermath of last week’s promo I thought the success of it lay in how they followed it up and whether MJF would either reveal it was all lies or use Punk’s sympathy to violently attack him. Now though? I wish it had been the go-home show. It was the perfect twist and the perfect cliff-hanger. The greatest Supervillain origin story in the history of the business. I’m not sure anything they do as a follow-up is going to top it. The first thing CM Punk said after seven years away was how he hoped him leaving hadn’t negatively affected anyone. Months later he discovers him leaving created his greatest and most hate rival! It’s fucking Shakespeare!

Edited February 28, 2022 by Supremo

[LaGoosh]

59 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Yeah, it was certainly an attempt at it and I didn't rate it, nor did the casual audience. 

And how exactly do you know this? Who is the casual audience your referencing here?

[BomberPat]

the important thing to note with MJF is that while there might be room for sympathy there because of the story of antisemitic bullying, his way of dealing with it has still made him a prick. That he's taking it out on CM Punk for "abandoning" him, when it had nothing to do with MJF, shows that he's still self-centred and deluded, and would rather blame anyone else than face up to the fact that he's doing something wrong. He's entirely motivated by spite, and that'd led him to demean and bully people all while claiming that he wanted to wrestle in order to be a hero to kids like him. 

To use a comic book analogy, Mr. Freeze doesn't suddenly become a hero when you find out that he's trying to save his wife, Magneto's backstory doesn't make him a babyface. It gives them a shred of humanity that only makes their turn to outright villainy more tragic. The best heels are those who fundamentally believe that what they're doing is right - I never got that impression with MJF before, because he was just being an obnoxious edgelord and wilfully antagonising people, but now he's given us this backstory, and turned it toward CM Punk, there is this sense of righteous indignation.

I don't think it's a "best promo of all time" or anything, but it's the most I've ever enjoyed MJF, and it's a fascinating wrinkle in this storyline. Something I love in wrestling is when everything is pulled into focus - in one promo, MJF justified his hatred for Punk, while also establishing why he uses a variation of Punk's old "better than you, and you know it" catchphrase, incorporated the photo of them together, added an explanation for MJF's entire character as basically just being so afraid of getting hurt again that he'll push everyone away, and gave CM Punk reason to doubt whether he's been doing the right thing. I never bought them as a "dream match", and it doesn't have to be one, because now it has a story utterly unique to the two of them, and that's what wrestling should be.

[Arch Stanton]

5 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

And how exactly do you know this? Who is the casual audience your referencing here?

TV viewers. I'm not bothered about ratings but I don't think it did anything to 'move the needle' as they say. I'm also not looking for fights with every casual fan here that did enjoy it, because of course there will be lots that did, but it's my belief that only the most obsessive fans were able to follow the story in the manner that they attempted to tell it. A big part of the pay-off would only have been appreciated by those that also watched all the BTE stuff and third party compilation videos of the angle on YouTube. It didn't make for good episodic TV at the time, which you need to get people tuning in every week. 

[Chris B]

Wasn't Full Gear AEW's second-best performing PPV ever (after Punk's return)? 

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

1 hour ago, Arch Stanton said:

Yeah, it was certainly an attempt at it and I didn't rate it, nor did the casual audience. They took so long to move Page into the top spot that by the time he got there his beer was flat. What did they achieve by it? He's currently the worst champion they've ever had, in feuds with midcarders whilst the big stars (Mox, Bryan, Punk, MJF) fight amongst themselves in hotter matches. 

One thing we need to take into account is that the death of Brodie Lee and Covid really messed a lot of this up and extended the eventual championship win. Im not sure you can lay all the blame at the feet of AEW on this one.

Personally I disagree with you (though respect where you're coming from). I felt it had extra layers if you watched all the additional stuff but there was still enough story to enjoy if you didn't. Heck ratings have still been decent on the whole, he gets a hell of a pop and had cracking matches with Daniel Bryan and Lance Archer so far. 

I do get a bit of a "we've ran out of ideas" vibe from AEW at times, but that's not directly related to Hangman.

[LaGoosh]

20 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

TV viewers. I'm not bothered about ratings but I don't think it did anything to 'move the needle' as they say. I'm also not looking for fights with every casual fan here that did enjoy it, because of course there will be lots that did, but it's my belief that only the most obsessive fans were able to follow the story in the manner that they attempted to tell it. A big part of the pay-off would only have been appreciated by those that also watched all the BTE stuff and third party compilation videos of the angle on YouTube. It didn't make for good episodic TV at the time, which you need to get people tuning in every week. 

What "moves the needle" these days though? Dynamite ratings have been pretty consistent for the past six months. There's only so many wrestling fans in this day and age. Judging things by TV ratings is not an accurate way at all of determining if something is working or not when they don't seem to be moving either up or down in any dramatic way. Also I think the term "casual fan" is pretty redundant, especially when it comes to AEW's fan base who as a whole are way or more engaged with the product than most. The modern "casual fan" is mostly a myth that people only bring up when it suits the argument they're making that day. As for the angle itself, I think it worked great. The main story beats were all on Dynamite but if you wanted a bit more background you could delve into BTE etc. and overall it was simple enough for anyone to get - the underdog gets his courage to defeat his evil former friends. If you didn't like it that's all well and good but I don't think you can speak for all "casual fans" just because it didn't kickstart a new Attitude era.

Edited February 28, 2022 by LaGoosh

[Arch Stanton]

6 minutes ago, andrew "the ref" coyne said:

One thing we need to take into account is that the death of Brodie Lee and Covid really messed a lot of this up and extended the eventual championship win. Im not sure you can lay all the blame at the feet of AEW on this one.

Those are very fair points, which definitely disrupted the storytelling for long periods. I'm not laying any blame anywhere, the story they told was a good one, it just didn't land with me in the way that it did with the hardcore fan base. 

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

If you didn't like it that's all well and good but I don't think you can speak for all "casual fans" just because it didn't kickstart a new Attitude era.

Well I did specifically point out in my previous post that I wasn't into ratings nor was I looking for fights with any casual fans that did enjoy it, whilst acknowledging that there would obviously be plenty that did. Thanks anyway. 

[LaGoosh]

11 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Well I did specifically point out in my previous post that I wasn't into ratings nor was I looking for fights with any casual fans that did enjoy it, whilst acknowledging that there would obviously be plenty that did. Thanks anyway. 

So why did you bring up ratings in the first place if you're not into ratings and make the blanket statement "I didn't rate it, nor did the casual audience" while also saying some casual fans did enjoy it? And nobodies fighting - we're discussing things on a discussion board.

Edited February 28, 2022 by LaGoosh

[Arch Stanton]

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

So why did you bring up ratings in the first place if you're not into ratings and make the blanket statement "I didn't rate it, nor did the casual audience" while also saying some casual fans did enjoy it? And nobodies fighting - we're discussing things on a discussion board. Sorry that everyone didn't agree with you.

I didn't bring up ratings initially, you challenged me on the statement and so I referenced them as the only real marker for the broader casual audience. I don't believe that the long term, layered storytelling they attempted had any measurable positive impact and I don't think you could look at how Hangman is currently positioned as champion and say that he's any better off for it. I don't hate that they tried it, it just didn't connect with me that well and I'm sure I'm not alone on that, outside of the hardcore bubble. I've got mates that watch AEW, we chat about who and what we all enjoy on the shows and not once has Adam Page's name come up. 

 

[RedRooster]

Not having a go at you, Arch, but I find the term "casual audience" a little meaningless. How is that term defined, exactly, and why should appealing to them be high on anyone's priority?

Surely any wrestling company should be looking to create new dedicated fans, as opposed to cater for people who tune in, and out? And heck, given how WWE has shed fans, catering to, and retaining, existing fans has to be a huge priority too. AEW has done a great job with that. The people who are watching the show, on the whole, keep watching it. 

I think a case could quite easily be made to argue that the Hangman/Omega story is the most ambitious ever attempted by a wrestling company. It literally spanned years. I suspect MJF/Punk will also end up having threads to it, that will play out over an extended period of time. That in itself is something anyone can point to, to explain why AEW is different from other wrestling companies - pretty much everything that happens, matters. There's room for fans to theorize about what happens next, much as they do with any hit TV show or movie franchise. I don't think you can underestimate the value there is in being able to do that. 

For that reason, I think it's really hard to argue that this has been an unsuccessful storyline. It's effectively established how AEW operates - it's established that AEW is a company with long-running story-arcs, and it's established that you actually can invest in long-term storylines in this company. They've also retained a consistent audience - over time, I suspect retention will translate to some level of growth.