AEW Dynamite Thread 2023

[JLM]

Taz "I'd love to put Alex Abrahantes through a table, just piledriver him..."

Excalibur "Taz you can, it's anything goes!"

Makes me miss Dark a lot hearing these two riffing. 

[bigfoote]

20 minutes ago, JLM said:

Taz "I'd love to put Alex Abrahantes through a table, just piledriver him..."

Excalibur "Taz you can, it's anything goes!"

Makes me miss Dark a lot hearing these two riffing. 

"Yeah, but my knee hurts"

Perfect response from Taz

[Chris B]

I actually love the set-up for a face-vs-face world title match, where there's loads of anticipation of one turning on the other (including from each other), but in the end, good faith wins out and they have a clean finish, with them hugging afterwards, both proud of having main evented Wembley. Weirdly, that's fresh. Two friends live the dream.

Then have Swerve murder both of them the next week. Good god, that man is money.

[Merzbow]

So does anyone actually have a clear rundown of the drama surrounding the women's division that LuFisto is bringing up?

 

[BomberPat]

I've been pretty sure since the beginning that Cole is the one turning, but throwing The Kingdom into the mix feels like a red herring - they might have realised they're on to a good thing and run with MJF & Cole as mates for a while, and have Roderick Strong and his ROH mates as the baddies for a while.

I don't think Adam Cole should be winning the belt, but that might be the most interesting outcome for where MJF's character is at - how does this guy, having finally opened up and admitted his vulnerabilities and allowed someone to get close to him, deal with that person beating him for the title? Particularly when CM Punk is also walking around with a version of the title as well.

 

@Merzbow - there's an interview floating around with LuFisto that basically comes down to thinking Ruby Soho and Dustin Rhodes were gossiping about her behind her back, and that nobody in the locker room stood up for her, after her one match at Dark. I haven't read it, it's the kind of playground drama I hate in wrestling, but I have a hard time buying any version of events where Ruby is the bad guy.

Edited August 4, 2023 by BomberPat

[Hannibal Scorch]

8 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I've been pretty sure since the beginning that Cole is the one turning, but throwing The Kingdom into the mix feels like a red herring - they might have realised they're on to a good thing and run with MJF & Cole as mates for a while, and have Roderick Strong and his ROH mates as the baddies for a while.

I don't think Adam Cole should be winning the belt, but that might be the most interesting outcome for where MJF's character is at - how does this guy, having finally opened up and admitted his vulnerabilities and allowed someone to get close to him, deal with that person beating him for the title? Particularly when CM Punk is also walking around with a version of the title as well.

 

@Merzbow - there's an interview floating around with LuFisto that basically comes down to thinking Ruby Soho and Dustin Rhodes were gossiping about her behind her back, and that nobody in the locker room stood up for her, after her one match at Dark. I haven't read it, it's the kind of playground drama I hate in wrestling, but I have a hard time buying any version of events where Ruby is the bad guy.

I feel LuFisto is like a woman’s Ryback in that she’s never made it fully in the big leagues and is bitter about it and spreading drama. 

[Infinity Land]

8 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

So does anyone actually have a clear rundown of the drama surrounding the women's division that LuFisto is bringing up?

 

A week ago LuFisto tweeted. I think this was because of the 'book the women's division better' sign in the crowd.

“It’s cute how people blame booking for a bad women’s division.

Talent with too much power; talent denigrating each other; talent trash-talking potential employees so they never get in as soon as they walk in…

It starts here.

– The one you called FN French Canadian asshole”

This led to the internet wrongly going after Britt Baker.

LuFisto just gave an indepth interview to Fightful on her one booking last year. Where Ruby Soho and Dustin Rhodes take the brunt of it. There's history from the indies with Ruby. Dustin meant to be the one that called her a French Canadian asshole, Dustin has denied it. There's some observations that could be considered stray shots at people.  As well as the usual points about TV being chaotic, unavailability of TK and being ghosted after.

It all seems to boil down to cliques and politics. With both sides entrenched and too busy defending themselves than learn from the situation.

 

[SuperBacon]

No idea who that is in the tweet @Merzbow but if they ever make a film about Bette Midler. Absolute ringer!

[Chris B]

22 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

@Merzbow - there's an interview floating around with LuFisto that basically comes down to thinking Ruby Soho and Dustin Rhodes were gossiping about her behind her back, and that nobody in the locker room stood up for her, after her one match at Dark. I haven't read it, it's the kind of playground drama I hate in wrestling, but I have a hard time buying any version of events where Ruby is the bad guy.

I also saw someone mention that she laid into Blue Skye as well, so I suspect that's what the 'Divas division' bit was about.

[Infinity Land]

4 minutes ago, Chris B said:

I also saw someone mention that she laid into Blue Skye as well, so I suspect that's what the 'Divas division' bit was about.

6 person tag: Ruby Soho, Anna Jay, and Skye Blue v. Emi Sakura, The Bunny, and LuFisto. While putting together the match Ruby largely takes the lead setting it up. This is one of those 4 minute Dark affairs so it's not like there's much in it. Skye supposedly doesn't say anything during, LuFisto sees it as she's either bland or too scared to talk.

The weirdest bit to me was 'Sammy and his girlfriend went to their car and came back.' That was it. There's nothing more to it and no reason for it being there. So of course its been picked up on as either doing coke or fucking.

[RedRooster]

Did she not also suggest/allege that Tomy Khan doesn’t care about women’s wrestling? I don’t know much about LuFisto, but I think that’s a fair conclusion to make; same goes for what she said about going back to the diva’s division. Women’s wrestling is rarely given much of a presence on AEW, and it often is treated similarly to how WWE treated its ‘diva’s division’ during that particular era. 

Khan has the female talent these days, he just chooses not to utilise it in AEW. Athena and Willow Nightingale are two of the best female wrestlers in North America right now, and if you only watched Dynamite and/or Collision you wouldn’t know that at all.

Edited August 4, 2023 by RedRooster

[gmoney]

6 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

Khan has the female talent these days, he just chooses not to utilise it in AEW. Athena and Willow Nightingale are two of the best female wrestlers in North America right now, and if you only watched Dynamite and/or Collision you wouldn’t know that at all.

I don't necessarily disagree with the general point, but Willow just won the Owen Hart Cup, so I'm not sure she's the best example. 

There's a definite lack of creativity in the women's division, which is pretty ridiculous because it's not exactly stretched thin. I don't know if it's booked separately, but it often feels like an afterthought. Even the last Dynamite result felt completely out of the blue and didn't feel particularly by design. But hey, it was the main event, so maybe it's a sign of a change of direction. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by gmoney

[Loki]

15 hours ago, JLM said:

Taz "I'd love to put Alex Abrahantes through a table, just piledriver him..."

Excalibur "Taz you can, it's anything goes!"

Makes me miss Dark a lot hearing these two riffing. 

That reminds me of the hugely missed opportunity in WWE with Samoa Joe when he was on commentary.  I think once he got up from the announce desk and looked to get involved and it was fantastic but they never pulled the trigger on it.  The idea of a commentator who also acts as security has legs.

[Merzbow]

I'd rather have the Omega booked division from the very start of AEW compared to what we have now, I mean there's even talk of Jade not coming back and it's not like she needs wrestling at all.

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

I don't necessarily disagree with the general point, but Willow just won the Owen Hart Cup, so I'm not sure she's the best example. 

Definitely fair to raise that - but I think it’s a perfect example - she appears to have won this, simply to challenge for Athena’s belt at the ROH PPV. She’s not wrestled on an AEW show since, or been given the opportunity to use that win as any sort of launchpad.

While I’m certainly not against Shida winning the Women’s belt, there was no build-up or storyline - surely there would have been more logic in giving Willow that opportunity, on the back of her tournament win and perhaps even on the back of the Athena loss; with Khan saying she’d been so impressive she deserved the chance, Storm countering that she’s probably the only wrestler to get a world title shot on the back of a defeat. You could build up a storyline from that, and then on to an eventual rematch with Athena, but for Willow’s AEW title.

Willow’s tournament win - so far - doesn’t seem to have been designed to benefit her; it seems to have been a means to an end, to build up a challenger for an ROH PPV.