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This was a great show. 

I'm wondering if Adam Cole telling MJF that he can you more than one friend is flagging up MJF teaming up with The Kingdom and Roddy Strong, and going heel again - "you said it yourself Adam, Roddy is a great guy..." 

I really like MJF as a babyface, but it's hard to deny at this point that Adam Cole works really well in that role also. I can see why Roddy Strong is so possessive of him, he's delightful. 

Swerve and Page both brought their A games for that final segment, and it makes me feel even more disappointed that Swerve isn't going into this match on the back of a win at All In. He's emerged as one of the best characters in AEW over the past few months - with his invasion of Buddy Wayne's gym, and this segment being among the best angles AEW has run in a long, long time. Page is great, but Swerve surely has to win on Sunday - they'd be mad not to place him as a top star going forward. Swerve vs. Danielson, Swerve vs. MJF or Swerve vs. Omega? Yes please. 

The Christian/Darby sit down was very strong indeed - I'm surprised at how good Darby has become on the mic. If people had any sort of foresight as to what Christian would become, I wonder if the initial reaction to his signing would have been what it was? Tony Khan has been proven right - he's one of the most important wrestlers in the company these days, and I wouldn't at all object to him getting a run with the main belt at some point. He's one of AEW's best signings ever, and I'd argue that his return to wrestling has surpassed Edge's; and I've really enjoyed Edge since his return. 

11 minutes ago, Loki said:

I'm just not seeing it, so far.  At the moment, he's the least interesting member of Bullet Club Gold for me.  Every few months AEW brings in some "big in Japan" star, and sometimes they turn out to be entertaining (Ospreay) and sometimes they don't really click for me.

I'm with you here. I enjoyed the segment, but everything MJF said about him rang true to me. You take away Juice and The Gunns, and what do you have? Having said that, Bullet Club Gold have surpassed my expectations, and they do feel like a hot stable - it makes sense to have White feud with MJF; taking advantage of the momentum BCG has built up. He was solid on the mic here, and I'm certainly interested in seeing how he performs as this storyline continues. 

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As someone who absolutely hated Jay White during a lot of his NJPW run - and not in a good way - when he was pushed too hard too early and hadn't developed into the guy he is today, I was actually feeling like he was underutilised in AEW for a while so I'm glad to see him getting some focus. He's not quite hit his stride yet but he's definitely getting there and the Gold stuff is helping with that for sure.

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Two negative points that I didn't bring up - firstly, they are insane to have Willow Nightingale lose to Julia Hart. Willow had one of the best women's matches of the year with Athena, and neither wrestler has been rewarded for that on AEW television. Unless things change in AEW, I predict that Willow will jump to WWE at some point in the future and become a massive star. Her treatment continues to frustrate me - she's so bloody good. 

Secondly, they're mad to have Yuta work as a babyface again. He'd really hit his stride as a nasty little shit heel, and turning on a whim does him no favours at all. 

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3 hours ago, RedRooster said:

I'm with you here. I enjoyed the segment, but everything MJF said about him rang true to me. You take away Juice and The Gunns, and what do you have? Having said that, Bullet Club Gold have surpassed my expectations, and they do feel like a hot stable - it makes sense to have White feud with MJF; taking advantage of the momentum BCG has built up. He was solid on the mic here, and I'm certainly interested in seeing how he performs as this storyline continues. 

I've always said this is my biggest complaint about MJF. He's electric on the mic, but his main aim is almost always to put himself over, and it often makes his opponents look weaker rather than stronger, especially in the early going, where it can really matter. There's probably an element of truth in what you/he have said, for example, but that's surely not the way you paint it on TV. I'll tell you what absolutely no-one was saying before Jay joined AEW: "they should put him with the Gunns and Juice Robinson, that's an act I'll want to see". But suddenly it is. Three guys suddenly look a hundred times more interesting than they did before, all thanks to Jay's leadership and friendship. BCG just slayed The Elite at Wembley. Jay won everything in New Japan. Would it kill MJF to make a guy with that resumé look like a worthy opponent? Instead, I think a lot of people come away from that promo remembering "TOFU" and thinking this is just filler.

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yeah, I hated that whole segment. I get that it's them trying to salvage something after the Adam Cole injury, and I get that MJF is something of a special case as a babyface, but I don't think a babyface should be telling an opponent that they're not good enough, not on their level, that they're boring, all the rest of it. That's stuff a heel says, knowing that they'll be proved wrong in the eventual match, not something a babyface champion should be saying to a fresh challenger who, so far, has been predominantly booked as a tag team wrestler in AEW. You don't want the audience thinking that those criticisms ring true at this stage.

It was playing to both men's worst instincts - MJF running people down and pandering to stupid crowd chants (it felt very WWE to get the crowd chanting "pubic hair" and, inexplicably, "Tofu"), whereas Jay White came across way too much like somebody trying to recite a memorised promo, he had none of the dynamism and natural charisma that he has when bouncing off the rest of Bullet Club Gold. I know they're going to want him to be a top guy eventually, so he needs the odd sink or swim moment, but it did him no favours.

Between that, the sit-down interview, and the contract signing, there was way too much WWE style promo-offs. One of the most refreshing things about Eddie Kingston in AEW is how when he has to cut a promo against someone, he's talking over them, interrupting them, and generally making it sound like a real argument, not two men taking it in turns to say their lines with the exact same diction and pacing, and the same illustrative hand movements. Again, I know their hand was forced and they've had to pivot to either another point in the story or a whole new story, but it felt like a step in the wrong direction for me. 

 

The other thing I didn't like in that segment was Adam Cole saying that, because he was injured, they were going to have to relinquish the Tag Team Titles to The Righteous. It's never been a thing in AEW that an injured champion would just hand their title over to their next challenger - it's either vacated entirely, or there's an interim champion. Fuck knows we've had to deal with it often enough already. I'd also love to hear the kayfabe justification, let alone the shoot one, why for two PPVs in a row they've prioritised booking the ROH Tag Team Titles to be defended over the AEW World Title.

Speaking of ROH Titles, it's not a great look for all three of the newly crowned ROH Six Man Tag Team Champions to not think the titles are worth carrying to the ring with them, and for two of them to immediately set their sights on entirely different titles, one of them on two different titles aside from the one he's already got. 

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40 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

I knew it was coming but I still burst out laughing when Darby Allen aggressively splashed water in his face to wash the paint off, only to look more or less exactly the same. 

Between the splashback from Darby, and then Christian spitting on him accidentally, JR was drenched by the end of it! Poor guy. Just let him do his job! Come in, ask a few basic questions, and then stare into the abyss like he'd rather be anywhere else.

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5 hours ago, Supremo said:

Between the splashback from Darby, and then Christian spitting on him accidentally, JR was drenched by the end of it! Poor guy. Just let him do his job! Come in, ask a few basic questions, and then stare into the abyss like he'd rather be anywhere else.

Still probably more fun than being set on  fire by Kane in fairness. 

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9 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

I would give my own ankle for Aaaddaammm to be okay… 😞

 

Just imagine the pop at WrestleDream if MJF starts mocking Adam Cole after getting The Kingdom to turn on him 'oooo Adammmmm' along with Strong being against Cole.......'You Think You Know Me' hits and the roof goes flying off the building! Cole and Copeland would be an amazing team to go after MJF/The Kingdom.

 

Fantasy booking mind off...

Edited by Big'Olympic_Hero'Pete
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