AEW Dynamite Thread 2023

[BomberPat]

4 minutes ago, Factotum said:

I thought Meltzer made a good point about all of these things. They need to stop this 'I might be leaving' shit. It just undermines AEW, When MJF was talking about it at first it was slightly novel but he kept going on about it and it makes your own company look second rate. Just stop with it

It was shit when MJF did it - it completely overshadowed his match with Wardlow, and meant that nobody (MJF included) was talking about Wardlow having beaten him in the culmination of a multi-year story, they were talking about whether or not MJF had booked a plane ticket that week. Fucking awful.

WWE have had the problem for years, that the company itself is the biggest heel there is - to be seen as a handpicked champion by the people who run the company (despite the fact that, y'know, it's a work, so they're all handpicked) can be a kiss of death for a babyface, and the biggest, easiest pops come from slagging off the company and their booking. Even John Cena's at it, talking about piped in crowd noise.

AEW's a "challenger brand", and really can't afford to fall into that trap. Once upon a time, it could sell itself as a place wrestlers would rather work than WWE - more freedom, a better atmosphere, somewhere everyone should want to work. Whether that's true or not any more is almost irrelevant, they shouldn't be leaning into the opposite view on TV, but it makes them look low rent and dilutes their appeal as an alternative to WWE. Babyface wrestlers shouldn't be talking about not wanting to work for the company, or not being happy there, or about being held down or the booking being bad. If heels must talk about it, it should be framed in such a way that it's clear from broader context that they're being whiny pricks blaming other people for their shortcomings and failings, we shouldn't be expected to agree with them.

When MJF did his promos slagging off Tony Khan and wanting to leave AEW, that should have been the point to nip it all in the bud. It was maybe worth experimenting with, considering he's the most hated heel in the company, to see how far the audience's sympathy would go - would this be an ECW situation, where you could get heat by slagging off the promotion itself, where the brand is its own biggest babyface? When it turned out that wasn't the case, and that it actually made people cheer MJF - whether because they agreed with him, because they've been conditioned by years of WWE doing this to see attacking the company as an inherently babyface act, or because audiences will always enjoy a sense that someone is saying the "unsayable" and breaking kayfabe to some extent - that should have been the point to not bother with this kind of storytelling at all any more.

Or, if they are going to do this kind of story, there needs to be a loud, coherent voice standing up for AEW. Why isn't someone like Moxley or Hangman saying, "fuck all of you, this is the best company in the world" when people start talking about leaving or not liking how AEW operates? Where's that side of the story? The closest we've got is in the women's division Originals vs. Outsiders story, but that's been a mess of an angle, and Britt and Jamie's attitude hasn't really been one of "we're standing up for AEW" so much as "we were here first, so we run this show, not you".

[LaGoosh]

49 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Or, if they are going to do this kind of story, there needs to be a loud, coherent voice standing up for AEW. Why isn't someone like Moxley or Hangman saying, "fuck all of you, this is the best company in the world" when people start talking about leaving or not liking how AEW operates? Where's that side of the story?

Sammy Guevara actually did this once during his babyface run. But as it was babyface Sammy Guevara it was unbelievably cringe and terrible.

[Merzbow]

Starting a show with Jay Lethal and a Ruby Soho promo + match made it a real slog for the first hour, can't wait to see Double J become champion though! Hangman again with a superb short promo that put Ruby's stupidly long diatribe just before it to shame, not sure I want to see him feuding with Mox any longer.

That triple threat trios match should be a banger and a half (sorry Taz).

Edited March 9, 2023 by Merzbow

[LaGoosh]

Was that Wardlow/Hobbs match wrestled in slow motion? And a QT Marshall ending? Genuinely embarrassing scenes all round.

QT is an excellent Dark jobber and nothing more. If Hobbs needs a mouthpiece QT is absolutely not who it should be. And am I supposed to know what QTV is? For everything that was good about the trios match/segment was perfectly yin/yanged by this pile of gobshite. When this stuff happens it just reminds you that AEW will probably stay at the level it's at forever. 

Edited March 9, 2023 by LaGoosh

[Jonny Vegas]

QT owed Powerhouse a favour after Powerhouse helped him take out Ricky Starks last year. So technically it can at least make sense that way.

I'm 100% behind Powerhouse as champion and hope he gets a good run with it.

I do however think the best thing he could do now is destroy QT next week and make it clear that he only used him to call in an owed favour and doesn't need him.

[Tsurutagun]

Ruby Soho having just joined the WWE group doing a "you people" promo felt very meta and I like it. 

We're one week away from Jeff Jarrett being a AEW Title holder and I'm building a countdown clock to it

I'm guessing BCC and Dark Order is building to the Elite and Page making up

Couldn't we have done Inner Cicrlce vs Elite in Winnipeg without House of Black involved. 

[Infinity Land]

23 minutes ago, Tsurutagun said:

Couldn't we have done Inner Cicrlce vs Elite in Winnipeg without House of Black involved. 

When that was being tee'd up as a number one contender's match, I really didn't care. The House of Black added means it will end up being chaos. Which i'm all in on.

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

When this stuff happens it just reminds you that AEW will probably stay at the level it's at forever. 

To me it’s fairly clear now that Tony Khan is a bad head booker. He might have some good ideas, and he can certainly identify good matches, but he would probably be best hiring someone to help improve show structure and story structure. People say that they don’t care about viewership, but I do. If AEW continues to gradually shed viewers, it won’t be around in its current form in the long term, and that would be a huge shame. I’m not saying it’ll die, but watching it she’d its top stars to WWE is a sad prospect.

1 hour ago, Jonny Vegas said:

I do however think the best thing he could do now is destroy QT next week and make it clear that he only used him to call in an owed favour and doesn't need him.

Kind of like MJF did to Regal? They can’t repeat that angle. I’ll give this a chance to see what QT’s new gimmick is, and cross my fingers that it works. Going from ‘the Book of Hobbs’ to whatever this is seems a bit of a change in direction, though.

Edited March 9, 2023 by RedRooster

[Nick James]

17 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

To me it’s fairly clear now that Tony Khan is a bad head booker. He might have some good ideas, and he can certainly identify good matches, but he would probably be best hiring someone to help improve show structure and story structure.

Double J fixes everything and will be world champion within 6 months, AEW will be a ratings success.

[Guest]

Continues to shed viewers? They always jump between 800k to 1m without any rhyme or reason. Dunno what’s wrong with aew being at the level it’s at, it gets 130k people buying ppvs and is steady for it’s time slot and has the network wanting to work with them on joint promotions,if the network thought it was shit or embarrassing then they’d not tarnish their other products joint promoting. They are very happy it seems.
 why you have this expectation/prediction  @RedRooster that it’s on the path to being fucked is strange when you on one hand say it’s shit, but you want it around. Bit confusing that viewpoint 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Louch

[RedRooster]

13 minutes ago, Louch said:

Continues to shed viewers? They always jump between 800k to 1m without any rhyme or reason. Dunno what’s wrong with aew being at the level it’s at, it gets 130k people buying ppvs and is steady for it’s time slot and has the network wanting to work with them on joint promotions,if the network thought it was shit or embarrassing then they’d not tarnish their other products joint promoting. They are very happy it seems.
 why you have this expectation/prediction  @RedRooster that it’s on the path to being fucked is strange when you on one hand say it’s shit, but you want it around. Bit confusing that viewpoint 

If you're going to disagree with someone, at the very least don't misrepresent what they say. At what point did I say AEW was on "the path to being fucked", or that "it's shit"? Here's what I said about the show quality: 

8 hours ago, RedRooster said:

I know I’m being negative here, and it wasn’t a bad show by any means - but it felt very skippable, and I think that could have been avoided.

And here's what I said about the company's future:

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

If AEW continues to gradually shed viewers, it won’t be around in its current form in the long term, and that would be a huge shame. I’m not saying it’ll die, but watching it shed its top stars to WWE is a sad prospect.

Not quite how you portrayed it, is it? The inability to accept even constructive points of some AEW (and WWE fans), to the point they actively exaggerate or misrepresent opposing viewpoints is a bit frustrating. I'm not even sure it's deliberate, I suspect you get so wound up by it, you just see what you want to see. 

You'll also see here that I said "if AEW continues to gradually shed viewers" - we all know that AEW isn't just about Dynamite - Rampage has hemorrhaged viewers (source: Forbes). Dynamite hasn't suffered as much of a drop - but it does look like there's a slow erosion (source: PWtorch). 

Quote

why you have this expectation/prediction  @RedRooster that it’s on the path to being fucked is strange when you on one hand say it’s shit, but you want it around. Bit confusing that viewpoint 

Now, I've already established that I didn't say this, but I'm going to address this point anyway. What on earth would be confusing about saying something is "shit" but wanting it around? That's quite an extreme reaction. Wrestling goes through lulls - WWE went through a long one - that doesn't mean people wanted it to go away. The logical thing to think is that you'd like it to get better. 

In what other context would you even think to apply that logic? "I think the football club I support is shit - I hope they get relegated"? "I used to really like that cafe - but lately the food has been terrible - I hope they go bust"? It would be utterly mad to think that. You'd want to see improvement. 

Quote

Dunno what’s wrong with aew being at the level it’s at

As for this point, the answer is nothing, assuming things do stay the same; and you're willing to accept that some of the hottest AEW acts will look to jump to a larger platform in WWE. I don't necessarily want to see people like MJF and Omega leave AEW for greener pastures; I'd like to see two healthy companies in AEW and WWE, packed with exciting original stars. I'd hate for AEW to effectively become a developmental territory for WWE. 

[Guest]

You complain I’ve misconstrued then you quote you saying the things I said you did. You said it’s shedding viewers, you said it won’t be around in its current form, if you can’t see that’s the same as it’s dying then I don’t know what to say. Sorry I’ve made you that annoyed you had to write that rant, have a good night watching something you do/don’t enjoy and do/don’t want around going forward

aew shedding stars isn’t a bad thing, every wrestler has a shelf life and we seen how boring wwe got when no one left. Wwf got hot again by the old guard leaving and Austin, rock, hhh, Foley all stepping up. Wwf losing Danielson, mox, Jericho left room for others to shine there. That we have a transfer market of sorts is brilliant for fresh exciting wrestling. Change is good 

[RedRooster]

24 minutes ago, Louch said:

You complain I’ve misconstrued then you quote you saying the things I said you did. You said it’s shedding viewers, you said it won’t be around in its current form, if you can’t see that’s the same as it’s dying then I don’t know what to say. Sorry I’ve made you that annoyed you had to write that rant, have a good night watching something you do/don’t enjoy and do/don’t want around going forward

Do I really need to do this again?

Here's what I said: 

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

If AEW continues to gradually shed viewers, it won’t be around in its current form in the long term, and that would be a huge shame. I’m not saying it’ll die, but watching it shed its top stars to WWE is a sad prospect.

I shouldn't need to explain this, but "not being around in its current form" is very different from dying. Impact Wrestling is not around in the same form that it was in 2012. It's not dead. In the States, the WWE Network exists in a different form than it did five years ago. Neither of these things are dead. 

30 minutes ago, Louch said:

aew shedding stars isn’t a bad thing, every wrestler has a shelf life and we seen how boring wwe got when no one left. Wwf got hot again by the old guard leaving and Austin, rock, hhh, Foley all stepping up. Wwf losing Danielson, mox, Jericho left room for others to shine there. That we have a transfer market of sorts is brilliant for fresh exciting wrestling. Change is good 

Some real false equivalence here - losing Danielson, Moxley and Jericho isn't quite the same as losing Omega, MJF and The Bucks - and this is on the back of AEW losing Cody (and, potentially, Punk). We both, I hope, know that AEW does not have an Austin, Rock or Foley waiting in the wings. But even if they did, the way that Dynamite is formatted and, sometimes, booked, often makes it difficult for exciting programmes and acts to feel hot, or achieve their full potential. It happens a lot - they stumble upon something that works, and fumble it. Wardlow, Miro, Malaki Black as a face and Daniel Garcia, for example; and it now looks like the same thing might be happening to Ricky Starks. 

Nothing that I've said implies that AEW is awful - but it's missing so many opportunities to be more than "just fine". What I find disappointing mostly, is that AEW could very easily feel like the hottest wrestling company in the world, but easily avoidable and identifiable mistakes are holding it back. 

I'm not sure there's much point in saying any of this, because you appear to be watching AEW through a very tribalistic lens. I don't quite understand why you'd want to do that, but hey, if you're enjoying the straws that you're clutching, grip away. Who am I to stop you?

[ReturnOfTheMack]

This is getting more boring than a Toni Storm promo.

[I Bent My Wookie]

42 minutes ago, ReturnOfTheMack said:

This is getting more boring than a Toni Storm promo.

More structured though.