AEW Double Or Nothing 2023 discussion

[Guest]

Finally getting to watch the show, at he tag titles match and it doesn’t even feel like a Dynamite, it feels like a Rampage so far. FTR, Jeff and Jay all wearing red and black is a minor annoyance that’s bothering me more and more give how dull the match is. 

Jim Ross is a hindrance watching a product he clearly doesn’t understand or enjoy 

[Guest]

Jungle Boy when he turns I reckon can be brilliant. Loving the slow teases towards it 

[DavidB6937]

It's okay. Tony is back with an announcement to get things back on track!

 

[The King Of Swing]

Watch it be another fucking title. 

[I Bent My Wookie]

Well if there is a brand split they'll need two world titles.

Introducing the AEW Ubiquitous Championship 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Tony's Announcement is a regular segment now isn't it. Like Piper's Pit or The Barbers Shop. 

[Supremo]

Last I heard, ticket sales aren’t selling like they did last time when the hint of Punk was enough.

Just announce Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk as the first main event.

[Loki]

Generally AEW's production is quite slick nowadays, so Tony's Announcements stand out even more as the least professional part of their product - and I include Jim "Shut Up" Ross.

His gormless, boss-eyed look, like a panicked chihuahua, monotone delivery and pizza-delivery boy look should be nowhere near tv, and someone at that company needs to grow a set and tell him.  He's not the money mark to be squeezed for a few more dates any more, AEW is an ongoing, profit-making concern and his EWR fantasy indulgences are wearing a bit thin. 

[Chris B]

Possibly because of the negative responses, my expectations were pretty low going in and I enjoyed it more because of it.

The Battle Royal was great, and threw up a whole load of stuff I want to see. Swerve, though - my god. What a star.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Possibly because of the negative responses, my expectations were pretty low going in and I enjoyed it more because of it.

The Battle Royal was great, and threw up a whole load of stuff I want to see. Swerve, though - my god. What a star.

Having now watched the whole show, first half of show was Rampage level, with JR moaning. Then we got a big dynamite main with the 4 pillars, and the main event the one match that felt different from tv. For all the moans I’ve seen at production for missing things, that’s on the talent as well for not timing them out so it was easier to Focus. Claudio doing the spin and moxley using the fork didn’t need to be concurrent 

[Chris B]

And Taskeshita! Holy shit, that guy just pisses charisma. He came across as a complete heel, just in terms of how he held himself and his facial expressions. He was an absolutely fire babyface, to the point where I wasn't sure how effective a heel he'd be, but he came across like a different person, and that was without barely doing anything. Excited for what he can do.

[JLM]

Very late thoughts on the show...

That buy-in tag felt like it was three hours long. Genuinely uncomfortable watching Jeff Hardy. I usually enjoy Hook's matches but this was bad. 

Couldn't a have asked for a better opener for the show proper than that battle royal. Packed with little showcase spots and story beats leading up to a blinding finishing stretch. Got the direction I wanted coming out of it, and a delicious little preview of how good their feud could be. More OC vs Swerve ASAP please. This was so good that it gave me a false sense of security about the crowd being hot for the show. They were not. 

Cole and Jericho was a turd of a match. Having Sabu sort of limply fall thorugh a table right at the start was an odd choice. Some of the high spots and shortcuts got individual pops but the match didn't build heat as it went and ground down to a terrible plodding pace in between the planned spots. Like Supremo, I had been baited by a build that was more entertaining than expected here. The Jericho/Roddy falls count anywhere match was so much better than this. I felt like this was quite easy to get right after that, but they're two of the most self indulgent wrestlers on the planet, so we got this. That bump to the table on the outside from Cole felt entirely stupid and unnecessary given what Cole has literally just come back from.  The Panama Sunrise is the worst wrestling move. 

Tag title match was good fun as expected. Did not expect Karen Jarrett hitting Aubrey with a guitar but it was brilliant. So much silliness and shenanigans, but still a genuine pop for Dax kicking out of the one big Jarrett near fall. Perhaps took a bit too long to get going but I enjoy everything Jeff Jarrett does at the moment and had a good time here. 

Wardlow and Christian was tremendous. I was worried in the first few minutes that the flat crowd would spoil it for them. I don't blame the crowd if a programme is cold, the match is terrible or the characters aren't over etc. but Christian is pretty well despised almost everywhere they go and he just didn't have the same heat here. So at the beginning it was quite quiet in between the high spots, but they had them by the end. I thought Christian went above and beyond here. Nothing stupidly dangerous or anything, but he could easily get away with doing much less than he did in this match. Regardless, this was a quality ladder match and a big performance from Wardlow that he desperately needed. 

Absolutely Thrilled to hear Tony take over from JR on commentary here. I bloody love Schiavone. He's pretty much everything you'd want JR to be on the show. He's an iconic voice of wrestling, he ties together multiple generations, he knows all the history, he is a seasoned pro in the multi man booth, he knows how to convey the motivations behind wrestlers' actions and the stories they're telling. But, unlike JR, Tony seems to still genuinely love it and still has the ability to do it at this level. This also makes his little misty-eyed old man moments totally endearing rather than infuriating. Taz and Excalibur were sincerely happy to have him here and I was too.

Not much to say about Storm/Hayter, except that I can't wait to see Hayter win it back in London. 

Cannot quite believe how badly they're squandering this HOB title run. Should have just been wall to wall bangers, it's taking a lot of work for it to NOT be that. Sort it out Tony. Caster's rap was funny, would have been nice if they'd had one of those feuds wrestlers have sometimes. Criminal to use The Acclaimed as a filler title defense.

Great entrances for Taya and Jade, they both looked like stars. Match was fine, the near fall on Taya's finisher was the guaranteed big pop the feud had been building towards, and it landed nicely. The bit after that was a bit weak, thought it was too easy for Jade to hit her finish right back with little set up, made Taya look like a bit of a mug. 

Statlander's return was a big highlight of the show for me. She was getting over really organically before the injury, retaining her slightly dorky likeability whilst becoming an ever more convincing bad ass in the ring. I was gutted for her when she went and it feels like it's taken forever for her to come back. Nice vicious beatdown of Jade here, everything looked great and you could see how much it meant to her. Admittedly I am also glad she's back for the same reason as LaGoosh, I have missed her being on my TV. She brought her recorder onto Hey Ew, I'm not made of stone. But that aside, it is also an enormous boost for the women's roster. It's not necessarily the right time for either but I look forward to her vs Hayter and vs Athena very much.

Sammy Guevara's entrance was very novel and very sweet. Darby's was very on brand for him. MJF's was perfect, with the commentators' open disdain for it being the cherry on top. Jungle Boy walked to the ring looking like he'd just realised he was in his underpants in front of loads of people.

Absolutely bonkers spotfest of a match. I loved the bit where they all did their mentors' signature moves. Some great drama and storytelling in the closing stretch. Jungle Boy being tempted by the dark side was very well done and some of the better emoting I've seen from Jack.

Thought Darby losing because MJF is in his head was great. He had him with the Coffin Drop but couldn't resist the headlock take over. MJF then hammered the point home by doing it to him AGAIN (with some hysterical moustache twirling villain expressions to boot). Weirdly, even though I thought Darby came out the best of the three challengers in the build up, it still felt like the right call for him to take the fall in this fashion. Think it'll be a good motivator for him. I think there are good stories to tell for all three in defeat. Nobody believed any of them were dethroning Max here, but they can emphasise what they've learned from it. Sammy realises he isn't a lackey any more, Darby realises he needs to be smart as well as fearless, Jungle Boy realises he lacks the killer instinct. 

Main event was classic AEW high drama and insanity. These matches are polarising, but this feud and story has earned it and the guys involved made it such a wild ride. Kenny being Captain America with a bin lid, Claudio piledriving a man into a pick up truck and yelling "I AM THE KING OF LAS VEGAS!", the magical Kenny and Hangman super team up at the end. I loved the exploding superkick and will not apologise for it. Fantastic.

Not up to the standard AEW has set for pay per views but I still enjoyed much of the show, and the top two matches did exactly what they needed to. 

[AndyUK]

Just finished this and echo everyone else's thoughts. The last two matches saved this show. The Four Pillars match was an extremely fun spotfest and the Anarchy in the Arena match was batshit crazy. There wasn't much wrong with the Battle Royal or the six man either.

Much of the rest of it though, sheesh. Latter WCW vibes at times. That stretch of Cole/Jericho, FTR/Jarrett/Lethal, Wardlow/Christian and Hayter/Storm one after the other was brutal. Four matches in a row of overbooked chaos and little wrestling. It was a bit jarring, and the botches and dodgy finishes at the time just made that portion of the show a mess.

I think it was partly the fact that nearly all the best workers in the company were in two big multi man matches so that's partly why the match quality was rough on this show by AEW standards, and perhaps they felt like they needed to compensate for that with the smoke and mirrors stuff but it didn't work.

It probably just about recovered enough to be a decent show overall, but definitely one of their weakest shows and 100% would've been the weakest if not for those main events.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by AndyUK