Paid Members ReturnOfTheMack Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 That ending angle legit had me exclaim 'fucking Hell'. Just incredible work. To me MJF was shown up on the mic. By a face Will Osprey. Never saw that coming. Got to agree with the people slating The Acclaimed, amazing how quickly they turned to shit. Get Bowens a singles push ASAP. I admit I skipped the Mone segment, I just find her so utterly shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Callum1993 Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 5 hours ago, Gus Mears said: - Toni Storm and Mariah Carey segement was brilliant. All I want for Christmas is Shoe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfogg1991 Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 I'll happily admit I'm a casual/outside follower of AEW but why in the universe have the turned MJF heel after he's only just returned after getting turned on by Adam Cole...... What Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 Fucking hell. This is angle of the year. Even better than Cody and The Rock in the rain. The way Mariah instantly feels like a completely different person, her entire demeanour switching. She’s terrifying. Meanwhile Toni looks like she’s been legitimately murdered. One of the all-time best blade jobs. An absolute triumph. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedTwoster Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 1 hour ago, ReturnOfTheMack said: To me MJF was shown up on the mic. By a face Will Osprey. Never saw that coming. Got to agree with the people slating The Acclaimed, amazing how quickly they turned to shit. Get Bowens a singles push ASAP. Clearly this can change, but I’m starting to feel a sense of dread when I see MJF. I was really hoping he’d shift his heel character, but so far, he’s not done that and I’m finding him a little groan-worthy. On the whole though, AEW has been a lot of fun lately. I’m not convinced it was the right idea to go with Swerve/Danielson at All In rather than give Hangman/Swerve that platform, but I’m fully expecting Swerve and Bryan to win me over by the time that match takes place. I hope we don’t end up looking back at this as the moment they let a really good thing slip through their fingers in the next chapter of Swerve/Hangman, but time will tell. Storm/Mariah was excellent, really well done. I’d go as far as to say that if they manage to keep the build this strong - as they do tend to with Storm matches - I’d like to see it close the show. I don’t think it will, but I would love to see it. I’m already massively invested in this match. It’ll be interesting to hear how the fans in London react. Surely they won’t boo Toni? How could you even consider cheering Mariah after that?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members unfitfinlay Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 Damn. When they brought Mariah May in as "Toni Storm's biggest fan", I thought we'd get an entertaining midcard storyline for a few months, and then she'd end up in the Outcasts or something. I totally underestimated everybody involved. They've nailed every single moment of it. I'm just hoping that they gets loads of time at Wembley and put on a match worthy of the build. They deserve it. It was so good that it's totally overshadowed all the other great stuff on the show. I can't wait for All In now. 4 minutes ago, Kfogg1991 said: I'll happily admit I'm a casual/outside follower of AEW but why in the universe have the turned MJF heel after he's only just returned after getting turned on by Adam Cole...... What Cole is out. The Undisputed Kingdom are pretty crappy and there's generally far better options for MJF as a heel than as a babyface. That's pretty much it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 2 hours ago, ReturnOfTheMack said: I admit I skipped the Mone segment, I just find her so utterly shit. It was pretty good actually. She used Bret’s Best there was… catchphrase and got nice heat from the Calgary crowd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 I'm barely watching any wrestling these days apart from Toni Storm and CM Punk stuff but what a brilliant segment that was. Again, all three of them playing it perfectly and the poetry of Storm getting murdered by her own shoe was excellent. An old school angle executed as well as any classic examples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: I'm barely watching any wrestling these days apart from Toni Storm and CM Punk stuff but what a brilliant segment that was. Again, all three of them playing it perfectly and the poetry of Storm getting murdered by her own shoe was excellent. An old school angle executed as well as any classic examples. Pretty sure RJ City is behind it. He’s definitely been working with Tony Khan on it because he’s said the angle was inspired by What Ever Happened to Baby Jane and All About Eve among others.  Edited July 11 by Hannibal Scorch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 4 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: Pretty sure RJ City is behind it. He’s definitely been working with Tony Khan on it because he’s said the angle was inspired by What Ever Happened to Baby Jane and All About Eve among others. Yeah, there's been a heavy All About Eve element throughout. Sunset Boulevard too. It's one of those things where it doesn't matter if you understand the influences or not. If you do then it's fun spotting them. If not, then it's something different from you've ever seen before. Just terrific work right from the outset, at times pushing the boundaries of what wrestling can be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 My understanding is that RJ and Toni were behind most of the creative for Toni's gimmick and this whole story. I very much doubt London fans will boo Toni. She's basically an honorary Brit as far as wrestling fans are concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 Check out the way May's face drops at 2:15:  Fucking goosebumps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 4 minutes ago, The Gaffer said: Check out the way May's face drops at 2:15:  Fucking goosebumps! BuT aEw DoN’t TeLl StOrIeS, tHaTs WhY tHeY nEeD a PrOpEr BoOkEr! @BomberPatone thing I’ve thought of, a lot more then I’d probably necessary was her entrance at All In. Firstly I think it was the first time she came out as The Timeless Toni Storm gimmick (complete with Tron video), but also she came out to God Save the Queen to boot! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JLM Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 (edited) Dynamite 10/07/24 Solid opening promo from Ospreay, though not up to the high standards he's set on this AEW run. He can do better than this and the lukewarm crowd reactions didn't help. Still pretty good though. MJF's promo was also just "OK". Very by the numbers. Was hoping for better from both of them. Danielson/Hangman was bloody brilliant. Have already discussed my thoughts on the outcome; I was incredibly pumped for Hangman/Swerve but will also be delighted to see Danielson going for the big title at Wembley. That promo Supremo posted is just the beginning, Danielson don't you make me cry at Wembley in front of my casual fan friend. Don't you do it. Sensational match. I thought to myself during the match "I tuned in almost to 'make sure' Hangman won this match, but Danielson is making me very sad that he's losing this". Then he didn't lose! Stunned, genuinely stunned. But yeah, incredible match, Hangman/Swerve at Wembley would have been special but this will be too. Good stuff from Swerve. Looking and carrying himself like the baddest man alive as usual. I love how he has to handle business on several different fronts every time he speaks these days. Makes him feel like a big deal. Addresses Danielson, appoints himself captain of Team AEW, calls out Okada specifically, too busy to even mention the deranged Cowboy hellbent on his destruction. What a man. The MJF/Ospreay segment was underwhelming for me, but that first hour was packed with the biggest names and consequential happenings and I do appreciate it. Loved that they showed the same Willow/Mariah vignette from Collision, which again talks about all the stakes involved but pointedly does not mention Mariah vs Toni specifically. She's winning the tournament to get to Wembley, she's doing it FOR Toni, but avoiding the real crux of the matter. More on that later eh, faaahkin' hell. Acclaimed Video was pants. I just cannot abide Max Caster. Joe/Jericho was rubbish. Jericho not even delivering something entertaining in the plunder matches now? God damn it. So that's the entire Joe/Hook/Shibata team written off. The scenario I feared where it's these three returning just in time to challenge The Learning Trio at Wembley seems likely. What a waste of an incredible team. This was a lazy way to get there too, made Joe look stupid. He's been teaching Hook how to pick his battles and not get jumped and all that good stuff, then he challenges Jericho to a street fight with zero back up, then 100% predictably gets taken out by Big Bill. Well yeah, obviously, did he think Jericho's boys wouldn't interfere? I dunno, Joe has been portrayed as being smarter than that in this story, didn't sit well with me. Pac/Fletcher/Ishii/Claudio started off a bit ploddy and disjointed but had a brilliant last five minutes. Happy to see Pac win something and get confirmation he'll have a featured role at Wembley. Once again, his promos are some of my favourite in wrestling right now. Mone/Britt segment was good! I've been as hard on Mone's promos as anyone since she arrived but, as I said last week, her unnatural vapid mean girl delivery works 1,000 times better as a heel. Similar to Athena, she was such an unlikeable babyface that basically doing the exact same mannerisms and delivery but embracing her heel side transforms her completely. She felt hotter last week than at any other point on this run, and this segment continued to build the heat for her vs Britt. The match won't be great in-ring but I have confidence that it won't particularly matter if they keep this up. Really liked how they did the reveal for Darby's return. Then they finished the show with one of the best heel turns I've ever seen. The long term storytelling here has been phenomenal and May has gone above and beyond anything I could have expected with the character work. What's remarkable to me is how well they threw me off the scent. That clip posted is just one of many examples earlier in the run where Mariah would wince at both intentional and unintentional putdowns from Storm.  I felt as blindsided as Toni, even though this is EXACTLY what we all knew Mariah would do from the start. We spent forever wondering how and when Mariah would turn. Little lingering stares at the title belt, I'm sure there were a few times she held it as well and looked at it very fondly/took ever so slightly too long to give it back. It was signposted so hard that it was simply a question of "when?" Then though, she started the eras of Toni cosplay tribute act *and* crucially, Toni started embracing her. At the start Toni was treating Mariah like shit at every turn, so it couldn't have been more obvious that Mariah would hit her limit and turn. But she stroked Toni's ego just enough with the switch from fangirl to outright tribute act. She also won over the entire audience and became the most lovable underdog babyface. She got Toni and the audience on the hook in perfect sync, so when it finally happened we were as shocked as Toni. The Shirakawa love Triangle thing meant that Toni/Mariah was one of the few bits of ongoing storytelling that didn't derail during Forbidden Door Season too. Quite the opposite, it instead gave Mariah the perfect cover to push the whole thing over the line. An amazing feelgood babyface moment when that story had a happy ending with no major fallout and nobody left in the lurch. Just brilliantly done. I had convinced myself that they would gradually have Toni lean more heelish on the run up to All In. When Mariah won and Toni had to finally acknowledge that she'd set up her own protégé to challenge for her title, I figured she'd start trying to put Mariah back in her place. Going back to the apathetic and sometimes outright mean way she treated her at the start. But no, it was Mariah the whole time. We knew this, they told us this from the start, and yet many of us were still completely floored when it finally happened. The shock of the timing aside, even those of us who still saw it coming couldn't have been prepared for the execution of it. Good fucking lord, definitely going to be up there with the angles of the year. Timeless Toni Storm has been accused by some... not me... but some, of being too comedic and silly a character to carry the world title or to be involved in the "serious" feuds a world championship run typically entails. Well, this has certainly answered that criticism. What a performance from her. She's been near flawless all year but this was still a different level entirely. The transformation in Mariah too. As others have said, she turned into a different person in the blink of an eye. Eleven stars, absolutely magnificent I was already looking forward to their Wembley match, what with the women's Owen tournament playing out exactly as everyone predicted, now it feels hotter than I could have ever envisioned. Disappointing opening segment, Joe/Jericho was pants and The Acclaimed are dead... However, everything else on this episode ranged from good to outstanding, so on balance another strong episode for me.  Edited July 11 by JLM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JLM Posted July 11 Paid Members Share Posted July 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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