AEW Dynamite Thread 2024

[LaGoosh]

Speaking of female bodyguards - I think Marina Shafir is doing excellent work as part of The Deathriders. I don't know if she's still injured but OC bringing Willow Nightingale out as his bodyguard to neutralise the Shafir threat would be a good bit of storytelling.

[JimmyAnderson]

I know one criticism of AEW has been they have too many titles but I find it shocking that despite all those titles, how rarely they're defended on Dynamite these days. 

In the last month, only the tag team titles have been defended on Dynamite and that was Private Party's win over the Bucks. With eight different championships, not including the ROH lot, there's surely room for a title match. It doesn't have to be every title every week but none for a month seems to have gone too far the other way in my opinion.

I could be wrong but I think attendances (another current criticism of AEW) could be improved if the fans know they're going to get at least one title match on the card. 

[The King Of Swing]

A well built title match between well established wrestlers, with an unclear result, sure.

Doubt a thrown together title match (or the TK special, half heartedly built up over two or three shows) with an obvious result, will do much for ticket sales.

[gmoney]

14 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

And then, Jon Moxley. Look, right. I've almost always hated Moxley. The only time I found him tolerable was when he had that feud with Regal in FCW and I know why that was and it wasn't because of Moxley. He was quite rubbish in the Shield, too, with his stupid comedy mugging. I hate his shitty, sloppy offence and his rambling cod-tough guy promos. I don't understand how anybody can buy this plank as a genuine threat when he's wandering around with a shortarse bodyguard and wearing spray-on jeans. I thought he was supposed to be taking over the station? Darby Allin, who weighs about as much as a large guinea pig, jumps on him and he fucks off. This whole angle is just as shite as the Young Bucks one. 

Yeah I can't disagree with any of this. I've occasionally enjoyed him in fits and starts, but Moxley's current title reign had been catastrophic for my levels of interest in AEW. 

[LaGoosh]

I'm enjoying the Mox storyline but it definitely feels like it needs to change up/escalate. The same big brawls every week isn't going to stay fun for much longer. I'm not even sure the story really needs the World title. When it started it felt like we were on the verge of something fresh, original and new but that hasn't quite happened yet. The end goal I'm guessing is Darby winning the title but that doesn't really excite me too much. 

I still think they missed an absolutely massive trick by not going with a heel Hangman title run. That would have been something really fresh and exciting to build the company around.

[The Gaffer]

Loved the handsome bastard when he came back as the mega face workhorse of the company who jobbed out his demons but he's lost me on his current run as well.

We're Taking Over Angle #5263 with a tone that oscillates between goofy Control Your Narrative shite and just seeming almost too dark and miserable for my nice wrestling escapism at times. It's not that I'm sensitive to it it's more just...I don't know. I have the same bland reaction to it as I've always had with drab military science fiction/Tom Clancy stuff. This is HARDCORE! We're VIOLENT and SERIOUS! 

I wouldn't even call it bad. Just doesn't work for me and there's probably a dozen other things they could pull at the top of the card that'd work better for me. 

[The King Of Swing]

They really need to land something at Full Gear with this Mox storyline. It was fine for the first couple of weeks but now I'm feeling worn out from the same routine every week. 

Also Mox having all the power because he's champion would have possibly worked 25 years ago, but now it's just a little silly, imo. Yeah I'm probably nitpicking but fuck it. 

Hell maybe they have something massive planned down the line but I'm keeping my expectations at a reasonable level. 

FTR losing was a pleasant surprise.

Kip is totally going to screw Christian Cage over when he cashes in, isn't he? 

[CDM]

Rating have gone up by over 100000 this week. I'm not obsessed with ratings I just worry if they keep dropping aew will become another tna. No disrespect to tna but they wouldn't be able to attract guys like osprey or okada.

Moxley is such a great heel. He doesn't do things like insult the crowd as well. It's much more psychological heel work. The whole show is good at the moment but I would imagine he's the one who drawing in the higher ratings. 

[DavidB6937]

1 hour ago, CDM said:

Rating have gone up by over 100000 this week. I'm not obsessed with ratings I just worry if they keep dropping aew will become another tna. No disrespect to tna but they wouldn't be able to attract guys like osprey or okada.

They're already more successful than TNA. Plus they're existing in a different time where TV ratings are even less important as a whole. There's no point in following ratings now. 

[LaGoosh]

Yeah after they got a big renewal deal it basically made all ratings chat going forwards completely defunct. Turns out a bunch of fans and "journalists" on the internet don't know shit about what a major media conglomerate want.

[organizedkaos]

3 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I'm enjoying the Mox storyline but it definitely feels like it needs to change up/escalate. The same big brawls every week isn't going to stay fun for much longer. I'm not even sure the story really needs the World title. When it started it felt like we were on the verge of something fresh, original and new but that hasn't quite happened yet. The end goal I'm guessing is Darby winning the title but that doesn't really excite me too much. 

 

It's that same issue of mechanical booking isn't it? A Mox segment will involve him doing an excellent promo that ultimately reiterates the same points. There'll be a brawl. Darby will do an excellent bump. Orange Cassidy cuts a promo of varying quality. "Mayhem" ensues. See you next week!

Part of it is the issue of the fact wrestling is just so much bigger and bombastic and moments are harder to find. People comparing Darby's bump to Rey getting lawndarted. We'll of forgotten the Darby bump in say 3 weeks? We're still talking about that NWO moment decades later (I wasn't even watching at the time and I know it)

It's not about moments though, or even "whatever will happen next". I find with normal TV the big hook is often "how will they deal with this" or "how will they react to this". I care enough about the characters that it's less about the sudden inevitable betrayal as much the intruige to how the betrayal affects things. I mean somehow in this Mox storyline Wheeler Yuta is the most interesting thing and that's just cos there's some interesting character dynamics between him, Claudio and Mox along with the uncertainty of exactly how that'll play out.

There's nothing much compelling even though everything is of a fairly decent quality. We'll get some more brawls, some more varying promos and then OC loses to Mox in a four start match.

[CDM]

32 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

They're already more successful than TNA. Plus they're existing in a different time where TV ratings are even less important as a whole. There's no point in following ratings now. 

I did hear that tna were drawing 2 million at one point or is that bollocks?

When people say ratings aren't important now why is that? 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

13 minutes ago, CDM said:

I did hear that tna were drawing 2 million at one point or is that bollocks?

When people say ratings aren't important now why is that? 

Because they've signed a new TV deal and the money they have got from the new deal has gone up, so the network are obviously happy with the numbers.

Presumably there is a lower limit that the network needs to keep advertisers happy but they obviously are nowhere near that. You can't imagine it will ever get that bad. 

[DavidB6937]

25 minutes ago, CDM said:

I did hear that tna were drawing 2 million at one point or is that bollocks?

When people say ratings aren't important now why is that? 

I think they drew 2 million in 2010. If you're interested then go do a deep dive on WWE ratings now and then and you'll see how TV ratings have changed and expectations. It's a massively different thing now.

[Devon Malcolm]

27 minutes ago, CDM said:

I did hear that tna were drawing 2 million at one point or is that bollocks?

When people say ratings aren't important now why is that? 

Because people can consume programming in all manner of different ways. Are you familiar with the internet?