AEW Dynamite Thread 2024

[air_raid]

17 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

 

With WWE, I've always had the sense that their booking philosophy has always been that before Raw/Smackdown they all sit down and their first port of call is bringing up a small handful of their current chose few and saying "ok, so what's Cody Rhodes doing this week?"

You've nailed it. WWE weekly telly is about advancing the story. AEW seems to be about putting on matches that fans will tune in to see. It's not entirely dissimilar to the difference between Raw and Nitro during the peak of the war, and probably part of the reason so many people see AEW as the spiritual successor to WCW. Well, along with little Tone getting Big Tone on board, by golly.

[Lorne Malvo]

16 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Kris Statlander is just great. There's no excuse why Khan hasn't tried to make her a huge star, especially now she seems to be injury-free. That's an excellent little segment.

They gave her the huge moment of ending Jade Cargill's undefeated streak, but her TBS run didn't catch on fire like it should have and since then she has been floundering a little (outside of her and Willow having excellent street fights). She's as much a victim of anybody of the fact you can only push so many people at a certain time, and unfortunately AEW has an absolutely massive roster of people that deserve to be pushed (which makes it frustrating when acts like Chris Jericho or The Kingdom get so much TV time, as much as I like them).

Trent's heel turn was brilliantly done, Chuck Taylor's gormless expression aside. Him walking past Sue was ice-cold.

Fantastic closing segment, get that belt on Swerve asap.

Thunder Rosa vs Mariah May was a good scrap. Mariah May has impressed me everytime she's out there. Thunder Rosa always looks cool as fuck and usually delivers in-ring.

I don't mind Billy Gunn holding his own usually, he does tower over most of the roster so in kayfabe-sense, that size advantage makes up for his age. But having him completely destroy Jay White for about 15 minutes was ridiculous. Very weird match with Billy dominating the entire time then going for a DQ finish.

It was a bit of a weaker show than usual but they are still having an incredible year. It wouldn't surprise me if they have purposely took the foot of the gas for a few weeks while most wrestling fans are preoccupied with Mania. 

[Daddymagic]

I am trying with AEW but nothing is really grabbing my attention this year - bar Ospreay, Swerve and Christian Cage. 

 

Some random thoughts ...
 

Copelands promo was ridiculous, especially coming from such a WWE guy. What a waste of air time. 
 

So much talent just seems directionless or not used. And storylines are pretty much a non entity. 
 

We had close to a year build up for the "Devil" angle and that seems to be on the back burner. 
 

Moxley is a big miss on the shows, and he has been pretty much doing nothing of note for 18 months. 

 

 

 

[no user name]

Unfortunately dynasty is looking good. I say unfortunately because it means I'm going to have to spend £15 on another ppv 

[Supremo]

Hunter didn’t even want Will Ospreay or Okada anyway, so joke’s on them. He’s not mad. Please don’t put in the paper that he’s mad.

 

[sukhy]

5 hours ago, no user name said:

Unfortunately dynasty is looking good. I say unfortunately because it means I'm going to have to spend £15 on another ppv 

If you go onto the triller website rather than the app, that 3 PPV deal goes to $49 rather than £49, so it works out to be £39 for 3 PPVs, which isn't too bad!

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

16 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I don't mind Billy Gunn holding his own usually, he does tower over most of the roster so in kayfabe-sense, that size advantage makes up for his age. But having him completely destroy Jay White for about 15 minutes was ridiculous. Very weird match with Billy dominating the entire time then going for a DQ finish.

It was bad. And my theory was that this was something that sounded good on paper but in practice didn't work.

The "Gunn your so enraged with White you come and pound the crap out of him and in desperation to get away he hits a low blow" is a great way to further the story. But it ended up being "you beat the crap out of him for a prolonged amount of time, hit your finisher TWICE, have him dead to rights and refuse to pin him".

If it had been a case of Gunn runs out, throws him in and out of the ring for two / three minutes, White hits a low blow for the dq, and then the entire bang bang gang pile in to beat the crap out of gunn, it could of worked.

Essentially it needed to be less of a match and more of a glorified segment.

 

Edited April 6 by andrew "the ref" coyne

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

16 hours ago, air_raid said:

You've nailed it. WWE weekly telly is about advancing the story. AEW seems to be about putting on matches that fans will tune in to see. It's not entirely dissimilar to the difference between Raw and Nitro during the peak of the war, and probably part of the reason so many people see AEW as the spiritual successor to WCW. Well, along with little Tone getting Big Tone on board, by golly.

I think WCW had a better balance. Yes you had your TV title and Cruiser devision for rhe in ring, which wwe never had, and but you still had Luger, Sting, Macho, Hogan, DDP and nWo for the main narratives.

[RedRooster]

22 hours ago, air_raid said:

You've nailed it. WWE weekly telly is about advancing the story. AEW seems to be about putting on matches that fans will tune in to see. It's not entirely dissimilar to the difference between Raw and Nitro during the peak of the war, and probably part of the reason so many people see AEW as the spiritual successor to WCW. Well, along with little Tone getting Big Tone on board, by golly.

When it comes to the PPVs that statement generally true, but who is tuning into see (for example) Danielson vs Archer? I know people hate ratings chat, but it’s relevant here, because the answer is fewer and fewer people; and the same is generally true for live attendance outside of PPVs. While yeah, analysing these factors is tedious, bringing them up is unavoidable when you want to point out that talk of a new TV deal has gone worryingly silent. Perhaps that deal will come, but the situation is worth paying attention to.

TNA is a cautionary tale; prominence can go away in an instant, even if the company does not. I’d hate to see that happen to AEW; but to me, that seems a plausible - but avoidable - direction of travel, and that is a huge shame.

Edited April 6 by RedRooster

[air_raid]

9 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

When it comes to the PPVs that statement generally true, but who is tuning into see (for example) Danielson vs Archer?

Didn’t they just give away (for examples) Danielson vs Shibata and Ospreay vs Shibata on TV?

[LaGoosh]

18 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

bringing them up is unavoidable when you want to point out that talk of a new TV deal has gone worryingly silent

No it hasn't. They have only just started negotiations and most news outlets (real ones, not shitty wrestling ones) expect AEW to get a rights increase. Negotiations are happening behind closed doors so we won't hear anything till they are completed. This is the norm.

But hey, anything can happen I suppose.

[Mr.Showtime]

Adding to the discussion on the TV content, yeah I've kinda gone numb to the number of great match-ups that are just thrown away weekly on AEW with hardly any notice. A slightly younger me would be blown away that I get to see Edge v Pentagon next week, but instead of an intriguing and nasty little feud to build to a match, it will be very likely one-and-done with an obvious result. Boooo!

Edited April 6 by Mr.Showtime
typo-mania XL

[LaGoosh]

14 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Didn’t they just give away (for examples) Danielson vs Shibata and Ospreay vs Shibata on TV?

Not sure what you mean by "give away"? Shibata isn't a PPV draw in the US in 2024 so putting his matches on TV is the best use of him.

[air_raid]

9 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Not sure what you mean by "give away"? Shibata isn't a PPV draw in the US in 2024 so putting his matches on TV is the best use of him.

Regardless, if we’re clutching at “here’s one example of a match where WHAT A GREAT MATCH isn’t the reason to tune in,” I just gave back two. Maybe poorly worded, but what they do on TV is my point. Nothing to do with drawing PPV dollar.

In today’s ensemble cast world, no one human really is a draw or proven difference maker anymore.

Almost.

Edited April 6 by air_raid
Lisa needs braces!

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

Didn’t they just give away (for examples) Danielson vs Shibata and Ospreay vs Shibata on TV?

That’s kind of my point though, as @LaGoosh points out, Shibata isn’t a draw. These are matches Khan might want to see, and that a small niche might be interested in; but the result is obvious. Personally, I know very little about Shibata, so for me, it means nothing. The outcome is obvious, and the stakes are non-existent. The more interesting thing to do would have been one man beat an opponent, and the other lose to that same person - there’s a story to tell there. But the man to do that with probably wasn’t Shibata. 

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

They have only just started negotiations and most news outlets (real ones, not shitty wrestling ones) expect AEW to get a rights increase. Negotiations are happening behind closed doors so we won't hear anything till they are completed. This is the norm

Out of interest, like who? 

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

Regardless, if we’re clutching at “here’s one example of a match where WHAT A GREAT MATCH isn’t the reason to tune in,” I just gave back two. Maybe poorly worded, but what they do on TV is my point. Nothing to do with drawing PPV dollar.

In today’s ensemble cast world, no one human really is a draw or proven difference maker anymore.

I see what you mean by your initial comment now - I don’t disagree that this is Khan’s approach; the message being that you’re going to see good wrestling. But none of that matters, when the outcome is obvious; it makes the matches themselves rather boring. I know you’re not arguing otherwise; but my point is that it just isn’t working (which is why I invoked the dreaded ‘ratings’ alongside live attendance numbers). 

The part I find most frustrating is that when AEW was actually hot, it wasn’t just about matches. The story was massively important - none of us would have been as arsed about Omega/Page is it weren’t for the story and character work; and the same goes for matches like Cody/MJF, Britt Baker vs Shida and even Moxley/Kingston. 

WWE seems to have learned more lessons about what worked in the early days of AEW than Tony Khan has. AEW was doing long term storytelling right across the board before things went south - the Kingston/Moxley dynamic, for example, was about more than just one match; building up to their eventual friendship and reunification. Jericho/MJF culminated in The Pinnacle; and Cody never really forgot about MJF right up to his departure. There’s still a little bit of this kind of thing in AEW, but Khan leans hard on the idea that good - but meaningless - matches are what people want. Because, presumably, it’s what he himself enjoys most.