AEW Dynasty - April 21st

[Keith Houchen]

@SuperBacon A new challenger has entered the arena. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Meltzer is a grifting melt the same way as the others are. They say stuff for money to the delight of their audience and the chagrin of others. All of them are no better than the likes of Lee Anderson, Laurence Fox, Owen Jones, Nigel Farage and Marina Purkiss. Saying stuff for money to fire up your target demographic. Wrestling fans are no different from any other in that regard. I'm sure somewhere there is some railway enthusiast who says The Flying Scotsman is overrated and that the Orient Express is shit because its all flashy service and doesn't know how to work the East Coast Mainline so he can get the views for money. 

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

@SuperBacon A new challenger has entered the arena. 

The ratings thread right now: 

[organizedkaos]

Meltzer definitely has way more focus than critics of other mediums (for assorted reasons in the previous posts) but people obsessing over critics viewpoints and more specifically the arbitrary metric they use to grade things is certain not specific to wrestling.

There's something, maybe in all our psyches but especially so in nerdy circles where people really want their taste to be validated externally (I realise this isn't some sort of deep observation, we like to think we're smart and have good taste). Maybe if you already like the more niche "serious" versions of things (music/film/tv/wrestling) you tell yourself you like the smarter better version of things unlike all those rubes who like the popular thing. Thus you want the critics (professional opinion havers! they must have the best opinions) to validate this thought.

Before it went to shit The AV Club had a couple of film critics who's tastes were fairly in line with mine (smaller more adventurous and personal films over big cinematic epics).  However if those reviewers gave a marvel film a fairly average grade (which, in my opinion, is about the right grade) the comments sections would be filled with tantrums about how the reviewer could possibly have some sort of differing opinion.  Half of the comments would just fixate on the grade and not the 2000 accompanying words that explained the critic's subjective viewpoint.  The fans just wanted to see that the critic gave the film they liked an "A" and then move on, feeling vindicated that they like the right things. No interest in the discussion about why the critic didn't like it, no interest in the idea that different people like different things. It felt like they saw the grade as rating their taste, not a movie

 

Edited May 1 by organizedkaos
Richie Hawtin - DE9 Closer to the Edit

[JLM]

AEW Dynasty 21/04/24

Pre-show

Trent doing the hands in pose on his own, what a monster! Very standard match with Sydal, though I am enjoying evil Trent so far. 

OC/Sihbata vs Shane Taylor Promotions was a perfect pre show match. Comedy, shenanigans, nice energetic pace and a feel good win for the babyface super team. Love Shibata and Shane Taylor as a pairing. OC and Lee Moriarty also have excellent chemistry. Continuing to enjoy Ogogo as part of this group, he did a fine job on commentary again here. 

Six man tag was fine. The Gunns/Acclaimed match on Collision the night before was better than it. Obviously the correct outcome, hope to see some bangers for the trios titles over the coming months now that they've done the admin bit and got them on a team that can do it. 

Main Show

Pac vs Okada was a cracking opener. Very much worked at an Okada New Japan main event pace at the start and built to a nice hot closing stretch. Absolutely loved how much Okada played into the crowd's adoration for him for the first half, only to instantly turn every single one of them with the middle finger and go full scumbag for the rest of it. "Fuck Okada!" chants from 6,000 workrate perverts, I love it. I think they have to be that on the nose with it to make AEW fans boo Okada and it was perfectly done here. Pac's bumps are a thing of beauty, made all of the big spots look utterly devastating, particularly the DDT off the guard rail and the Rainmaker at the end. Would love to see these two go again. Been gushing about Pac since he's come back, but yeah, once again, his return has felt as big as any of the new signings to me, the man is brilliant. 

Six man tag was loads of fun. Loved the teases of Malakai vs Copeland, Kingston going into a mad frenzy and flailing about like Terry Funk, and Mark Briscoe being a hero for the duration. After the disappointingly cold crowd at Supercard of Honor it was nice to see him get the love he deserves from this audience, who I I must say were fantastic throughout the show.  Some great spots in this one, the babyface team spearing everyone everywhere all at once, Brody caving in the guard rail with a death valley driver, Briscoe's chair assisted flip over the post. Perfect finish too. Card length and running order aren't always perfect on these stacked AEW PPVs, but this was the ideal match to follow Pac/Okada. 

Willow banning Skye Blue *and* Kris Statlander from ringside as her house rules stipulation was spot on for her character. Not trying to gain any kind of advantage over Julia, just ensuring a fair fight. Fairly standard TV match but it didn't really matter, we finally get the belt on Willow. Mone needs to go full, unambiguous heel by the time Double or Nothing comes around. Willow is so far ahead of her as a babyface it's not even a contest. Personality, promos, drawing sympathy and firing up in-ring, she is one of the best pure babyfaces in pro wrestling and Mone could be a perfect foil for her. Stokeley to turn on Willow and help Mone win at the PPV please.  Julia's reign was solid, she was a champion worth beating and has come out of this reign hotter than she went in. She's not going to have blowaway matches but she has such a great handle on her gimmick now, and her in-ring work is effective heel stuff even if it's not spectacular. Everything else has fallen into place over the past six months or so. The look, the entrance, confidence and swagger, her promo delivery, how she's used as part of HOB, helping Skye Blue find her persona by association... a real AEW orignal success story and she's still only 22. 

Strong vs O'Reilly was excellent. Really good match. Felt like an extremely hard fought struggle for the duration. They did a couple of fancy sequences of counters, but it always looked like they were desperately trying to beat each other and were incredibly closely matched. The crowd got totally behind O'Reilly by the end of it. He's at his best fighting from underneath, he does a good job selling the toll a match is taking on him, and it's hard not to sympathise with Roddy's opponents when he gets to work destroying their back. I haven't been inspired by Kyle's return and the Undisputed Kingdom are rubbish, but this match was superb. If the Undisputed Kingdom turn on Wardlow before he ditches them, the idiot deserves it. 

Skimmed through Hook and Jericho. Jericho took some mad bumps. He won the belt so Hook remains in the vortex. Ugh. 

Toni Storm vs Thunder Rosa was great! I don't think anyone bought Rosa winning this one beforehand, so I thought it'd be another amusing but fairly routine defense for Toni. Nothing wrong with those I should add, but this ended up being a very hot match and comfortably the best defense of Toni's reign. Loved Rosa going without facepaint, made sense with the build for this one. The big flurry of strikes quickly followed buy the massive tornillo to the floor set the tone and pace brilliantly, and the heat didn't let up from there. One of Rosa's best performances I can remember too, so fired up, one of the few babyface challengers to Storm so far where I felt the crowd on the night would have been happy with her winning. That's been hard to achieve with Toni being so amazing in this role, so I give her a ton of credit for that. 

Osprey vs Danielson was quite good wasn't it? The crowd sounded great all night but it sounded like twice as many people throughout this match. I didn't love the finish mostly because the crowd was white hot and it took a little bit of shine off the ending. I don't think you needed to muddy the finish of the match to sell a rematch between these two. That minor gripe aside it was every bit as good as I'd hoped it would be. The clash of styles, the perfectly built heat and intensity, some truly breathtaking counters and near falls. Felt like the climactic battle at the end of an anime, such was the melodrama of it all. Glorious, beautiful pro wrestling. 

Bucks vs FTR... Two PPVs in a row now where FTR have worked their balls off and Dax has bled a gusher, only for their match to be lost in the shuffle. At Revolution it was the 7th match on a stacked card. Here it was the penultimate match and had to follow Danielson/Osprey. They sensibly went straight into a sprint, and this was a truly batshit spotfest that could have torn the house down in other circumstances. They managed to get the crowd on board, but I think the "please be careful!" chant summed it up. Don't kill yourselves when you're in this spot and the crowd is still reeling from one of the best matches they've ever seen lads. Big reaction for Jack Perry. The security guards pinning him in the corner and taking his mask off was very funny. Must be big Scooby Doo fans. 

Good main event from Swerve and Joe. Tough spot main eventing after Danielson/Osprey but they still put on a good show. Swerve's Black Panther gear was cool. Nice simple Joe formula stuff, methodically destroying Swerve, allowing him little flurries before violently cutting him off. I really liked that Swerve tried to hit Joe with the belt with the ref's back turned. He has organically become a babyface but his ruthlessness and psychotic obsession with winning the title is his whole deal, of course he would be willing to cheat if the opportunity arose and he's never claimed otherwise. Loved seeing the passion and emotion pouring out of him after the win. Similar to Willow and Julia, Swerve's crowning was more important than the match and it felt like a huge moment. 

What a great show that was. The big matches delivered, some of the undercard matches over-delivered, Willow and Swerve both got their titles and I only checked out during the Jericho match. Fantastic stuff.