Paid Members LaGoosh Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 12 minutes ago, Mr Butternut Squash said: More wrestlers! More hours of TV! More title belts! More heel turns and swerves on swerves! More gimmick matches! Half arsed Rampage feuds ending in violent blood baths that diminish the impact whenever it happens higher up the card. Top stars settling for the many trinkets instead of challenging for the world title and interacting with other top stars. It's really hard for anyone or anything to stand out in that environment. Five years of watering everything down until it's ice cold. Most of this is fair, but two points definitely aren't. - more hours of TV makes sense because it makes the company more money and gives the fans more of the wrestling show they enjoy. If they don't want it then no one will watch and the extra hours will be cancelled, simple as. Three wrestling shows a week isn't an excessive attitude. WWE have had 3+ shows per week for years. - AEW isn't WCW 2000. The number of heel turns and swerves is pretty low. Heel turns are usually logical and built up beforehand. There's been so little storytelling swerves in fact that it's often made the shows feel unessential and missable.  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Butternut Squash Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 The extra TV has led to them spreading their fanbase, hurting the ticket sales and atmosphere for the shows (and ultimately making everyone feel slightly less like a star) and killed Dynamite being that must watch show. I've not watched in a while but there were turns (and contrived 'swerves' to set them up) all over the card at one point. Not Russo bad but that's a low bar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 4 minutes ago, Mr Butternut Squash said: I've not watched in a while but there were turns (and contrived 'swerves' to set them up) all over the card at one point. Not Russo bad but that's a low bar. I can't think of a single turn I'd consider a "swerve" in AEW since Mother Wayne. They're nowhere near Russo levels. If anything, most of their turns are foreshadowed for so long that they're almost underwhelming when they eventually happen - we had months of MJF and Adam Cole dancing around that exact premise. They're probably the weakest they've ever been, and there's a ton of reasons for that, but there's very little in the way of swerves, hot-shotting, and all the other stuff you'd associate with Russo. As LaGoosh said, a lot of their issues are almost from going too far in the opposite direction - not enough happens on TV to make it as must-see as it used to feel, and most of their wrestlers find their position on the card, and find their role, and largely stay there. That's a problem, but it's the opposite problem to what you're complaining about - so much so that I genuinely don't even recognise your complaint in the show I watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 (edited) Dp Edited May 28 by Hannibal Scorch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 @Supremothe reason Orange Cassidy opened so many episodes of Dynamite during his title run was because he was often in the highest viewed segment of an episode, so he moved him to the first segment to try and build on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 17 minutes ago, Mr Butternut Squash said: I've not watched in a while but there were turns (and contrived 'swerves' to set them up) all over the card at one point. Not Russo bad but that's a low bar. When was this? I genuinely can't think of when this could've been. What were the heel turns? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Butternut Squash Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 1 minute ago, LaGoosh said: When was this? I genuinely can't think of when this could've been. What were the heel turns? Might have been late last year. Seemed like there was somebody turning or teasing a turn in nearly every program up and down the card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Butternut Squash Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 (edited) 22 minutes ago, BomberPat said: I can't think of a single turn I'd consider a "swerve" in AEW since Mother Wayne. They're nowhere near Russo levels. If anything, most of their turns are foreshadowed for so long that they're almost underwhelming when they eventually happen - we had months of MJF and Adam Cole dancing around that exact premise. They're probably the weakest they've ever been, and there's a ton of reasons for that, but there's very little in the way of swerves, hot-shotting, and all the other stuff you'd associate with Russo. As LaGoosh said, a lot of their issues are almost from going too far in the opposite direction - not enough happens on TV to make it as must-see as it used to feel, and most of their wrestlers find their position on the card, and find their role, and largely stay there. That's a problem, but it's the opposite problem to what you're complaining about - so much so that I genuinely don't even recognise your complaint in the show I watch. That's part of the issue. The more belts they've introduced, the more people have been stuck in their own little ghetto with their own trinkets to hold onto with no upwards mobility. I never brought up Russo or WCW as a comparison or put it to that level. But there was a point late last year where every segment seemed like someone involved was teasing a heel turn. Edited May 28 by Mr Butternut Squash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 27 minutes ago, Mr Butternut Squash said: Might have been late last year. Seemed like there was somebody turning or teasing a turn in nearly every program up and down the card. Sure, but you must have some examples? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 5 minutes ago, Mr Butternut Squash said: Might have been late last year. Seemed like there was somebody turning or teasing a turn in nearly every program up and down the card. Interesting. My recollection is the complete opposite. Outside of the Continental Classic pretty much fuck all happened. 27 minutes ago, Mr Butternut Squash said: The extra TV has led to them spreading their fanbase, hurting the ticket sales and atmosphere for the shows (and ultimately making everyone feel slightly less like a star) and killed Dynamite being that must watch show. The WWE model of the past few decades has shown that having multiple shows per week is completely doable and extremely profitable. AEW has many booking issues they need to sort out but having an additional two hours of TV each week is not a problem or the cause of any of the problems. Especially when Collision for the past few months has been a consistently fun and satisfying watch. But anyway, I should probably stop reasonably, rationally and calmly engaging with AEW criticism before someone accuses me of being the AEW police or something. As for the PPV...I thought it wasn't great. Far too long and a fair few duds. - Ospreay/Strong: Ospreay is a great wrestler but he only really works in two types of matches: one's where is largely contained before making a big comeback or one's where his opponent matches him and they go epic. This match was somewhere inbetween both of those and I never felt like it really worked. - the never ending MJF promo: yeah not too excited at this point. Why was he so orange? And it just went on and on. Can't think of any potential MJF feuds that excite me at the moment. - a perfectly OK Dynamite match that they slotted onto a very long PPV. But Juice is back and that's really great. - Storm/Deeb: took awhile but eventually this turned into a pretty decent little match. - Cassidy/Trent: good action but because this had already happened so recently on Dynamite it was completely impossible to give a single shit. - FTW match: a complete waste of everyone's involved time. This stuff is so painful. That prick Bryan Keith turning up in disguise was the most bollocks thing I've seen in ages. - Mox/Takeshita: mixed bag. Takeshita is an Omega/Ospreay style of wrestler. High impact. Fast. He's not the type of guy you book to do a "work the limb" type of match. He had no fucking clue what he was doing with that stuff. But when it came to the big stuff where he excels it was very watchable. Definitely not booking a guy to their strengths here. - Cope/Black: Copeland put in a shift but are people ready to admit yet that Malakai Black is in fact not a very good singles wrestler at all? The Gangrel stuff was a good laugh. - Mone/Willow: pretty good once Mone stopped doing her embarrassing and shit lucha spots. When Mone leaned into just being nasty, taking short cuts and sneaky little violence it really works and suits her size and her character. Whenever she tries actual moves it doesn't work for anyone. Worst finisher in the business. Poor Willow. Willow is the best and hopefully she doesn't get lost in the shuffle. - Swerve/Christian: a predictably good match and exactly the first big title defense Swerve needed. - Main Event: an absolutely ludicrous match filled with some of the silliest gaga I've seen in ages but I very much enjoyed it. 5 stars for the sheer level of creativity and originality in this if nothing else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 You say that Black isn't a very good singles Wrestler Gooshy. I put it to you that he is also not very good at tag and trios, but has more people to hide his shortcomings behind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Factotum Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 On the 'casual fan stuff' A lot of my mates who dip in and out, were all talking about 1.Gangrel and 2. Jack Perry on fire. They thought both were great. Darby is absolutely what someone who dips in and out loves. He's like a highlight reel. I actually kinda like the new mad AEW. It's got a bit of excitement back, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 15 minutes ago, Factotum said: I actually kinda like the new mad AEW. It's got a bit of excitement back, I can definitely understand why they're going down the route they're going. It's obviously an attempt to create a buzz and some attention that they weren't getting before, which is exactly what they need in order to grow the company. Whether it works or not is another thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinity Land Posted May 28 Share Posted May 28 Copeland confirming a fractured tibia and needing surgery. Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted May 28 Paid Members Share Posted May 28 He's honestly lucky that's all it was, I couldn't believe he hadn't blown out both knees and broken something serious the way he landed off that. It sucks that a big name will be missing ring time and TV time, but in the long-term I don't think it hurts AEW for him to be off TV for a while - it frees up some TV time for others, even if part of that will involve an inevitable tournament for the newly vacant title (though perhaps not - I don't think even Tournament Tony is going to have a title tournament running alongside the Owen Hart Tournament, so maybe it'll be a Casino Battle Royal at Forbidden Gauntlet for the belt or something like that). Depending on recovery time, I would say it sets things up perfectly for an eventual Christian Cage babyface turn with Copeland making the save to set up the reunion run. People will be so happy to see them back together that there will be fewer questions of how they came to forgave each other so quickly, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" will do a lot of the work for them. Almost certainly means he's missing All In, though, and I imagine it being a rare chance to see Copeland in AEW in the UK would have been a big part of the marketing at some stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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