AEW Double or Nothing 2024 - May 26th

[Supremo]

Ospreay vs. MJF seems the natural match for Wembley now. Battle of the two shittest, most embarrassing tattoos in the company. What on earth was Max thinking?! Giving Cody a run for his money.

[DavidB6937]

15 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Ospreay vs. MJF seems the natural match for Wembley now. Battle of the two shittest, most embarrassing tattoos in the company.

Not as embarrassing as Ospreay doing the CEO dance though.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

12 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Ospreay vs. MJF seems the natural match for Wembley now. Battle of the two shittest, most embarrassing tattoos in the company. What on earth was Max thinking?! Giving Cody a run for his money.

I'm always surprised Max has any at all. I always thought he was more orthodox in his jewishness. By which I mean he would turn the ball in to the right-hander from right arm over the wicket. 

[LaGoosh]

Daniel Garcia for TNT Champ!

[mim731]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

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.

This was absolutely my first thought too in terms of how they can turn this into a positive.

Recovery time for that sort of injury can in theory, depending on the seriousness and how well you heal etc, be as little as 3 months. So if he could be walking and able in that timeframe there's a very small chance he could make the save at All In, even if he can't necessarily wrestle, for a big pop if they sow the seeds of the turn in the coming weeks. Regardless if it's then or (more likely) later, it's an easy sell that they have reconciled/are about to do so and could be a great last run for Copeland with himself and Christian going for the tag titles one last time. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

2 hours ago, Supremo said:

Ospreay vs. MJF seems the natural match for Wembley now. Battle of the two shittest, most embarrassing tattoos in the company. What on earth was Max thinking?! Giving Cody a run for his money.

The good thing is that his can be covered up by a sock. I can’t wait to see Cody wearing turtlenecks in all of his scenes in The Naked Gun remake.

[mim731]

Just now, Hannibal Scorch said:

The good thing is that his can be covered up by a sock. I can’t wait to see Cody wearing turtlenecks in all of his scenes in The Naked Gun remake.

They'll just bung make-up over it. He'll be fine. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

2 minutes ago, mim731 said:

They'll just bung make-up over it. He'll be fine. 

Oh I know, I just think it would be a better running joke if they didn’t 

[LaGoosh]

Two more points about the show:

- another PPV where they used the Dynamite set. Absolutely no excuse for that cheapskate bullshit. 

- Gangrel looked great and still has a fantastic DDT.

[DavidB6937]

I want to see under the ring footage of Gangrel eating crisps.

[Carbomb]

Was he actually called Gangrel? Not that I think Khan couldn't afford to pay White Wolf for the usage rights; just wondered if it's the sort of thing he could be bothered with.

[Hannibal Scorch]

29 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Was he actually called Gangrel? Not that I think Khan couldn't afford to pay White Wolf for the usage rights; just wondered if it's the sort of thing he could be bothered with.

It was his second AEW appearance and both times commentary called him Gangrel, but I don’t believe his name has ever been displayed (not sure if that counts or not).

@LaGoosh couldn’t work out if his DDT’s were great or the selling was, either way I thought they looked much better than he should in 2024. As to the set, I’d assume it’s to do with the fact they filmed Collision there the night before, or maybe they have a set stored on the west coast and just used that. But I’m with you, PPV’s should have stupid sets made of crushed cars or massive swinging pendulums. The decline of WWE can be seen when they stopped caring about the PPV stage set ups.

[JLM]

Double Or Nothing 2024

Buy-in:

Deonna Purazzo vs Thunder Rosa

Rosa's Elvis gear looked great. This was an hour before the show with a lot of the crowd missing and they still sounded nice and loud, very encouraging start. Purazzo is so much better as a heel. Similar to Serena Deeb, her in-ring style is so much better suited to bullying a sympathetic babyface. Solid match with Purazzo working the injured arm and Rosa firing up whenever she got the chance, backed by a rowdy crowd. I don't mind the screwy finish and this feud continuing, they work well together.

OK Max Caster is doing a bit I guess. Bowens keeps looking at him funny whenever he calls himself the best wrestler alive, he's being extra risque with his raps, he has grown a mustache and the announcers keep commenting on how grumpy he is. Perhaps a heel turn sooner rather than later then. Match was just OK. The bit with the heat on Caster went too long and the crowd didn't get that hot for the comeback. For a bit when Bowens' rally got shut down and they all got taken out again I thought they were going to lose and  it would have been pretty cool. Max surviving on his own for ages, Bowens making the heroic comeback, Daddy Ass turning back up at the end but it's not enough and they still lose. Then maybe Max shoves Bowens and walks off. Instead they just sort of went to a surprise finish and it ended. Best bit of this was Daddy Magic confirming that he and Daddy Ass are Daddy brothers, and therefore do not have Daddy Heat. 

So the Owen Hart Cup winners on July 10th get world title shots at All In. Last year both title matches weren't confirmed until the beginning of August, and the women's match had no build or heat behind it at all. Hopefully have something with a much better build behind it this time. Jamie Hayter has been out for over a year now. Just saying. 

Main show:

Roderick Strong vs Will Ospreay

Holy shit what an opener! I knew this would be good but it still exceeded my expectations. I loved the first few minutes so much. I was wondering how Ospreay's amazing blood-covered raging promo they aired on Collision would translate to the match and it could not have been done any better. EXACTLY how he should be starting this match. Aside from Taven Top Dolla-ing himself on that doomsday device and nearly maiming Ospreay in the process, I loved everything about this. Roddy's offense is so perfect for building heat for a babyface comeback, dismantling Ospreay with backbreakers, brutal strikes, submissions, he does everything so well. Then the closing stretch was pure Ospreay magic, both of the counters  to the End of Heartache were stunning and it built to the most triumphant crescendo of a finish. Fantastic start to the show.  

MJF return was electric. I would be over the moon if that was it between him and Cole and it was implied that it is. I didn't think the Vince line was a swipe at WWE or at Vince particularly. He was saying he made himself a star via AEW, without being reliant on existing WWE or New Japan name value or reputation. Promo was a bit too long but the crowd would have happily listened to twenty more minutes so I'll allow it. MJF has been out for ages, made his big return, told everyone he doesn't care about the devil shit any more and got his revenge on Cole in about 30 seconds so he cam move on. Meanwhile your boy Wardlow the IDIOT is out here failing to help Roddy defend his International Title in the opener and isn't even booked on the card. Great job big fella. One of the few guys on the roster who might actually be doing better sat under The Learning Tree.  

Death Triangle vs Bang Bang Gang.

Death Triangle's black and yellow gear was glorious. Has the name Bullet Club Gold been dropped? Jay White still calls the audience Gold Members and still has the gold bat but they don't seem to say it any more. Typically fun multiman sprint, a treat to see Death Triangle in full force again. The Gunns have also shown themselves to be bloody brilliant at these mad sprint paced matches. They don't do the flips and dives but their timing is incredible. This team will be putting on many more trios bangers before this run is over. Headline though is the return of Juice Robinson at long last. Finally the gang is complete again, you love to see it. 

Toni Storm vs Serena Deeb

OK I said I'd shut up about Deeb's Heel/face situation but then she gave her flag to a kid at ringside and acted like she was a babyface for the first few minutes of the match. What the hell man. This turned into a good match, just frustrating as if Deeb had been a vicious heel from the start, taunting the crowd, mocking Toni etc. then it could have had way more heat. Still some great drama towards the end and the fans were genuinely concerned Toni might lose. The towel throw tease was good and I was legit surprised by Deeb kicking out of the first Storm Zero. Definitely threw some doubt into the closing stretch and led to a strong ending. Also the rope break with the teeth was a brilliant idea. 

Trent Berretta vs Orange Cassidy

Loved the Where is My Mind callback very much. Evil Trent theme and gear isn't as good as Trent wearing modified Best Friends merch. I get that he'll eventually want some kind of heel identity outside of this break up angle though. Match was good and had solid heat throughout. OC taking some visible pleasure in beating up Trent early on was a cool bit of character development for him. Trent's facial expressions are great, genuinely not quite sure what he'll do next after the loss. Not a minbdlowing match but it told the story effectively. Really thought Trent was going to win but guess they're going with him getting increasingly bitter and escalate his shithousery after the loss instead. 

Chris Jericho vs Hook vs Shibata

Jericho things. It was a TV plunder match. T-Bone on Big Bill to the outside was a hell of a spot, and looked like it could have ended very badly for William. Who could possibly care about Bryan Keith entering the Jericho Vortex. 

These two matches back to back with all of the most stacked shit on the card still to come made it very clear it'd take a few sittings to get through this show. When there were hardly any PPVs each year it was easier to justify them being longer to squeeze everyone on. With more of them added they should definitely look at trimming them down. I'd have been absolutely knackered trying to watch this live. 

Konosuke Takeshita vs John Moxley

I was a bit disappointed when Moxley had the arm taken out on Collision as I didn't think they needed to weaken Mox to justify Takeshita beating him, especially when the Eliminator match also gave us a reason to believe Takeshita could win. Then he didn't beat him anyway! That said, I thought the match was bloody fantastic. Maximum drama, Mox did a great job of wrestling most of it with one arm. Maybe a near fall or two too many but I don't know if I can say that when I bit on most them! Really enjoyed this match, didn't love the finish, though it appears to be in service of the Callis family continuing to fall apart, which I am for. It was well executed too, just made Takeshita look like a bit of a mug in real time and the commentators had to do their best to make it out to be fully Callis' fault. 

BROOD EDGE vs Malakai Black

I didn't love this match, and it was immediately obvious Copeland had hurt himself on that bump simply because humans can't jump from that height and land on their feet without injuring themselves. I had zero doubt in my mind he'd fucked himself and it simply was not worth it for this feud to do something that mad. Copeland/Christian did violent stuntfests but there was also a ton of drama, the big spots were built accordingly and allowed to breathe. This was one of those hardcore matches where they just plodded from spot to spot and the crowd was flat in between them. 

That said, I was deeply relieved that HOB joining Copeland was only a brief tease, and I was extremely pumped for the Gangrel appearance. He looked awesome too, throwing his whole body back into those impalers as if 25 years haven't passed.  Sincerely lovely moment with their post-match hug as well. The two sides of AEW Copeland have been him on his new adventure exploring new possibilities after so many years in the WWF system, and then at the same time a celebration of his storied history within that system. This ending hit the latter notes quite nicely even if the match didn't work for me. As others have said, the absence does open up spots and creates interesting possibilities for the TNT title, though my biggest hope is that any follow up spooky bollocks they had in mind will be quietly shelved and that's the real win we get out of all this. 

Willow vs Mercedes Mone

Nooooooo! OK there was a lot I loved about this to begin with. Mercedes coming out with the ultra-obnoxious entrance juxtaposed with Willow and pals and their homemade friendship bracelet was perfect. The heat for this was wonderful. The match was also good. Mercedes can be inconsistent in ring and some of her slow motion lucha arm drags look bad, but she hit the big spots, the limb work stuff was effective from both of them, and one thing she has always been able to do is take the must outrageous looking bumps. She definitely had her working boots on for this match, in-ring it honestly exceeded my expectations and it wasn't solely down to Willow. 

I did not like Statlander/Stokeley "accidentally" costing Willow the match and then turning on her officially after it. Way more heat on both of them if they do it during the match and clearly on purpose, surely. The turn was telegraphed by the build, Statlander posting a ton of social media stuff celebrating their friendship and then coming out dressed like the most villainous person who ever lived, so why not do it when it will have the most impact instead of swerving people for an extra 30 seconds? I still don't love the turn either. Stokeley will help but it will take a lot of work for me to buy Statlander as a heel, and not just because I love her. They will have some stupendous matches on the plus side. We all knew Mercedes was going to win if we were honest with ourselves, but it doesn't mean we have to be happy about it. 

Willow's recovery from her lowest point had better be fucking spectacular. Of all the "the follow up is the important bit" situations AEW has fumbled, this would be up there with the most unforgivable . 

Swerve vs Christian

Christian Cage is such a treasure. I hope he never retires. This was so, so good and it was all just textbook pro wrestling goodness. I love Swerve and I can't prove that Christian laid out most of this match, but based on everything else I've seen from him on this run I am giving him the credit. The pacing was perfect, the way the heat built was perfect, the way the biggest spots were teased and teased again for maximum tenssion before the pay off. The bit with the steps on the outside was a prime example. They fight on the apron, then Swerve has the edge, then Christian has the edge, then Swerve stomps out of that, then they fight a bit more, THEN Swerve suicide dives into them. That is how it's done. Malakai and Copeland had so many terrifying high spots and the threat of the barbed wire cage itself and they didn't milk a shred of tension out of it. 

Nana getting framed by Mama Wayne and having the babyface manager getting the "YOU, Outta here!" treatment was absolutely inspired. Doing that before the Patriarchy got involved for the first time made for some amazing heat and it didn't let up for the rest of the match. The House Call to counter the spear was one of the best spots of the whole night and got one of the biggest reactions and it was simply a wrestling move countering another one. 

Couldn't have asked for a better first big PPV defense for Swerve. Magnificent match.  

Anarchy in the Arena 

Absolutely bonkers. I watched this one with my casual fan friend who came to All In with me last year and he had a blast watching it. The Final Countdown was great, Okada in this environment was a great novelty, Danielson had plenty of bad ass moments, Darby is a lunatic, the flamethrower spot was awesome. Darby isn't about to be Van Hammer with the guitar he can't play; itf he introduces a flamethrower he's going to use it. I respect that. The thumbtack superkicks onto hanging Darby got bigger winces and holy shit reactions out of us than the fire, to be honest, and we were both gobsmacked by the exploding chair. My anecdotal sample size of one casual fan focus group evidence is that casual fans love this shit. He specifically says he hopes we get another Anarchy in the Arena at Wembley and that they end up in our section this time. I didn't ask him how many stars he'd give it because he's already agreed to go to two pro wrestling shows with me and I don't want to scare him off. 

Also went back and showed him the Cole/MJF bit as he was very invested in that story after All In last year. He loves MJF and popped huge for the return. 
 

Mostly a very good show. Swerve/Christian, Roddy/Ospreay. Takeshita/Moxley, Mone/Willow and Anarchy in the Arena all delivered for me. Didn't like Malakai/Copeland much but the Gangrel bit was tremendous. I didn't hate anything else on the card particularly but it was definitely far too long. Trent/OC, Trios match and especially the FTW match did not need to be on this show when the second half was utterly stacked and was literally being billed as a triple main event.  Watching it in bits over a few days tempered that, but it was put out there as a standalone show and there is no way I'd have been able to do it in one sitting. 

 

Edited May 30 by JLM

[Supremo]

Maddest thing about Double or Nothing is that Tony’s just making more work for himself. Remove Trent vs. Cassidy, Mox vs. Takeshita, Death Traingle vs. The Bang Bang Gang and MJF’s return, delay all that to Wednesday, and you have the majority of a solid episode of Dynamite ready to go.

The pay per view is improved immeasurably losing that hour or two of relentless content, and you still have loads of solid, well-built up stuff for the follow up show. Would have likely helped the heat for all those matches, too. That MJF promo in particular would have been a perfect final segment for tonight. It didn’t need to be on the pay per view and the weird formatting of a white hot 20 minute promo in the middle of a pay per view was really difficult to recover from.

They definitely used to do this when they had fewer pay per views - some stuff would be saved for TV, to keep things ticking. It’s a shame that seems to have been abandoned now they go monthly and every show feels like Wrestlemania 2000, where practically everyone and everything has to feature, every single time.

But yeah. Let that be the end of Undisputed Kingdom. The only thing saving them from being the worst faction ever is the existence of Karrion Kross and the Krossettes on Raw.

I’m praying they just drop it after how Max completely blew them off. The only reason to keep it going was for the inevitable MJF return feud. Speaks to how smart MJF is to the business that he decided to pretend the whole thing was a fever dream. At least Undisputed Kingdom went out on top, doing what they’ll always be remembered for, stinking the joint out. That Roddy match was easily Will Ospreay’s worst AEW match, for having to overcome all the Undisputed Kingdom bullshit. All the crap interference, Will nearly breaking his neck, it was genuinely frustrating seeing how good this got once they all fucked off. I’m almost never that guy, but here? They should have just LET THEM WRESTLE.

[LaGoosh]

Just now, Supremo said:

That MJF promo in particular would have been a perfect final segment for tonight.

You're absolutely right and it belonged on TV. They could have done a "Special appearance from Adam Cole" graphic for Dynamite then spread some rumours about MJF returning online to get a bit of buzz and it would have been probably the perfect TV segment.

I don't quite understand why they insist on overloading all these PPVs. I think the exact same amount of fans would have paid to watch Double or Nothing regardless of whether the Trios title match or Cassidy vs Trent was on it or not.