AEW All Out 2024 - September 7th

[organizedkaos]

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Agreed. I think this Hangman/Swerve match feels entirely original and unique in wrestling from a character/story perspective. I don't think creatively there is anything you could compare it to. Looking over Hangman's AEW career a lot of his stories feel the same way. I'm assuming he has a massive hand in his own creative because it's deep, complex, subtle and long term in a way I don't think we've seen in wrestling before.

I assume both have had a big hand in this story and I think it shows why Swerve/Hangman are an excellent pairing both in and out of the ring. As you said you can see hallmarks of what Hangman has done prior in this story and I'd same the same for Swerve. He's talked a lot about how he see's the potential for telling complex emotive stories in wrestling (I remember a conversation when Omega was on his pod that went deep into this) and there's some of the elements of his previous feuds too (he does love a horror film esque "backstage" angle - I think these ones have been him at his best though, probably due to working with Hangman rather than Billy Gunn).

It seems both have incredibly creative minds for wrestling and together they seem to bring out the best in each other.

[digforvictory]

I get that everyone is entitled to their opinion but when you admit you haven't watched what you're complaining about, and indeed you've never watched what you're complaining about I think it's fair to say the criticism rings a little hollow.

I completely agree with LaGoosh in regards to all this. I've found some of the reaction to the PPV bizarre to be honest, the complaints of it being too violent and all that. The needle thing was meant to be unnerving, the same way I'm guessing Orton sticking a screwdriver into Jeff Hardy's pierced earlobe a few years ago on WWE TV was meant to be horrible and unnerving.

I loved the PPV, loved how dark and violent and hate filled it felt. It all felt pretty earned to me, Willow vs Statlander is a long term grudge feud, I'm guessing the mox heel turn/Danielson betrayal will be a big story going forward and of course the Swerve/Hangman story is exceptional. It wasn't just violent for no reason.

[BomberPat]

33 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

We can talk about dangerous vs not dangerous all we like but the plastic bag was used for one reason by Moxley, and it's because it was 35 years to the day that Funk used it on Flair. There was no storyline reason to use it, there was no overarching goal

We don't know that. We don't know what the storyline is yet, or what justification Moxley is going to provide. It being a Terry Funk angle was the inspiration, sure, but that doesn't mean it was the entire story. 

[Chris B]

I kind of think that, if a company is promoting an unsanctioned cell match on prime-time TV where the build-up has had people setting fire to each others houses and stapling shit to each other, that your fucking kid isn't the target market.

And I'm not saying it all has to be one or the other. But insisting on limiting it to one thing or another is nonsense. If you're saying you won't watch something not child-friendly, fine. That's not a problem. And I think AEW is missing a huge market by not also producing family-friendly stuff. But saying that it should all be child-friendly is bullshit. 

It's sad that I'm a fan in my 40s on some levels, but having to watch only kid-friendly wrestling would make me feel like I was at the kid's table at a party.  I don't want to watch wrestling in a soft-play environment, with all the stakes and consequences of Teletubbies. I can't fully understand anyone that wants that.

[Hannibal Scorch]

3 minutes ago, Chris B said:

I kind of think that, if a company is promoting an unsanctioned cell match on prime-time TV where the build-up has had people setting fire to each others houses and stapling shit to each other, that your fucking kid isn't the target market.

And I'm not saying it all has to be one or the other. But insisting on limiting it to one thing or another is nonsense. If you're saying you won't watch something not child-friendly, fine. That's not a problem. And I think AEW is missing a huge market by not also producing family-friendly stuff. But saying that it should all be child-friendly is bullshit. 

It's sad that I'm a fan in my 40s on some levels, but having to watch only kid-friendly wrestling would make me feel like I was at the kid's table at a party.  I don't want to watch wrestling in a soft-play environment, with all the stakes and consequences of Teletubbies. I can't fully understand anyone that wants that.

All of this. AEW came out of the blocks as the alternative to the saccharine product WWE had been doing for years. It was a mix of what a lot of older wrestling fans used to watch. You could argue a lot of their reversal of fortunes wasn't losing CM Punk, but was because they had started to try and be less of an alternative and more of a complimentary promotion. I mean, a lot of those lost fans also went back to WWE when they had decided to actually put on a less boring product, but I don't think it was just because WWE became good again. 

As an aside, was there anywhere the level of disgust when they had the Eye for an Eye match, or when Randy Orton used a screwdriver on Jeff Hardys piercing, or when Randy Orton set The Fiend on fire? These were things that happened in the last 3 years or so, but I genuinely cant remember.   

[LaGoosh]

7 minutes ago, Chris B said:

  I don't want to watch wrestling in a soft-play environment, with all the stakes and consequences of Teletubbies. I can't fully understand anyone that wants that.

Exactly the same. AEW has loads of ongoing flaws and frustrations to me as a viewer but it also feels closest to what I personally think wrestling should be and part of that is the inclusion of the occasional bit of ultraviolence, tension and crossing the line in service of the story. 

[Devon Malcolm]

I want to elaborate on what I said about the final match a bit because there's a lot to talk about there.

That kind of match isn't my thing, so I wasn't expecting to like it going in, but I think there's a comparison to be had to the Willow vs Statlander match and why that worked for me. I think a lot of it is down to 'why?'.

The needle part was just stupid to me. Why's that in the match? What's the context of that? Why wouldn't he stick it in his eye or slit his throat with it? Why stick it through his cheek with Swerve making not even a token effort to stop him doing it? It's not the violence that bothers me but the reasons for it. The bit of burnt wood though? That makes sense! I'm fine with that and the symbolism of it.

And there were a couple of other bits to all this that I thought were good. The whole storytelling through this whole feud has been great and the refusal to try and position either of them as babyface or heel, knowing the crowd would be split either way, was important. Hangman's reaction at the end and nearly coming back to the ring - also really good. As much as the chair shot should never happen, at least it ended the match. There's some good stuff there and I hope what they do next is Hangman coming out to do a match on Dynamite and just as he's about to do a finisher, the trauma of what he's become and done hits him and he walks out. That could be something. I've liked everything about this feud except almost all the stuff in the ring, which is frustrating.

The Willow / Statlander match wasn't perfect but it also highlighted why the commentators are so important. In the final match, they sold the significance of the burnt wood spike. In the other match, they explained why Willow had some light tubes, as much as I hate light tube spots. The idea you're in a fight and you're looking round for something to brain the other person with and you pull some light tubes out of the entrance tunnel - excellent! I think it was Excalibur who sold both those spots and he's really grown on me even if he looks a fucking berk with that mask on.

Statlander having a New Jack tribute chair made no sense as a heel (just give it to Willow!) and thumbtacks are stupid, too, but it felt like a struggle and a genuine fight between two people who trusted each other to hurt each other - but not too much.

Just make it make sense because there's only so far I can suspend my disbelief in wrestling, which is already inherently daft. Willow and Statlander are just fantastic though. I'd love to see one or both of them in a match with Rhea Ripley one day, somehow. 

Edited September 9 by Devon Malcolm

[DavidB6937]

48 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

As an aside, was there anywhere the level of disgust when they had the Eye for an Eye match, or when Randy Orton used a screwdriver on Jeff Hardys piercing, or when Randy Orton set The Fiend on fire? These were things that happened in the last 3 years or so, but I genuinely cant remember.   

Out of those three, the Orton/Hardy one was definitely the most uncomfortable and unnecessary for me. I feel like the other two fell a bit under the daft/stunt category and took me out of it really. Not sure if that makes any sense or not. Some of the stuff on the AEW PPV felt a lot more real - which I suppose could be to their credit or just felt like it could potentially injure them in a way they didn't even mean to. Might sound a bit stupid but setting someone on fire seemed a little more controlled. It's all about perception really isn't it? We're all different. It's definitely not a WWE vs AEW thing, at least for me anyway.

[BomberPat]

14 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The idea you're in a fight and you're looking round for something to brain the other person with and you pull some light tubes out of the entrance tunnel - excellent!

I nitpick a lot about wrestling, but this is something I always look for - why is the weapon there?

I think it started in WWE's hardcore division, that they'd put any old nonsense under the ring, because once you'd had kendo sticks and stop signs under there, why stop? One match had a kayak under there. Why is that there?! 

The weapons around the ring or around the arena in general should fit one of two categories: an object that you can make a kayfabe justification for it being there, or an object that one of the wrestlers has planted there for the express intent of using - and if it's the latter, one of the announcers should bring that up, question who put it there, suggest (in the case of the women's Street Fight) that Stokely snuck it out before the start of the show. Chairs, tables, ladders, toolboxes, I could have a good crack at justifying why any of that stuff is being stored under the ring. But when someone pulls out twenty kendo sticks, then the only logic is "they're under the ring because that's where weapons come from", like it's a video game, you haven't actually thought about it.

The one hardcore/deathmatch style match I ever commentated on had someone get put through a wooden board, and when that got brought out from under the ring I just bullshitted that it's a spare board for the ring, stored there in case of emergencies. 

When I'm nitpicking, what I'm really doing is begging the commentators, or someone on the show to just do the work of explaining something that would usually only take two seconds to do. So much happens because wrestling, and because it's a thing that happens in wrestling matches, but nine times out of ten doing it "because that's how it's done" is actively worse and less believable than if you do the work to make it make sense.


I wasn't a huge fan of the syringe spot, but I can completely understand why they did it. They needed something grisly and ugly that hadn't been seen in mainstream wrestling before to really make it look like this was a match that had gone beyond the pale, and into completely new territory. They could have done a better job integrating into the match - maybe introducing the idea of the syringe earlier - though I get why they couldn't, as the syringe needed to be clean and sterile, so it's not like they could have had it introduced into the match earlier and then just left lying around on a canvas covered in blood and sweat. But they could have done something to lay the groundwork - I don't know how you bring a syringe into the story before the match in a way that isn't completely tasteless, though. 

[Snitsky's back acne]

1 hour ago, Chili said:

Would you be ever up for letting that PhD be available for people to read, sounds genuinely really interesting that pal.

Indeed. Once it has (hopefully) been approved and the re-writes completed then I will post a link for anyone interested.
 

[Snitsky's back acne]

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

(at least the chairs they use now days are gimmicked)

GROAN.

[JNLister]

3 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I nitpick a lot about wrestling, but this is something I always look for - why is the weapon there?

I think it started in WWE's hardcore division, that they'd put any old nonsense under the ring, because once you'd had kendo sticks and stop signs under there, why stop? One match had a kayak under there. Why is that there?! 

 

Back in the day, my housemate and I were watching a match where the presence of a hammer or something under the ring was justified by the commentators as "it's there for putting up the ring" and it became a running joke that any weapon would prompt one of us to say "Oh yeah, that's one of those kayaks they use for putting up the ring."

[LaGoosh]

43 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The needle part was just stupid to me. Why's that in the match? What's the context of that? Why wouldn't he stick it in his eye or slit his throat with it? Why stick it through his cheek with Swerve making not even a token effort to stop him doing it?

If they had to do the needle spot (they didn't) it should have been placed earlier in the match. Putting it at the end and having Hangman immediately blast Swerve with the chair straight after didn't make a huge amount of sense. 

Separately, I assume they were trying to get it through Swerve's cheek (I remember seeing that in CZW over a decade ago) but I'm glad it didn't work and happen that way because that'd be too much even for me.

[Hannibal Scorch]

32 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

GROAN.

What do you think I meant by that? Because that wasn't me defending unprotected chair shots, they are still stupid. But if you are going to do something stupid at least try to protect yourself (which has just given me flashbacks to little teenage me).

[RedTwoster]

24 minutes ago, Chris B said:

And I'm not saying it all has to be one or the other. But insisting on limiting it to one thing or another is nonsense. If you're saying you won't watch something not child-friendly, fine. That's not a problem. And I think AEW is missing a huge market by not also producing family-friendly stuff. But saying that it should all be child-friendly is bullshit. 

 

To be fair, he didn't say that AEW should be 'child-friendly', just that he wouldn't take his son to a show. 

14 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Exactly the same. AEW has loads of ongoing flaws and frustrations to me as a viewer but it also feels closest to what I personally think wrestling should be and part of that is the inclusion of the occasional bit of ultraviolence, tension and crossing the line in service of the story. 

This is the key word for me, as far as my viewpoint is concerned. I don't have a problem with a more mature tone - but if you're going to do that, I think less is more. If you're going to do the bag spot, I don't think you do it on the same show as Page/Strickland, and even that match could have done with an editor. I'd equate it to a Netflix movie, when the director has been given full control to share 'their vision' - when in reality, the end product would benefit from someone being ruthless and tightening things up somewhat. Doesn't mean it's bad, it's just that it could be better. 

AEW sometimes veers into the worst excesses of the Attitude Era and the original ECW, and I genuinely think the show would be better if it didn't, and would attract more fans. Some of the things they're choosing to, I'd speculate, are likely to put more people off than they attract.