AEW WrestleDream 2024

[RedTwoster]

6 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

the venue may have a capacity of 20k, but not for wrestling. People need to stop looking at the venue capacity and actually the capacity for different events. 

Wrestling isn’t going to eliminate 12,000 seats. It’s going to have an impact, but certainly not to that extent. Again though - that’s not my point. My point was that AEW is telling good stories, but their attendance is consistently poor. I don’t think that’s inevitable and just something that they should accept as being unavoidable - I think that in amongst the good, there’s stuff that puts people off watching. Every PPV right now seems to contain something that people find objectionable or a bit much, and I don’t think that kind of thing helps at all, I really don’t. I don’t personally have an issue with how this show ended, but clearly a lot of people do and I think Tony Khan needs to consider that before booking spots like that. 

[Infinity Land]

6 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

 My point was that AEW is telling good stories, but their attendance is consistently poor.

But last night's wasn't.

[Slapnut]

I loved the ending and quite honestly I’m utterly amazed that anybody thought it was too violent. I thought Moxley and pals came across as the most hideous motherfuckers in wrestling history and the faces sold the gravity of the situation perfectly. 10/10 for me.

On the flip side, I’m fucking astounded they’ve even dared think about continuing the Adam Cole and MJF nonsense. Unforgivable.

Edited October 13, 2024 by Slapnut

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

16 posts before someone mentioned WWE in an AEW PPV thread. Things are definitely improving, normally some bellend (usually me to be fair) brings them up after 4. 

Bryan Danielson has had a career few can have expected and that some tried to actively sabotage (I'm looking at you Producer Paul) for him to go out of full time active performing on his own terms is a miracle quite frankly. He was always going to put someone over on his way out, it's just a shame it's to Romper Stomper Roxley and the Nuremberg Combat Club (Good call Duke) I don't hate Mox because he is a heel, I hate him because he is shit. Shit on the indies, shit in WWE, shit in AEW. Anyway back to Daniel Bryan, let's hope he gets sorted out and can wrestle occasionally and that he has a pain free and relatively normal life. 

Edited October 13, 2024 by Lion_of_the_Midlands

[Hannibal Scorch]

4 minutes ago, Slapnut said:

 

On the flip side, I’m fucking astounded they’ve even dared think about continuing the Adam Cole and MJF nonsense. Unforgivable.

I’m hoping it’s a continuation of DoN and we forget what happened between All Out 23 and then.

[Jesse]

1 hour ago, Duke said:

Equally, I'm reasonably certain that when Bryan won the belt, this wasn't the plan.  Lthe bait and switch with Derby, the random Okada match on free TV all speaks to a man who needed to stop earlier than they'd initially planned. 

Just read news that Bryan's contract ended recently and he's been effectively working on a handshake deal since, so I'm not too sure this wasn't always the plan. The whole thing was leading to him bouncing to get surgery, so he wasn't going to sign a new contract  - maybe the idea was to have him work on a handshake even longer but I could buy that this was known going in and was done quickly for that reason instead.

[The King Of Swing]

Let's just be happy that Jericho didn't win. Only match on the card where I spent most of it on my phone.

And Takeshita finally has a title. Any word on Omega? With how much they mention him now, I'm thinking that he might return to feud with Takeshita over the International title.

Not that I'm particularly bothered but what's going on with Mone? She's done little of note since the Shida match. Turning Statlander face in such a shit fashion just to feed her to Mone, would be absolutely rotten. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Just read news that Bryan's contract ended recently and he's been effectively working on a handshake deal since, so I'm not too sure this wasn't always the plan. The whole thing was leading to him bouncing to get surgery, so he wasn't going to sign a new contract  - maybe the idea was to have him work on a handshake even longer but I could buy that this was known going in and was done quickly for that reason instead.

Oh he was always retiring this year. He set that up ages ago. I'm just not convinced he was going to finish on this show originally. 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, Infinity Land said:

But last night's wasn't.

Did I say that it was, at any stage? There’s a clear difference between saying that I might have expected better for a match if that magnitude and ‘poor attendance’. 

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, but at least disagree with the point I’m actually making, which is - for avoidance of doubt - that AEW is telling good stories, but that I think they get in their own way when it comes to recapturing the spark and interest that they once had. And also that I don’t think they should sit back and accept that it’s impossible to do that.

 

Edited October 13, 2024 by RedTwoster

[SuperBacon]

Mate just sent me this.

Bryan believes in Shield.

[Callum1993]

35 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Mate just sent me this.

Bryan believes in Shield.

Just Kurt Angle left then ?

[CDM]

I suppose you could argue the ending was done like that to get people to really hate moxley. Which has been hard to do. Last time he was a heel people still loved him. It seems disrespectful to Danielson but I'm sure he was fine with it. 

I thought all the matches were at least good, even the pre show. Although there was a clear botch when the ref had to push Harley Camerons shoulder down. Aew need to go more careful not to show that stuff on tv.

As with a lot of aew ppvs it was very long. Including the pre show it was 5 hours. I thought perhaps the hologram match wasn't necessary and it could of been the Bucks v Jay White and juice Robinson. Understand they wanted to get Jay White in the ppv but the match against page could of done with a big build up. Would be perfect for full gear which is in 6 weeks. I don't think anyone seriously thought private party were gonna win the titles so that would of possibly worked better I think. 

Another thing I thought was when swerve came out people thought Bobby Lashley was going to debut. Personally I don't care about Lashley but it did seem a bit anti climatic. 

But I don't want to be to critical. I still thought it was a good ppv.

[Hannibal Scorch]

3 hours ago, Duke said:

Oh he was always retiring this year. He set that up ages ago. I'm just not convinced he was going to finish on this show originally. 

Also good to note he’s been working on a handshake deal for his talent contract. My understanding is he’s also had a separate backstage contract for a little while as well. I don’t think we’ll see him try to wrestle for a good while yet, but I think he’ll be continuing with his backstage duties after he’s recovered enough from surgery.

Another thing about the attendance though, looking back through the years, the largest attendance for wrestling at that venue was 5k for Raw almost 20 years ago. The venue is not in a particularly accessible location, which is the problem they have with All In next year which has no public transport near the venue. As you can see from that picture the lower tiers, other than the hard cam area, were pretty full, so with all things considered I think they did really well in the end. Absolutely have that argument for weekly TV, and that’s a re-occurring theme for sure,  but it is going in the right direction even if it’s slower than you’d like.

Also @CDM Wrestledream was 39 minutes longer than Bad Blood last week. 

Edited October 13, 2024 by Hannibal Scorch

[GlennCullen]

Enjoyed that main a lot. Mox and friends can rule the roost now for the foreseeable until Darby ascends to the title. Should be a fantastic, violent story.

The Adam Cole/MJF dynamic is fucked, and I'll probably just ignore it. No sense to be found anywhere.

Takeshita is the greatest, and he finally has gold. Weekly defences that steal the show please, leading to an eventual unification vs. Okada.

[Guest]

The thing I'm mostly disappointed about is that this will lead to Derby Allin winning the World Title. It's where the story should go, but that doesn't mean I like it.