AEW Full Gear 2024 Discussion

[DavidB6937]

17 minutes ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

I thought it was your usual decent AEW PPV tbh. Where whatever is going on booking wise the wrestlers usually pull it together with their performances . Osprey vs Fletcher, Mone vs Statlander and the main event were all fantastic.

 

That's the frustrating thing though. Obviously the talent is there. Obviously there's a shit ton of wrestlers who can wrestle. But there's loads of indy shows people can watch or even ROH if you just want matches after matches without any decent storyline or emotional investment etc.

I want to care. I want to be invested.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

10 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

That's the frustrating thing though. Obviously the talent is there. Obviously there's a shit ton of wrestlers who can wrestle. But there's loads of indy shows people can watch or even ROH if you just want matches after matches without any decent storyline or emotional investment etc.

I want to care. I want to be invested.

I don't think anything on the indies or ROH gets close to last nights show overall nowadays. I thought it wasn't a classic but it delivered enough with a lot of wrestlers I like putting on good matches and a MOTYC in Fletcher vs Osprey. 

 

Plus I'm interested where we go with the Death Riders after the main too. People on here were asking why aren't other wrestlers banding together to fight them. Hangman, Christian, Willow and Darby launching an assault on them was certainly not what I was expecting and could lead to some great stuff. The Continental Classic kicks of next week too, and they nailed that last year. So don't give up hope !

[RedTwoster]

I think AEW has ideas at play which have a tonne of potential, and they would benefit from someone in a position of influence who can take these good ideas and make them great.

The Deathriders is a brilliant idea, and Moxley’s gimmick is strong. Pushing Kyle Fletcher isn’t a bad idea; even if his promos have been weak. Christian is outstanding. Harley Cameron is one of the most entertaining performers in the business, and the women’s division on the whole has the potential to be the best in wrestling. The Acclaimed splitting up is a good idea, and both Bowens and Caster have singles potential. MJF, on his day, is outstanding…he just needs the right opponent and storyline. Takeshita is one of the most exciting performers in all of wrestling, Swerve’s great, Hangman is great - there’s so much good in that company.

With that in mind, it’s a shame that they put on a PPV with such an uninspiring build. All of the ingredients are there for AEW to feel as gripping as WWE does from a storyline perspective - I really hope they get to where they could be. If all of the ideas and feuds they were attempting to pull off were guff, that would be one thing; but that’s not the case at all.

[Snitsky's back acne]

5 hours ago, Duke said:

She's a heel.

So she should need a heavy to help her cheat and win, otherwise there is no point of Kamille.

Now, admittedly, there is no point to Kamille anyway with how they have used her so far but the point remains. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Before anybody's daft enough to bite (oh ho!) on another tedious SBA bout of berkery, I just want to talk about this event. 

I didn't watch the pre-show because I'm not back into wrestling that much, but after the last two Dynamites, which were unfathomably shit, this was a mixed show. But Justin Roberts needs to be fired and I won't be sorry if he lost his job. I hate him, he's SHIT.

The opening tag match was crap. Heard so much about The Outrunners and they did fuck all in this so that was a waste of time. Caster is getting Jericho-level reactions but I have to ask if there's an actual reason he's getting such negative reactions? I don't like him either but jesus, they hated him! It was funny. Bowens is excellent though, I love that guy.

MJF vs Roderick Strong was a solid wrestling match with a damp squib ending, I thought. But MJF is an absolute parody of himself now, with his edgelord promos and pathetic repetitive bullshit. At least when Christian Cage does the dead dad stuff there's an element of dark humour to it, but I don't want to hear this shit on a wrestling show. I really wish he'd fuck off. He's done, I don't see what you do with him next.

I guess Mone vs Statlander was the surprise of the night even if it went a bit long and contained about 6 million meteoras. I don't think many would disagree that Mone can put on a really good match when she's motivated but she's still been appalling since coming to AEW, and as she seemingly has some creative control then she has to be mostly to blame. Not sure where Statlander goes from this though, she was great throughout this.

Hangman vs Jay White was a total bore. Their previous match was decent but I'm sure I heard snores during this one. The crowd were awful most of the night again. Page lost again though, for some reason, but I don't care.

Then Ospreay vs Fletcher. This was the 'everyone will love this but me' match of the night. Totally get it, I really do, it's just not for me. Moves moves moves moves moves, but fair play, they did sell a bit. Occasionally. And the end stretch was good. If the idea was to make Fletcher look the business then this is a rare recent occasion of AEW successfully managing to do that. I'm just not sold on Ospreay losing this way considering his huge upsides and if he's had a word that he wanted his mate to win then he should have been told to piss off. But I get what they were going for. I really like that hidden blade thing Ospreay does.

The Mariah May bit was just a bit sad and a reminder of how awfully she's been booked and how terribly the women's division is treated on PPVs.

I liked Daniel Garcia giving Jack Perry a good slapping but the rest of the match not so much, mainly because Jack Perry is so utterly shit. Glad Garcia won though, he's a good lad and I like him a lot.

Ricochet got beat by Takeshita, which was both sensible and funny. Ricochet is in exactly the same position he was in WWE, having exactly the same matches with the same results. Nobody has won or lost in this situation. Decent match.

I enjoyed the gasps of horror at the end of Swerve vs Lashley because they didn't expect that ending but I really don't know how they could have got out of this match satisfactorily. Lashley mostly murdered Swerve and looked pretty good doing it. Swerve's in a hole. I enjoyed this match a lot though.

Moxley's match with Orange Cassidy. Well I'm not going to harp about Moxley.... actually, I am, because the Bears just lost again in overtime and I'm annoyed. Just his usual self-indulgent, repugnant shit, in a standard garbage match in which the only entertainment for me was listening to Jim Ross trying to find anything positive in it. Excalibur was really shit all night, by the way, and I don't normally mind him. The end was a fucking mess, I don't know what Page or White have to do with this.

I probably won't persevere with AEW beyond the PPVs from this point on so if it starts being good again you'll know why and can thank me later.

[DavidB6937]

Yeah I remember an interview with Ricochet where he said he wanted to go somewhere where he could be the focus and tell his story or something. I'm really not feeling a massive change in his representation in AEW but I guess it's early days. Hopefully he's happier now but from an outsider perspective I'm not massively sure what he's gained. But then I see the same with Mercedes too. I don't think her joining AEW has been a massive eye opener or win for her but maybe it's just the change of scenery she needed and a little more freedom.

[LaGoosh]

I only watched Fletcher/Ospreay and OC/Mox. 

Fletcher/Ospreay was good but could have been something great. Fletcher's heat segment was very good and should have been longer and the big move stretch should have been shorter. And Fletcher should have won by countout after the Tombstone. It is what it is.

OC/Mox was also good. Mox's offence looked brutal throughout and OC is a master of selling and perfectly timing comebacks so all of this worked. The finish didn't work for me though and all the schmozz and post match stuff was a bit much.

I might watch Swerve/Lashley and the TBS match later.

The Mina/Mariah segment would have been something perfectly good for Dynamite. I hate TV angles on PPVs though.

EDIT: I also watched the 4 way on Zero Hour and it was cracking fun. Never considered Mortos vs Buddy as a singles match I wanted to see but I think they'd fucking tear it up.

Edited November 25, 2024 by LaGoosh

[BomberPat]

I really enjoyed the show, though going in with very low expectations certainly helped. Kyle Fletcher is a really good heel, and Ospreay did a hell of a job making him look a killer - I question what the follow-up is, as I get flashbacks to Takeshita beating Omega and then doing fuck all for months, but it was easily Kyle's best match and, for my tastes, one of Will's.

Mercedes vs. Statlander was really good - not quite on the level of Mone's match with Willow, but still the best thing she's done in a while. AEW PPV and AEW TV just feel like two completely different worlds - on TV she's a change-the-channel act, but on PPV, when she's not doing robotic promos and taunt-spamming or booked in endless bad sports entertainment angles, and is just permitted to wrestle a very good match with a very good opponent, Mercedes Mone almost feels like she's worth the money.

Swerve and Lashley was odd. I guess they're trying to keep both Swerve and Ospreay wrapped up in feuds to justify them not stepping up against Moxley and co yet, but on a show that was almost all clean finishes, I think this one could have afforded to be a little screwier to protect Swerve's credibility. They obviously need to make Lashley look like a killer, but doing that at the expense of Swerve feels a mistake. The story going in was whether Swerve's ingenuity was a match for Lashley's strength, and the way the match was booked made it pretty clear that it isn't, so where do you go from there?

Nice to see Daniel Garcia get his win, but fucking hell Jack Perry doesn't know what he's doing. The Scapegoat gimmick makes no sense, it's just e-Fed Raven cosplay. He should have always been the spoiled entitled brat, protected by his mates in The Elite, and his downfall here should have come about through being left alone thanks to the Young Bucks quiet quitting and working from home, and Okada being away with his new baby. Instead, there's this weird pseudo-tough guy side to him that I don't buy, and he's doing The Best Of Raven without ever having learned why any of that stuff worked. Him "sacrificing himself" by allowing Daniel Garcia to hit a move on him, but then seconds later still trying to fight out of Garcia's submission finisher - make that make sense, please. Hopefully this is him on the way to a much needed repackaging.

I really liked the main event. Orange Cassidy has something that very few American wrestlers have, and it's because he spent so much of his career under a mask, the way he sells and emotes with his entire body is just on another level. Anyone could have been bloodied up and done the moves that he did in this match, but I don't think there's anyone on the roster that would have made them mean as much. I do think it all fell apart once The Conglomeration got involved, though - I assume there's some follow-up on OC asking them not to get involved, but it killed the rhythm of the match, and as much as I was happy to see Willow Nightingale back, a main event segment doesn't really need Rocky Romero and Ishii knocking about in it, and where was Mark Briscoe anyway? I have a long-standing theory that the meta-narrative of AEW is all about friendship, and that people suffer when they go it alone, but succeed when they come together - that's Hangman Page's character arc, and I thought it would be Orange Cassidy's here, that his insistence on not wanting help would be what did him in, and including The Conglomeration purely to cause enough of a distraction for the Wheeler Yuta run-in didn't work for me.

I hated the post-match, it was just too messy. When you have that succession of run-ins and appearances, they should escalate, starting small and getting bigger and bigger. The way it was building felt like we were due a genuine surprise - I went into this show assuming there would be a big angle or a return after the main event, and was still anticipating it after the slew of run-ins. But instead we had the most narratively interesting one in Hangman Page first, followed by Christian Cage being opportunistic, followed by a "huh, why does he care now?" appearance from Jay White. And the backstage bit was the most WCW 2000 or worst excesses of the Attitude Era segment imaginable - nothing makes me think of that era of wrestling quite like vehicular crime, so of course we got a car theft and Darby Allin crashing his car into the Death Riders' truck immediately. But there was no mystery as to who would be in the car, it was obviously Darby. We already know Darby hates the Death Riders. But he's also not very well set up as the next challenger, as he lost to Claudio on Dynamite, and lost to Mox a few weeks ago. He's at the back of the line. Plus, ending your pay-per-view with a backstage angle rather than in front of the crowd just isn't great. Worst of all, there was so much chaos and nonsense that by the end of it, nobody was talking about how the Death Riders tried to murder Orange Cassidy by pouring bleach down his throat! Just an insane thing to turn into a throwaway spot.


Timing-wise, it's cute that they ran with Orange Cassidy vs. Moxley at Full Gear, because OC beat Mox at that show last year, and it has that symmetry to it. But I'd have had Darby challenge and lose here, and the ensuing schmozz be the moment that Cassidy finally steps up and gets involved, for him to go on and challenge Mox at World's End instead. I expect we get a big clusterfuck multi-man at World's End now. 

[DavidB6937]

Madness!

What a guy.

[SaitoRyo]

42 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

Madness!

What a guy.

As if there was any doubt that this guy is a proper worker. 

[Supremo]

I used to have to watch AEW pay per views either live, or as soon as possible. Especially during the Pandemic. Sometimes, that was all that was keeping me going! The idea of just casually catching up on a big AEW show in the following days, with everything mostly spoilt, would seem alien at one point, but that’s exactly where we now are. Shame.

Costco Guys pre-show match was great fun. I saw reports that WWE were considering bringing them in after seeing the buzz they’d generated for AEW, but forget online buzz! After watching this match, they need to hire that AJ fella full-time at the Performance Center to teach everyone else how to throw a punch. He had better punches than 80% of the full time guys currently on mainstream television! Double J approved!

Perfect pre-show fodder. Even the way The Rizzler didn’t give a flying fuck and looked bored senseless every time they cut to him had a certain charm about it. Anyone who had complaints about this needs to get in the bin. This is the business! First time my son has ever asked to watch pro-wrestling, just to see The Rizzler. Didn’t they also shift a few thousand tickets in the final week, when these two were doing press everywhere? Thanks for the house, lads.

Tag team opener was mostly crap. Outrunners were robbed. I’ve conveyed my displeasure via stamped addressed envelope. The spot where The Acclaimed tried to pin each other was interesting. I’ve definitely seen The New Day do that before in a Four-Way Tag, and it was funny and charming, getting a big laugh from the crowd. But Max Caster doing it didn’t work at all. He’s got such little goodwill that the crowd barely made a sound and even the commentators refused to play along. Like there’s this undercurrent of everyone being absolutely sick of him, both in and out of the fiction.

I guess we’ll see. Leaning into Caster’s Go Away Heat is certainly a choice, but like with Jericho I’m not convinced it’s something you can turn around in your favour. At least this will eventually free Bowens up though, who has tonnes of potential.

What followed next was three consecutive matches that completely exemplified where I think AEW has fallen off a cliff. All good-to-great matches, completely undermined by dead characters left floundering after AEW’s weird Autumn of Flip Flopping babyface/heel dynamics, recasting everyone once Jimmy Jacobs left.

Roddy Strong is suddenly now a sympathetic babyface, just because their muddled storyline requires it. Statlander is suddenly now a babyface again, just because Mercedes is that desperate for a good match. And then suddenly Jay White is also a fan favourite, for seemingly no other reason than they needed to give Hangman something to do after Tony did his usual booking trope of building to a huge match (Hangman vs. Swerve in the cage) and then panicking Monday morning that he has nothing in his notes going forward.

In all cases, it’s just good wrestlers doing good wrestling that I don’t care about because all the characters have been Big Show’d. Turned out of the blue, with no rhyme or reason, and then I’m left just doing the Partridge Shrug, no matter how good the work is.

It’s where I think the biggest gap has emerged between AEW and WWE. They’ve been completely lapped in terms of writing logical, smart turns that play off everything that’s come before it, evolving organically, and having clever, interesting consequences. Look at Kevin Owens going heel. It’s so obvious it’s all been plotted and thought through. It’s super satisfying to watch and follow. By contrast, sometime in October Tony Khan appears to have just shook up his action figures and thrown them randomly into the Heel and Babyface boxes. It kills my investment dead.

On that subject, I reckon - scientifically - on a talent vs. investment ratio, Roderick Strong might be the best wrestler I care the least about. He’s always so excellent, yet they never capitalise on it and he’s always playing second or third fiddle to some Undisputed Era bullshit that only Tony Khan still cares about. Bin the rest of them off, drop this whole nonsense storyline and actually push Roddy as a singles. That’s the move. He’s better than Cole, MJF and Kyle combined.

Hilariously though, the way things are going, I’m starting to smell an Adam Cole heel turn, where he re-joins MJF and feuds with Roddy and Kyle. Maybe call them The Devils. It’d make no sense and be absolutely shit, but isn’t that the theme of this angle for nearly a year now? Would it really be any worse than where we currently are? If not that, seeing what a fetish Tony has for 2017 NXT, I’m half expecting him to bring back fucking Bobby Fish or something! At least they’d have a funny Tag Line for the inevitable Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly vs. The Outrunners Collision main event. Youngest Men Alive vs. The Oldest Man Alive.

Mercedes had a great night, but I won’t get my hopes up. She’s the most inconsistent wrestler in the world. I also cannot stomach any more of her bickering and bullying bullshit with Kamille. It’s torture to watch. The only man alive who I think could enjoy this shit is Triple H.

Show turned a corner with Ospreay and Fletcher. Phenomenal match. Now that Bryan Danielson has gone to the big plastic bag in the sky, Ospreay’s probably the MVP of this entire company. Best wrestler in the world. Ridiculously selfless. Happy to put people over. Confident enough in his ability that he’ll remain over anyway. I know everything seems geared towards Darby beating Mox for the belt, but watching this, I think Ospreay’s the guy. Especially this hyper-violent version. Save us, Will!

I hope Tony kept his receipt with Bobby Lashley. He’s been rubbish thus far. No way he’d be successfully completing his probation if I was reporting back to HR. Dull, plodding, lifeless, drawn out heat segments straight of 2018 WWE. Even the agenting had that same boring, lazy attitude. “Any ideas how to make this good?” “Who cares, just do the Spear through the guardrail.”

Main event was excellent. Mox and Cassidy always have this amazing chemistry. Mox is a viscous bastard. Cassidy’s incredible at selling. I completely fell for the flurry at the start, too. Imagine the pop if Cassidy, pushed to his limits and powered by furious anger, just completely squashed him and won in ten seconds like Goldberg vs. Brock. That would have ruled!

The post-match was definitely messy, and Tony Khan is still definitely watching too much 2015-2019 WWE these days for inspiration, but I can’t complain too much when Hangman and Willow are being weaved into the top storyline. They’re the two main characters of the promotion and should be pushed as such.

I also love that Hangman looked less of a pure heel and more of a lost soul, being manipulated by Christian. Finally! A glimpse!  There’s still good in this man! Kenny Omega! Save him!

More fool me though. For a split second after the car flew into shot and smashed into The Death Rider’s truck. Even knowing it was almost certainly Darby driving. There was a 1% chance. My heart skipped a beat. Imagine if Eddie Kingston had stepped out of that car. I’d have burst.

Edited November 26, 2024 by Supremo

[LaGoosh]

2 hours ago, Supremo said:

Tony Khan is still definitely watching too much 2015-2019 WWE these days for inspiration

I think they have a decent handful of ex-WWE people from that time period as producers/creatives so it's no surprise really. Chuck 'em in the bin! 

[Hannibal Scorch]

 AJ and Adam Cole Tag Team run incoming

 

[organizedkaos]

I think the best way to capitalise on the Outrunners right now is give them a solid feud and then if that works we can talk championship. I know they're meme of the moment and all but feels like that's already burning out.. That's as much on the AEW booking as on them, they're clearly funny and the gimmick is connecting. Problem is it's basically just been the same thing over and over (the AEW special!) - it's not quite clear if that's all they can particularly do - mug camera and do the shouting elbow drop that never quite seems to be as over as people want it to be...

I suspect they might be a bit limited but i'd love to be proven wrong. They need some sort of big sympathetic feud surely? Considering it's all so 80s pastiche then maybe "good guys struggle to overcome something" is the way to go? It might seema  bit standard and trite but also I can't see "these guys are over, give them a few wins and PPV multiman spots" being enough to actually capitalise on the love for them in a way that isn't fleeting. Have the House of Black murder them repeatedly or something. FTR step on them for a world title shot and then do a series of matches where mostly FTR murder them repeatedly? Give us a reason to care beyond "funny men say catchphrase". In my mind that involves them getting murdered repeatedly and then finally winning a number one contenders match against the murderers.

Or maybe i'm just cynical and need to embrace joy in whatever form it may find itself.

[Chris B]

Bit surprised at some of the hatred towards Jack Perry. While I don't think he's nailing it, it feels more like the character and work is missing something rather than he's just terrible. He doesn't feel right as the jaded experienced vet, but it does feel like there's something in there that's almost working to me. Feels like tweaks are needed rather than just fucking him off.