AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[RedTwoster]

48 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Harley was wonderful. Absolutely brilliant in the Mone skit and great with Toni too. How can you not love Harley indeed. Well said, Skiavone.

This was genuinely my favourite part of the show. I thought it was a strong show all round - but Harley challenging Mercedes at some point is a brilliant idea, I absolutely love it, so this skit was right up my street. 

[Chili]

That was A LOT better, and they had everything feel far less isolated too, stuff seemed to interconnect with the references to each other. Ospreay, Omega, Jarrett & Cope all being involved or mentioning the Death Wankers.

Hurt Syndicate are a lovely bunch. Brilliant idea, keep Bobby Lashley in a tag team and let Shelton Benjamin keep bashing out this amazing career revival he's on. I do like Private Party but it was the right call.

MJF and Hangman interacting s little bit. Oh, hello, and whatever is going on with Daniels and Hanger is interesting too. I'm always in alert when Hangman has more character work coming.

Harley Cameron, Harley Cameron, Harley Cameron! Love that Rene has been broken by her and now finds her schtick charming. Don't let her leave Tony, don't ever let me down like that. I will always love acts who get over by sheer force of will.

Poor Will Hobbs. Fight it, fight it all you can, the vortex is unforgiving. BUT if they are teasing Big Bill going elsewhere from Jericho, please do.

Edited January 23, 2025 by Chili

[Hannibal Scorch]

Absolute banger of a Dynamite. Usually the first hour is stronger than the second, and whilst this was true, and it had one of the best first 30 minutes of a wrestling show in ages, I enjoyed the whole episode. Storylines, driven. Action, exciting. Just a good time show, this is my AEW.

[digforvictory]

Yeah, the first half was much stronger but I still liked the 2nd hour too.

Just a really fun show, really easy watch. The venue looked cool and the crowd were hot, can't ask for more than that.  Especially happy the tag belts are off Private Party and onto The Hurt Syndicate. Immediately the tag titles seem more important and prestigious. Nice little tease of Hangman vs MJF in the future too, a feud I think MJF badly needs.

Echoing others on here, the opening segment was electric. With Hangman being heel for now, AEW need top level babyfaces and that segment showed who it should be. Omega and Ospreay.

[BomberPat]

I thought it was a show of two halves - opening brawl was fantastic, and I thought the Tag Title match was brilliant; as much as AEW has a "50 year old ex-WWE bloke" problem, the Hurt Syndicate have such a clear role on the roster, and Private Party were such damp squibs as champs, that it's the right decision to make and hopefully the follow-up is just as good, as I don't think AEW have ever had a meaty powerhouse tag team as their champions, so it could completely change the dynamic of the division. I groaned when Christopher Daniels' music hit, but his role being just to layer even more trauma on Hangman was fantastic. I liked Karen Jarrett being Jeff's conscience, and making it clear that Jarrett stooping to MJF's level last week was supposed to be a bad thing and him letting bad habits sneak back in - I often complain that a lot of the issues with AEW could be resolved with ten seconds of mic time to join the dots, and this is a rare example of them actually doing that.

The tail end of the show, though, oof. The crowd were sat on their hands for Jamie Hayter vs. Julia Hart, and it felt like things fell apart in that match towards the end. Jamie deserves more focus. I found it odd to see a video package "sent in by Julia Hart and Brody King" after the Julia Hart match, but I guess they didn't want to play a video about how her and her mates have got renewed focus and direction now, only for her to lose clean afterwards. Maybe either wait until Collision or next week to play that video, or have the fact that Julia doesn't have the House of Black leading her any more play into why she lost? 

I thought PAC vs. Cope was awful. Cope has definitely lost a step since before his injury, and just drags every match he's in down to a crawl, which really stands out given the pace of the usual AEW main event style. I think he might have a genuinely good nonsense hardcore brawl with Moxley in them, if they both accept that they need to fall back on some of that and rely on some smoke and mirrors rather than trying to have a workrate classic, and I think he still adds value to the roster in general, but Adam Copeland as a week-to-week main event guy just isn't it.

Hated the backstage segment, it's just goofy. They can't keep telling us that the Death Riders are uniquely, scarily, violent, and then keep most of that violence off-screen, it doesn't work. And if they're going to make attacking the Rock N Roll Express part of the angle, maybe let us see the Rock N Roll Express on-screen once before that happens? At the moment, they're just a heel stable. They don't feel like they're transgressing any norms or doing anything differently. We already saw the Don Callis Family fight Omega and Ospreay all over the building, so they're not unique in attacking people and beating them up backstage. We already saw Ricochet kidnap Prince Nana and hold him with a pair of scissors to his throat, so they're not even the only people on the show holding wrestlers hostage. The stuff with the plastic bag worked because it was crossing a boundary of acceptability, and the level of violence understood as normal on a wrestling show. But just stomping on people and doing wrestling moves to them doesn't cut it, and nor does every show ending with some variation on the same beatdown angle.

[The King Of Swing]

Yuta's fringe. 

Edited January 23, 2025 by The King Of Swing

[Hannibal Scorch]

2 hours ago, The King Of Swing said:

Yura's fringe. 

Lunatic Fringe

[Egg Shen]

tremendous tweet:

 

 

[King Mal the Glorious]

I have a mate called Yura who looks quite like Super Humman, which when coupled with @The King Of Swing's typo is brilliant.

[LaGoosh]

23 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I've only seen the first half hour of Dynamite but it was so great that I'm not going to bother with the rest of it because I'm pretty sure it's going to probably go down the toilet pretty quick.

So I did end up watching the rest of the show and yeah, it wasn't great.

- I love Jeff Jarrett. But I mainly love cocky, comedic heel Jeff Jarrett. I'm not really feeling this World title story (especially as you know there's literally zero chance of him winning the title) so it all feels a bit pointless. When you look at the people who weren't on this show it's hard to justify giving Double J this much TV time. BOOK WILLOW ON EVERY DYNAMITE, TONY YOU IDIOT!

- speaking of wasting TV time - MJF is a lost cause at the moment. Complete regression and as stale as Chris Jericho. The very brief Hangman interaction was the first time I've been interested in him in months though. A big story with them two as the conflicted self doubting baddies trying to destroy each other would be very interesting - and be a fresh feud for both men.

- Loved the Hangman stuff of course. Feels like he's heating back up now, hopefully they hvae something big planned for him.

- Hayter/Hart was as dull as the first one and now they are hyping up a third? Good lord. You've got Athena being wasted on ROH and you're giving us this?

- I'm somewhat enjoying the Swerve/Ricochet stuff though feel the bullying/Ricochet snapping was done a bit too quickly. Swerve/AR Fox could have been 50% shorter - Swerve at this point in his career should be merking people like Fox very quickly. The backstage angle with Nana was fine in theory but they shot it in the most uninteresting and undramatic way possible. Since getting the glasses Ricochet has magically discovered heel charisma and personality though - they must be magic glasses.

- the camera cutting to Mone standing still waiting for her cue before walking down the hall is the type of lazy production stuff that drives me crazy. Couldn't they have pre-taped this and cut that bit out? Excellent bit with Cameron though, she's going to be a huge babyface very soon and deserves the spotlight.

- I didn't bother with Cope/Pac. What a drag that stuff is. 

 

[HarmonicGenerator]

I didn't mind Hayter/Hart at all, and headcanoned Swerve-Fox in my head as Swerve happy to relax a little against an old friend, only to swiftly get down to business and kill him once Ricochet appeared. He could have done that the whole time, but just didn't feel the need?

Didn't mind Cope/Pac as a match either, it's one I haven't seen before, though I did drift in and out of it. The post-match, though, can get to fuck. The Death Riders are such shite.

Edited January 24, 2025 by HarmonicGenerator
Cope John Paul II

[The King Of Swing]

Yeah Hayter/Hart was fine. Crowd wasn't particularly interested though.

My problem is that the feud stinks of "I have nothing else for them, so let's fill some TV time". 

I like the idea of a less spooky bollocks, more violent House of Black. Not convinced Hart can pull it off, but it's something. 

[Lorne Malvo]

That was much better than the past few weeks.

Cracking opening segment. Dual moonsaults, fuck yeah! Ospreay/Omega vs Fletcher/Takeshita should be an absolute banger. I did laugh a little at Omega going from 'I want to kill Ospreay' to 'nah you're alright actually mate', but they made it work.

A video package to heat Pac back up was a good idea considering he's never at work.

Hurt Syndicate are excellent and I'm not even a big Bobby Lashley fan. Hopefully marks a much-needed reset of the tag division. Private Party have been shite since winning the belts but played their part well here.

The Jeff Jarrett 'your mom is a hooker' stuff was some of the worst shit I've seen in AEW in months so thank god they've pulled back from that and seem to be pivoting the feud to a much better dickhead MJF vs blue-eye Jeff dynamic. I love Jarrett just skipping over the MJF stuff and going straight for Moxley - as poor as the Death Riders have been, one thing AEW has done well is have so many different people lately talk about how they want to be champion.

Strickland vs AR Fox suffered from having to go through a break, but much like HarmonicGenerator I justified the length in my head as Swerve not having the killer instinct against an old friend until he was in trouble.

Ricochet cut a good promo! Miracle of the week.

A little Hangman/MJF tease followed by Hangman having the briefest look of regret at hearing he has retired Daniels was a brilliant bit of business. There is still some good in this man!

The Harley Cameron song was brilliant. I love love love her.

Hayter/Hart 2 was much better than the first match, Hart seems to be losing the ring rust. Hayter needs something substantial to sink her teeth into though - she's far too good to become an afterthought.

Malaki Black basically getting slagged off constantly but never mentioned is hilarious to me.

I thought the main event was the weakest part of the show. There were a few good moments (Pac bouncing Cope's head/jaw into the side of the ring looked brutal, and I popped for Copes John Woo dropkick) but for the most part it had all the hallmarks of Cope's worst WWE matches - he has a tendancy to hit a move then both guys will oversell it, laying on the deck for way too long before repeating this again and again. It's as if they go to the 'exhaustion' part of the match about 5 minutes in then the pace never picks up again for the duration. I was a fan of his initial AEW run because he seemed to change this up and actually wrestle a different match at times but maybe he's had one too many injuries now that this is the only pace he can go at?

Please do Cope/Mox at Grand Slam. Stretching it out to Revolution would be madness.

Collision looking tasty - Big Bill/Hobbs in a parking lot fight, a Mariah May/Toni Storm segment plus the return of COOL HAND ANG!

[WyattSheepMask]

I’m assuming that with them doing the Swerve/Ricochet match on Dynamite the week before that both men will be sitting out the Australia show, at least from an in ring point of view.

Mox/Edge has to happen in Australia too. I’m sure the crowd are still behind Edge, but they just seemed relieved that the match with PAC was finished, and so was I quite frankly. It started OK but the second d half seemed to drag really badly. 
Ni way has the feud got the legs to last all the way into mid March.

Why were the Rock n Roll Express there exactly? I know that they’re linked with Tennessee and everything, but show them as being there earlier in the show, or at the very least have one of the commentary mention having seen them “earlier in the day” during the Tag Team title match. I’ll admit it’s probably very minor, but it’s basic story telling.

Whats going on with the Trios titles too? They’ve not been defended for nearly 3 months. Is it just a lack of acts to put into those kind of matches?

[Snitsky's back acne]

Has MJF been exposed as a one trick pony or has he always been like this because he has gone from a "100% future WWE megastar" to "go-away, it's the same old schtick" heat with me in just the past couple of years.