AEW TV 2025 Discussion

[Olly1984]

Toni did say " The hardest role you will ever play, is yourself" And this was the first time they have both been in the same ring(go with it). Toni really can't let her whip the shit out of her and spit on her and do nothing. I mean sure it could have maybe drawn out a bit, Luther delivering a bloody shoe on a silver tray on the go home Dynamite BUT at least Timeless is back. Mariah now has to deal with potentially losing her tits and title too!! 

[2Xtreme_lives]

Was this AEW's homage to the anniversary of Mankind turning into Cactus Jack. It definitely was the first thing thought of

[LaGoosh]

Weird Timeless reveal aside I thought this was a pretty ok episode where most things were decent but just slightly too long.

Shibata/Takeshita was a cracking main event for sure.

The Don Callis Family segment where they teased a 6th member intrigued me until I remembered it's probably just Trent coming back from injury and he never fit right in that stable.

Ignoring the ending - I thought Mariah was brilliantly nasty in that angle and they should have ended it with her spitting on the hurt and wailing Toni Storm.

Big lads tag team was good but like is often the case with AEW TV the match was just too long. Could shave off 3-4 mins of most AEW TV matches and the shows would be vastly improved.

Bill/Hobbs brawling was fun and I like that it lasted a couple of segments. Could have had a bit more intensity but big table bumps and throwing bricks is still cool.

As usual another class Harley segment. Seriously, if AEW gave the womens division a real spotlight and push I think it would do absolute wonders for them: Willow, Statlander, Cameron, Storm, May, Hayter, Athens alone you could build literally an entire show around just them without even having mens roster. Absolutely star studded crossover level talent being wasted.

Edited January 27, 2025 by LaGoosh

[Supremo]

I don’t mind Trent returning to the Callis Family because that presumably continues the prophecy of bringing Orange Cassidy into the orbit of Ospreay and Omega. What a trio that would be! Guaranteed magic amongst those lads.

I’ve not seen the show yet, but the campy clip of the Callis Family at their big family home is great. What a turnaround for this act! They used to be so rubbish, but they’ve finally nailed it. I wonder if Sammy Guevara watches them now and thinks, “this is so much better without me. I’m shit.”

[BomberPat]

The crowd were into the Toni Storm reveal and it worked, so while I have my misgivings about it, I'm happy with it.

My main issue was that there's no real explanation of what Toni achieved through it all - she didn't sucker Mariah in or manipulate her, she won a title shot fair and square, then got beaten up, then did the big reveal. I'd have liked to have seen her get more physical. But on reflection, if the lasting message was supposed to be, "you thought you killed me, but I will keep coming back, and coming back stronger", then I think Toni refusing to stay down this time just about got there. 

[Chris B]

I'm surprised by the negativity over the Toni Storm reveal - I thought it went well. 

Mariah hasn't shown a chink in her armour since she turned heel. She's been pretty dominant and (character-wise) absolutely destroyed Toni Storm at Wembley. The reveal, and Mariah's stunned reaction, was the first time that armour's been dented. And, on top of that, Toni shrugged off Mariah's attack as well in a way that rarely happens. It was a declaration more than a plan. 

And also, yeah, the crowd were into it. Schiavone called it in exactly the way that added to it. And we got the absolutely iconic 'and I'm gonna rip your TITS OFF'. 

The only stumbling block is that I think Mariah was meant to give a lead-line to the 'What makes you think I don't remember?', presumably about having beaten her so badly she didn't remember the last time. But overall, it worked for me (and it killed on social from what I've seen).

It's weird though - the response I'd seen was so good that when I watched, I thought it was really well done. But if I'd read the responses here first about how shit it was, I'd probably have gone in thinking it was shit and liked it less than I did.

[Jesse]

I think it's one of those moments that works emotionally in the moment. It's exciting to see Timeless Toni back, she delivered it incredibly, Mariah's reaction was great. It's a blast! It just doesn't hold together so well removed from that moment, when you have the time to reflect on "Why did this happen?" 

We don't do so much of the former because live chat is banned. If it wasn't you'd probably have seen a bunch of posts of people losing their shit over it, that would then have slowly transitioned to the current discussion as it had time to settle.

[Hannibal Scorch]

42 minutes ago, Jesse said:

It just doesn't hold together so well removed from that moment, when you have the time to reflect on "Why did this happen?" 
 

That logic can be applied to about 90% of all wrestling content.

[RedTwoster]

This was a rare venture into the world of Collision for me, and on the whole I thought it was a fun episode.

First - the bad. I would love to see the end of the Don Callis family. He’s just abysmal, and adds nothing positive to the wrestlers he’s working with. 

Second bad thing - The Undisputed Kingdom. I don’t think I need to explain that one.

I really enjoyed the Toni Storm segment. There probably was more that they could have done with the story, but the reaction they got for the angle was off-the-charts. I really hope they get to main event Grand Slam, they deserve it. The fact a performer as brilliant as Storm has yet to main event a major show or PPV is a bit of a travesty.

I was a bit surprised to see Yuka Sakazaki, and I was even more surprised to see her win. I was about to write that it felt like years since I’d seen her wrestle on Dynamite, but after a quick visit to Cagematch, I’ve learned that she wrestled Mariah May at Grand Slam for the title last year. I have zero recollection of this. 

It was great to see Samoa Joe return, and I really hope they give him a big feud to sink his teeth into soon - I’d love to see him wrestle Ospreay, Okada or Omega. Joe versus Takeshita would also be a banger - there are loads of first-time matches for the guy in AEW, and I hope we get to see some of the bigger options soon.

Hobbs/Big Bill should be fun, but I hope to goodness this isn’t designed to transition Hobbs into a feud with Jericho.

[Devon Malcolm]

Nothing about it works for me. They brought back Toni Storm as original Toni Storm and everybody groaned and then the next week it was clear what they were doing and many of us rolled back our opinion. Awesome.

The last couple of months they've just played it so well on every level. She's kayfabed it outside of AEW stuff, the little videos and interactions with other performers (the Mark Briscoe thing was inspired), the matches she's had and the interviews she's done. The crowd responsese to it. It's all been done perfectly.

And in fairness, this segment was fine to a point. Mariah's promo was non-committal to Toni's presentation so far, like she's not buying it at all or playing the game. The beatdown was well done. And then it was just stupid.

Not only does she get the shit kicked out of her, she recovers in seconds and cuts the Timeless promo, which was bad enough. But they could have got so much more out of this, they could have got a few months out of it at least. And now what are they going to do? Timeless Toni Storm wins the title and Mariah May's reign, which by no fault of her own, is over. And it's not been memorable in the slightest. The chance to build a program between them both and then have Toni return to the Timeless gimmick, whether it was through performance or memory loss or whatever. You could get so much out of it. You could have rescued Mariah's run as champion. And now they won't.

Fucking AEW, man. Within a couple of months they'll have ruined Harley Cameron as well. Every time they give me some faith they'll get something right, Tony Khan's notices and it's all over. Shite.

[tiger_rick]

15 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

It’s interesting, all the people I know that watch and have discussed Collision thought it was a really strong episode of Collision and most of them just thought the Toni Storm thing was fine. Interesting how different the view is in here.

I thought it was a decent episode. Wouldn't go as far as strong because there's a caveat to fucking everything. It was enjoyable with some decent movement on a lot of things.

Hounds Of Hell were the highlight. Good name and look, solid match and good segment with Okada.

Okada's character work was great. Match was pointless. Stop telling us Kommander is special when he loses all the time.  

Both the Hobbs/Bill brawls were fun. They'll have a decent match somewhere. Just a pity there's nothing more interesting for either coming out of it.

Loved seeing 2.0 and Danny back together. Then they lost to the Vanilla Midgets.

Max Caster open challenge sounds great. Dante challenging Rush was a nice development for their stuff.

Decent focus on the Callis family with the recap of Dynamite, that odd segment in the house and the main event. That was fine, I just don't give a shit about Shibata. Crowd seemed to though.

Can't decide if Jim Ross or the Boom people are more unwelcome. I'd rather watch a Max & JJ Iron Man Match than anything with these in it.

Ah, Toni. I had it spoiled. Or at least, I thought I did. Then I watched the segment and thought I'd imagined it. After the way that went to the beatdown, there was no way this was the night of the reveal. I'd misread something.

Nope, that was it. Fucking hell. Both women were great. Mariah is a bloody superstar. There's no way she should lose. She's incredible. Toni after the reveal was brilliant. Restored a little bit of what was lost. But this wasn't the way to do it. Not here and not like this. I think they're normally great at timing things like this. They missed this one though. 

Edited January 27, 2025 by tiger_rick

[Chris B]

The Australia show is still a pretty big deal and only two weeks away, so I think they really need Timeless Toni Storm on the publicity side in the run-up to it. This was likely always the date they wanted to do it, and they probably over-delivered on the build-up. Might be that they weren't that confident it would go as well as it did - if anything, people wanted the current situation to go longer.

[gmoney]

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

Stop telling us Kommander is special when he loses all the time.  

This is a real bugbear of mine.  It's not new either, they've been doing it for years with loads of different acts. I know you can't just go "this guy's a job guy, dinnae get yourself excited", but they seem to expect I should get excited. 

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Can't decide if Jim Ross or the Boom people are more unwelcome. I'd rather watch a Max & JJ Iron Man Match than anything with these in it.

I think I have a weird nostalgia for Jim Ross, as he reminds me of the early days of Dynamite; but even with that context in mind, I actually thought he was decent! 

 

[LaGoosh]

Yeah I thought JR was pretty good on this show too.

Fun fact I just learnt a minute ago: Takeshita and Yuka Sakazaki are married. That's nice.

I'm a bigger fan of the Callis Family than most even though they're booked very inconsistently (like pretty much everything else). The current line up is the best its been and I'd like for them to do more. I wouldn't be adverse to them bringing Blood and Guts forward this year and doing the Don Callis Family vs Team Omega/Ospreay.