Paid Members RedTwoster Posted June 11 Author Paid Members Posted June 11 33 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: One of the worst show openings they've ever done. Jericho in 2026 is just absolutely abysmal. Do they want people to turn off or something? I was about to say the same thing. If there’s a hell and it doesn’t involve the damned being tied up and forced to watch this version of Chris Jericho, Satan isn’t doing his job properly. Absolutely horrendous. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted June 11 Posted June 11 Jericho is so bad I think even Satan would be like "no, that's too much". Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted June 11 Paid Members Posted June 11 (edited) I feel like my take on Dynamite every week lately is "wrestling was good, story didn't make any sense". There's not a lot to get your teeth into. I shouldn't be coming out of a show that set up Swerve vs. Ospreay and Kenny Omega vs. Zack Sabre Jr feeling totally underwhelmed. Every week, I don't understand what they're doing with the Death Riders. It's not shades of grey, they're not tweeners, it's just inconsistency. Why is PAC making the babyface save in one match, and then working heel in the very next match? I like Shane Taylor, but why is he being treated as a credible threat to Jon Moxley with no effort to actually heat him up as one? Sareee not getting cleared for a match was a shame, as was Maya World subbing for her after Sareee had been saying she had got AEW's agreement that the excellent Takumi Iroha would be her second. I assume they made the call to give Maya a match after her brother died, but I hope Iroha (and eventually Sareee) at least get a makegood booking out of it; I don't see Takumi's being anything more than a random ROH match, but it's better than nothing. Jericho is dreadful. The goofy Wayne's World stuff works against someone like Ricochet who plays the stooge and can weather the comedy, but doing it against Ciampa, in response to Ciampa assaulting him, is awful. No interest in that match, less interest in any story behind it, because it will do no good for Ciampa at all. The MJF/Briscoe storyline is appalling. Big babyface promo from Mark last week was fantastic, but to then get it bogged down in a stupid stipulation match to earn a title shot he's never winning just because Tony Khan has clearly decided that having a big overblown cage match is now a Forbidden Door "tradition" because they did it once is bollocks. It means the main event of the PPV (again, a PPV featuring Will Ospreay vs. Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega vs. Zack Sabre Jr at the very least, and where the selling point is supposed to be that it's interpromotional) will be to build to a World Title match that nobody believes the challenger is winning, which will most likely take place on free TV, and the cage match itself will likely feature a bunch of no-hopers who have no business main eventing. That said, if I had to put together the best possible version of the match, they can do a lot worse than MJF/Okada/Fletcher/Knight/Andrade/Davis/Hechicero vs. Briscoe/Takeshita/Cassidy/Ishii/Mistico/Speedball. Assuming that Ishii, Hechicero, and Mistico get in there to play lip service to it being an interpromotional PPV - I'd maybe swap Hechi out for someone from the NJPW side, though God knows who from that roster would make sense. Saying that, I just realised I didn't include Darby on the babyface side, so probably swap Mistico out of there. The worst part of it all, though, is that the crux of the story was explicitly "MJF doesn't have any friends, so he's had to pay off Don Callis to find partners for the match". That was the story within this episode, and MJF working with Don Callis has been a story rumbling over in the background for months now. Then why the fuck did they have the Lethal Twist running interference for MJF before the cage match stipulation was even announced? If we're meant to go into this thinking "how is MJF going to find people willing to work with him", he shouldn't have people already working for him, with zero incentive, and zero justification. Fuck's sake. Edited June 11 by BomberPat Quote
DavidB6937 Posted June 11 Posted June 11 It's weeks like this one that remind me that AEW came out of a bunch of indy guys wanting to do it on a bigger scale, because it feels like they're making the mistakes booking wise that would've happened in ROH etc back in the day. And that's not to say that indies aren't capable of doing good storylines and longer term bookings because they absolutely are, but it's when AEW manages to balance the great storylines and the great matches that it's absolutely at its best. And why it's so frustrating time after time because they CAN do it, and when they do it it's arguably the best out there. But it definitely feels like sometimes TK just sees the potential matches and cards and then doesn't really fill in the gaps in between very well. Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted June 11 Paid Members Posted June 11 The best thing about the rise of AEW has been wrestlers moving back and forth, getting a fresh coat of paint in a new environment. Wrestlers like Danhausen or Penta can go to WWE and thrive in that environment. Even lads I didn’t give a flying fuck about, like Ricochet and Ciampa, can jump ship to AEW and suddenly feel completely different, full of life and excitement. It’s mint. Chris Jericho still hanging around years past his sell by date feels like Kane and Big Show during the Monopoly Era. An exhausting sense of, “oh fuck off, you’re still here?! Still doing this?!” It would have been best for everyone involved if Jericho had jumped ship to WWE. Best for AEW. Best for WWE. Best for Jericho. Best for the fans of both companies. Funniest is that Jericho doesn’t seem to even care that he didn’t actually jump. He’s just doing the WWE act regardless. All that forced comedy and crap cratchphrase spamming. He’s a WWE act badly photoshopped onto AEW television. The only explanation that makes sense is that TKO low-balled him, but Tony Khan is a literal billionaire. He should do the decent thing for his audience and offer to supplement Jericho’s WWE contract in order for him to go. Essentially pay him to fuck off to Raw and do his WWE schtick there. Let them yeet cake. Quote
WyattSheepMask Posted June 11 Posted June 11 (edited) 3 hours ago, LaGoosh said: One of the worst show openings they've ever done. Jericho in 2026 is just absolutely abysmal. Do they want people to turn off or something? Yeah I’m already sick of Jericho and his shit comedy. Nevermind the Forbidden Door, The Jericho Vortex has well & truly reopened Mox walking the wrong side of the barricade outside of the arena, silly bugger. Managed to style it out though. Match was nothing to get excited about and if you want a crystal clear rip of Shane Taylor’s theme just get it from this, quite an impressive feat to be get negative noises. Same can be said for Maya World, not that her or Skye Blue did anything to get a reaction, the “this is awesome!” chant towards the end had to be sarcastic. I don’t know if it’s how they mic the crowd or whatever, but they were absolutely silent for large parts of the show. Awful finish as well, you could’ve parked a bus underneath Blue’s shoulder it was that far off the mat. Excalibur playing it up as some massive upset as well - I get that Maya was a late replacement, but she’s in a position where stringing 3 wins together gets her a World Title match, it’s hardly a non-league team going to the FA Cup Final. And she Skye Blue for gods sake! A giant killing this was not. Pat described putting Kevin Knight with Don Callis last week as lazy, and having Knight cut his own promo this week just hammered that home. Not sure having fearless daredevil nutter Darby Allin running away from the Callis scrubs did anything for him, but having him be beaten down right after you’ve done the same between the Death Riders and STP would’ve been just as bad, so maybe this segment should’ve gone on later? Speaking of agenting- three matches, two of which were back to back, had a furniture breaking bump to go into the ad break. Sort it out Tony. Briscoe v PAC was an enjoyable match, but the post-match with MJF just went on forever. While It’s been clear from the outset that they were going to have Osprey v Swerve, there’s much more history there between those two, but part of me was hoping they’d have Brodie King go the finals. He’s over with the crowd and if you want to elevate him he needs to be in matches like that. Having said that, the more finals you’re in the more you can potentially lose, and you don’t want him to be seen as someone who chokes, especially as he’s lost both of his World title opportunities during his time in AEW. If they were ever get serious about one of the other belts as a solid secondary title, he’d be a decent babyface champion for that belt. Swerve (and his roid-belly) vs Osprey will no doubt be a very good match though. 15 hours ago, The King Of Swing said: 2019-2021 Dynamite archive, added to MyAEW and they are adding episodes of Dark, daily. Great to see everything slowly being added. Hopefully Rampage and Dark Elevation are not far behind. That’s the stuff that’s been playing on the Free Channel feed since it launched, so hopefully that will move onto 2022 onwards and then that will go in the archive in a couple of months time Edited June 11 by WyattSheepMask Quote
The King of Old School Posted June 11 Posted June 11 (edited) 1 hour ago, WyattSheepMask said: While It’s been clear from the outset that they were going to have Osprey v Swerve, there’s much more history there between those two, but part of me was hoping they’d have Brodie King go the finals. He’s over with the crowd and if you want to elevate him he needs to be in matches like that. Having said that, the more finals you’re in the more you can potentially lose, and you don’t want him to be seen as someone who chokes, especially as he’s lost both of his World title opportunities during his time in AEW. I'm a big fan of King, different look and style, and great in the ring. I do unfortunately see him as someone who "chokes" though. How can you not? He beats everyone until something matters, then he always loses. Not far off Lance Archer credibility. Edited June 11 by The King of Old School Quote
Chili Posted June 11 Posted June 11 (edited) I'm officially in on the Lio Rush gremlin thing. I was wrong, it's delightful wrestling bollocks and I really like the OC running bit with him. More Lio Rush just randomly appearing in places, taa. Edited June 11 by Chili Quote
Paid Members RedTwoster Posted June 11 Author Paid Members Posted June 11 3 hours ago, Chili said: I'm officially in on the Lio Rush gremlin thing. I was wrong, it's delightful wrestling bollocks and I really like the OC running bit with him. More Lio Rush just randomly appearing in places, taa. Yeah, I don’t know what he’s supposed to be but I don’t really care, he plays the part so well that it’s hard not to enjoy whatever the fuck this is. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted June 12 Paid Members Posted June 12 Turns out the first 30 minutes was the only part of the show that wasn't running against the Knicks game and they ran a fucking Jericho segment, unbelievable. If that was your first experience of AEW you'd think it was the crappest wrestling show of all time. Why not start with Swerve vs Brody...people might have stuck around! Then put Jericho on dead last when everyone has pissed off to bed. Totally dead show overall. Textbook AEW to follow an all timer PPV that feels like it could have been the start of real momentum then follow it up with nothing of note whatsoever. I'd also like to see face to face promos cut back by about 95%. Just the dullest, shittest way to do wrestling stories ever which has just been accepted as the norm because thats all the WWE have known how to book for 15 years. They are almost always fucking shit and take 20 minutes to do something that should take about 2 minutes. Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted June 12 Paid Members Posted June 12 Where is Takeshita? Has he appeared on Collision? Have I just forgotten any appearances on Dynamite? I feel like they’ve yet again followed up a huge pay per view moment for Takeshita by having him vanish into thin air. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted June 12 Paid Members Posted June 12 (edited) They absolutely love doing that for some reason. He turned up on Dynamite last week and got a huge pop so ofcourse he was not there this week. Edited June 12 by LaGoosh Quote
DavidB6937 Posted June 12 Posted June 12 I do think sometimes they have so many people that Tony just forgets everyone. But Takeshita has really suffered over the years from stop/start stuff so I hope they don't fuck that up again. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted June 12 Paid Members Posted June 12 29 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: I'd also like to see face to face promos cut back by about 95%. Just the dullest, shittest way to do wrestling stories ever which has just been accepted as the norm because thats all the WWE have known how to book for 15 years. They are almost always fucking shit and take 20 minutes to do something that should take about 2 minutes. It's a horrendous WWE trope, that for a while AEW was pretty good at subverting - the Eddie Kingston/CM Punk promos were electric because they were shouting over each other and actually arguing like human beings, rather than these two people who are supposed to hate each other taking it turns to say their little piece and each allowing their rival time to make their point. And that's one of the most frustrating things about AEW - they consistently show that they can be better, so it's more annoying when they're lazy. Just go back to basics. If you must have face-to-face promos in the ring, use Schiavone or Renee Paquette as Gene Okerlund to actually anchor the thing. Having someone at least trying to moderate it makes it feel more real, and less like the hokiest am dram stuff. 22 minutes ago, Supremo said: Where is Takeshita? Has he appeared on Collision? Have I just forgotten any appearances on Dynamite? I feel like they’ve yet again followed up a huge pay per view moment for Takeshita by having him vanish into thin air. He's been wrestling in Japan. So, fair enough, he's not in the country to appear on Dynamite. But they knew that already. They couldn't have filmed some pre-tapes with him, or shown some clips from Japan, or at least bothered telling us where he is? He's wrestling for NJPW, their partner promotion that they're about to run an interpromotional show with, it's not like they have to pretend it's not happening. At least they still had the Don Callis Family talk about Takeshita, after World's End neither he or Okada seemed to even exist for three weeks. Quote
Paid Members gmoney Posted June 12 Paid Members Posted June 12 5 minutes ago, BomberPat said: It's a horrendous WWE trope, Why is it a WWE trope, when it's been done in WWE, WCW, TNA, every promotion I can think of since the 90s? Quote
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