Merzbow Posted July 29 Posted July 29 (edited) Tony Schiavone is starting to really grate on me recently, I feel like he's slowly become a bit of a parody of himself and lately he keeps doing this thing where he's praising heel tactics and you can tell it's off as no one else acknowledges he even said anything. Oh and the PPV... I turned off when Foley was getting his kinks out on camera, I'll watch the rest later but its been a pretty boring show. Edited July 29 by Merzbow Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 I still love Tony when he gets genuinely enthusiastic about wrestling, but he definitely seems to have lost a step lately. I think part of it is that Taz has leaned much heavier into heel commentary since returning, and I don't think he needs to, and it creates this weird dynamic where Taz will praise someone cheating and Schiavone just agrees with him. It's probably better that way than having forced bickering between commentators about it. Watched Willow vs. Thekla last night, really enjoyed it, just the main event to go now. I hope they have something in mind for Thekla at All In, because she deserves a big match for the run she's been on. I'm curious what the plan was before Willow got hurt - I assume she would have won the Owen, and Mercedes would have beaten Thekla for the Women's Title instead, to still get to Willow vs. Mercedes, but as a double title match. It's a shame, because as much as I love Willow and her and Mercedes probably is the bigger match, I think audiences are ready to start getting behind Thekla, and I'd be fascinated by what a babyface Thekla vs heel Mercedes match would have looked like. Quote
Paid Members gmoney Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 The commentary was more grating on this show than usual. Excalibur is usually fine unless he's trying to sell a big moment, but in the ladder match he said something like "no competitor has brought a ladder into play yet" as the fucking bell rang. Quote
Paid Members Callum1993 Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 The commentary at the end of the main event with Omega attacking Ospreay was dreadful too. I think they could do with reviewing the commentary line up and refreshing it. Quote
Paid Members gmoney Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 Wouldn't complain if Ian Riccaboni replaced Excalibur as the main announcer. Quote
Paid Members Lorne Malvo Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 Haven't watched this show yet (I'm about 4 months behind) but agreed that the general commentary in AEW is pretty poor. Excalibur is the best of a pretty bad bunch, at the very least he's usually accurate and knowledgable but in the past year loads of mistakes keep creeping into his work. It's obvious he could do with a bit of a break. Taz was a breath of fresh air when he first joined but it seems like he's coasting on his AEW Dark/'jones' reputation now. I know he's well loved on here but Schiavone has been shit for a good few years now, especially on Collision where as lead play-by-play guy he's pretty useless. And McGuinness can vary from pretty good to absolutely awful from sentence to sentence, there's no consistency with him at all. I don't know who you replace them with though as Riccaboni and Caprice are pretty bad too. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 I'm a big fan of Ian Riccaboni, but I don't think he's quite there as a leader announcer. Excalibur has the tough job of having to run down all the upcoming cards, plug all the sponsors, all the business end of commentary, and I think he does a fantastic job considering. I don't think there's a better play-by-play guy, consistently, in the business than him, but he's never been good at selling the import or gravitas of a big moment. Tony Schiavone, conversely, has a tendency to go too big too early, and there's been a lot of "this is the damnedest thing I've ever seen!" creeping in lately, which is downstream of "greatest night in the history of our sport" in terms of Schiavone hyperbole. Nigel McGuinness has his moments, but what grates on me is how obvious and overlong a lot of his comedy bits are, you can hear his tone change when he's clearly reading a gag from his notes. I still think Excalibur/Tony/Taz is the best combination they have, though I wouldn't be adverse to Schiavone being rotated in and out a bit more, similar to how they swap out Nigel McGuinness for Taz halfway through a pay-per-view. Tony's pushing 70, it's not unreasonable to suggest he's probably not up for calling a five hour wrestling show every month on top of three or four hours of TV and everything else he does. Quote
RedTwoster Posted July 29 Posted July 29 I think they'd benefit from adding a few new names to the rotation commentary table. Veda Scott seems solid from what I've heard, and Nyla Rose is really good on commentary for Mystery Wrestling - she's getting paid anyway, so why not use her in this role for AEW? If it means he wrestles less, I'd be absolutely fine with Chris Jericho making the occasional appearance on the announce desk too. Quote
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 3 hours ago, Ralphy said: take a leaf out of wwe book They should never take a leaf out of WWE's book. If there's stuff people like about WWE, just watch WWE. It's underrated just how good of a job AEW have done to establish themselves as a national wrestling company, at a point where 99% of US wrestling was monopolised, and establish an outstanding TV and PPV model. I think this PPV was unnecessary, in the grand scheme of things, and that's why it's fallen flat. But even then, it had plenty of storyline progression, title changes and very good matches. It's utter madness that there are ten times more posts panning this than the embarrassing ShatGPT rubbish on the other channel. I know that's because hardly anyone, except psychopaths. watch the other channel but still. Madness. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted July 29 Posted July 29 2 hours ago, Ralphy said: As in attending or watch on TV? You can answer this because of the amazing mania trip you did 😊 For me - both. It certainly dilutes everything. Looking objectively, a lot of WWE 2 nighters would be pretty solid 1 nighters if they took all the filler out. It's just greed, not necessity. It never benefits anything other than their bank accounts. Quote
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 1 hour ago, gmoney said: Wouldn't complain if Ian Riccaboni replaced Excalibur as the main announcer. Ex is leagues ahead. As an anchor, on PBP, on giving anything importance, he's the best there's been since JR. I think the issue has always been the direction he's given to ensure the right stuff is sold properly, breathes and then isn't forgotten. Given they employee JR, who could coach that, it's a bit unforgivable. Quote
Paid Members Lorne Malvo Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 (edited) 16 minutes ago, tiger_rick said: It's utter madness that there are ten times more posts panning this than the embarrassing ShatGPT rubbish on the other channel. I know that's because hardly anyone, except psychopaths. watch the other channel but still. Madness. I've mentioned this a few times in the past but the standards each company are held to are wildly different, it's infuriating. WWE can shit out the most awful wrestling show going with one half-decent Solo Sikoa moment, and 99% of the discourse will be on that moment. AEW can put on a strong show with one botched moment and absolutely every rent-a-gobshite podcast/video/etc will focus on that. Also, generalising massively here* but AEW fans seem to have a mindset of 'we want this company to be the absolute best it can be' which is why so many people get frustrated with booking/PPV length etc. WWE fans have more of a 'haha at least we're not AEW' mindset and will happily sit through any old shit. *AEW does have it's fair share of 'everything about this company is perfect' fans to be fair - like I say I'm generalising, and maybe reading a bit too much into terminally online WWE Facebook accounts. Edited July 29 by Lorne Malvo Quote
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted July 29 Paid Members Posted July 29 6 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said: *AEW does have it's fair share of 'everything about this company is perfect' fans to be fair - like I say I'm generalising, and maybe reading a bit too much into terminally online WWE Facebook accounts. Fandom of absolutely everything these days has these people. It's the social reaction age. Football seems to be the alternative, where being a reactionary, negative idiot is where the money is because you've hundreds of fanbases that will share your content, not just one. AEW "sickos" or whatever they're categorised as do still seem to get more grief for it. I can only put that down to people who grew up with the monopoly and think that's how wrestling should be and wish for it's return. They'd probably crowdfund HHH a tank. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted July 29 Posted July 29 It's why I mostly use news sites, digest what I want, and just come on here. No interest in Facebook groups/pages/X or whatever. It's full of over the top reactions, so much bias, and too many stupid arguments and people more determined to points score off each other than actually enjoy the shows they're watching. I gave up trying to understand any of them a long time ago. It just seems to be how they digest these things now and part of why they "enjoy" it. It's all exhausting really. Quote
Chili Posted July 29 Posted July 29 I like the stupidly long but not Wrestlemania 35 was half as long as Live Aid PPV's. But I hardly ever watch live anymore so it's purely selfish that I like the big ridiculous 5 hour AEW shows. You've got more chance of the women headlining than the shows suddenly getting shorter, I genuinely think it's a minority complaint. I've made this stupidly shit Brentien esq comparison before but WWE PLE now are nouvelle cuisine, you get less than what you got prior and it costs MORE somehow with AEW being essentially a stodgy takeaway pizza you need to finish the next day. To give another bullshit comparison. WWE are like when you hold a Mars Bar or a Marathon and say to yourself, I swear you paid less and they were bigger in 1989. I think I have heat stroke. Have a good day everyone. Quote
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