AEW 2022: The year of the bloody bunny

the ROH acquisition opens so many doors. I hope TK doesn't try to do everything himself booking both companies and burn out. for all that "AEW has too many wrestlers" has been a tedious concern-troll talking point for the worst element for the last year or so, it is also basically true.

there's massive scope to run ROH as a totally separate enterprise where ppl who aren't getting sufficient ring/tv time on AEW can go to develop and get exposure to live crowds. it would be a big mistake to fold it into the Dynamite/Rampage/Dark/Elevation framework imo. keep it as a completely separate crew, hire a third party to book the shows (or send Daniels or someone) to ensure it keeps its own tone.

But there's just so many people who would benefit. Emi Sakura weirdly was one of the first I thought of. She's amazing but evidently she's not gonna be pushed on AEW tv. she has spoken about being bummed out that she only gets on the Youtube shows and how she came to UUS to be a featured wrestler rather than a trainer / enhancement talent. She could have an amazing run as a dominant heel champ doing her "queen" gimmick with lesser known / less experienced opponents and a stable around her in that sort of environment.

sorry for descending into fantasy booking which is always the lamest, but as a business move this does kinda invite it.

there is an opportunity here to use ROH to make good use of veteran talents who are under-utlised on AEW tv, to give great exposure and training to young prospects they want to work out on AEW tv, to get ppl over with the hardcore audience who could then be brought in "hot", as opposed to simply giving someone a 10 match winning streak on the Youtube shows. it's got the potential to be fucking amazing. and at this stage i trust TK to see all of this and to deliver. a very exciting move.

also the good will AEW has built up now is enormous, if ROH is relaunched and presented as an AEW adjacent show with wrestlers you also see on AEW tv, only it's less featured wreatlers having proper matches and feuds, it will absolutely take off relative to where it was

ROH would be a great place for her to shine, where they would (hopefully) treat her like a big deal. Sumie Sakai was the women's world champion in her late 40's and more or less was still considered to be a cornerstone of the women's division in ROH. I think ROH had a good balance with treating the joshi wrestlers that came/were featured with a respect different from the sort of novelty that they were treated with in AEW, where the initial excitement was high, but the follow through with pushes just went nowhere, even for those who re-located to be part of the program.

i think they were in a tight spot with the joshi stuff tbf. it's not like they were pure novelty. Riho was the first women's champ, Shida had more than a year with the belt.

there was a sense early on that they could consistently run the kind of 6-man-tag they had on the first Double or Nothing and use their joshi talent the way WCW used to use the cruiserweights but they quickly focused on building the (Western) core of their women's division, which tbh I think was probably the right thing to do, because there were simply no names at all in that division in the early period.

unfortunately they only have so much tv time, and i'm not sure anyone who got excited about the potential of the TJPW link with Kenny in those early days in 2019 appreciated that within 3 years the competition for airtime would be quite so fierce. i'm not even talking about the men's division with Danielson, Punk etc. there - how do you justify not giving Serena Deeb and Thunder Rosa frequent tv time at this point?

tbh i wouldn't be averse to a few more angles and built matches on the Youtube shows, but i'm really hoping they use ROH in that way soon

hey y'all this is the best rampage since punk debuted

I’ve been under the weather this week, making me need to nap midday and inevitably wake up for hours in the middle of the night. Up until today, it’s felt like hell, just wishing my eyes would close and to wish the night could disappear. But when I woke from my nap today, I thought, fuck yeah, this means I get to wake up at about 3.30, just in time for pirates to have the start of Revolution available to stream. And now my illness feels like a blessing, and I’m really excited for it!

It’s like 5.99 to get the FITE tv subscription in the uk, sign up or be cursed

I’ve gotta leave for work at 7 am so there is literally no chance I’m staying up for this. Should be finished by 4 though so I can just roll into bed when I get home and wallow in rasslin nirvana.

Excited for everything but I think the dog collar match will be special. Danielson / Mox should be brutal as fuck and shouldn’t go longer than 12 mins imo

Just realised that you don’t get ppvs with your FITE subscription, otoh buy this show or be cursed

Show is so stacked I’m not gonna be even slightly tempted to ice it so I can play Elden Ring

happy revolution everyone

I’m currently so poor that I can’t afford my own rent and I’m having to put my business into insolvency, so I’m already cursed.

what a show

punk/mjf best rivalry ever

obv i was very disappointed about one match but i have hopes that storyline will resolve later down the line

still fondly remembering the most creative ladder match of all time

I didn't get a chance to fully watch this, yet (my BR stream was AWFUL), but MAN, what a card. A good balance of the nostalgia pop and the new. Genuinely surprised by a few outcomes. I really thought certain matches were going to have different outcomes, but I'm hoping that the storytelling behind it pays off later. It took me a while to get used to that long, long-term booking of NJPW, so maybe Uncle Tony's got some of that same idea here.

Sorry to hear about your troubles ahoyhoy and I hope you enjoyed this very lovely wrestling show

The whole thing rocked.

Punk/MJF feud has been a total masterclass. An all timer. And now Wardlow is primed to explode. He’ll keep heating up through the MJF programme. They just need to work out what he does next

Danielson / Moxley post-match was beyond my wildest fantasy booking dreams. Absolute unwavering faith in all three of those guys. Doesn’t necessarily feel like a long term project but even with a 9 month run this could be one of the great stables

Watched Rampage and now starting Revolution.

The 3 way was lightning quick. Andre needs to work his character more but he's near perfect in the ring. Whatever happened to Chavo? The CMPunk bloody promo was icing on the best-feud-ever cake.

Jericho and Kingston was a FIGHT. I haven't enjoyed something involving Jericho that much in years. He looks in great shape too.

This tag team match is incredible too. 5 star stuff. Luchasaurus has become the best hot tag. He's perfect here but I kinda wish he's join Regal-BD-Mox's violence club. Holy shit at this match, like a million great things have happened while ive been typing.

The ladder match was really fun. I liked Wardlow and Hobbs pulling one apart. They need to get rid of the piles cushion sonic ring though. It looks so dumb. Excited for Wardlow as Diesel in 94.

the sonic ring was perfect imo bc that ladder match looked like a video game

Had to stop for work, now back to it. The dog collar match was perfect. Really brutal stuff. I liked them keeping it simple and using the ring ropes and posts for leverage. Wardlow is a star but I hope someone tells him to stop dressing like Finlay.

Might skip the Baker Rosa match. Really not feeling the feud and heard it was a bit of a stinker.

:|

wrestling fans get what they deserve when they skip women's matches just sayin

i also thought the match was good and everyone saying it sucked has been an asshole about it

also idk the feud is the most interesting storyline the women's division has had, i'm not really sure why everyone is turning on it

tbf it's getting to the point where the less i know of what other wrestling fans think of wrestling, the better

motherfuckers are so quick to call a whole match a dud when they don't like the finish :)

Ok I’ll give it a go.

i will cop to criticisms of the build, the booking has been awkward, but i chalk that up at least partially to how little airtime women have in aew to really shape their stories. i am also deeply invested in rosa taking the belt and khan's got me stressed out about it (remember when page/dark order lost the match so that he could go on parental leave? getting those feelings again lol)

but if this is building toward a huge match in san antonio then i can respect the ride

Yeah wrestling fans as a species have a real problem with playing out match results in their head and then throwing their toys out of the pram if there is any deviation from that.

Must admit that I didn’t particularly enjoy the Baker / Rosa match, too many interference spots to really be enjoyable in a difficult spot on the card, and I do basically agree with the nerds that this Baker title run has gone on waaaay too long now. Idk why people are crying about it so much though, it’s perfectly obvious where this is going.

TK still needs to work on giving the women’s roster generally more interesting storylines and angles I think

On that though - the rate at which Jade Cargill is putting it all together is completely thrilling, she is going to a HUGE deal

it's nice that i rarely have to wince through jade matches anymore

i sort of agree about the interference spots, when that started my brain immediately knew rosa was losing, but i think rosa and baker have such great ring chemistry, i was glued to every shift in the match. crowd was dead though (i think this also unduly influences whether wrestling fans think a match sucks)

also, again, i'm hugely invested, so of course i was glued to the match. but i also think.... the way women's wrestling is viewed by fans is so fucking distorted and the deck is so stacked against the wrestlers themselves that i sometimes wonder how the lights out match would've gone over with a crowd present

I would like to say it isn't because its a womens match that I wasn't interested. I loved the Jade squash. But I also don't particularly care for the title match with Adam Cole. I have a bit of a time limit before I have to go out and knew I'd have to skip out on 1 or 2 matches. I think going back to this, I'm gonna have to skip the tnt guys match. Might actually just stop before that and the title match and get them later in the week.

The crowd is absolutely dead but you can tell they are really trying to get it going. You can hear Rebel trying to get chants going to silence and its really awkward. Whatever went after Punk-MJF was going to suffer, it should have been the main event.

Crowd reaction definitely make or break for a lot of fans. This usually plays in AEW’s favour compared to modern WWE cause for the big shows at least the fanbase is absolutely rabid.

But no crowd is going to sustain the heat across 5 hours of wrestling (I actually thought this lot did themselves proud by being as up for the main event as they were). They need to give some thought to breaking these shows out over two nights if they want to keep putting 13 or 14 match cards on. WWE used to do one night shows like that back in the 80s but the matches weee only 3-10 minutes long each back then.


Also ahoyhoy you are soooooo wrong about Wardlow’s gear, the low cut singlet accentuates his magnificent muscle tits beautifully.

Intrigued to see what they can do with him now - he feels so much more WWE than AEW, he’s got that Batista vibe, but it has never done a wrestling company any harm at all to have a gigantic handsome muscle monster with the fans behind him, I think they need to seriously consider giving him a concerted push now rather than cooling him off after the MJF feud

yeah i wasn't trying to insinuate anything about your priorities a hoy hoy xp

By which I mean heat it up some more for a few months and then give the War Dog a title run xp

I just dont like the irish green. His beautiful boobies do need to be on show, you are right. He's got such potential to be a mega star. Supposedly he has a lot more experience from the indies than his squash matches let on to, so if matches get longer and need more story, he really might be ready.

Ooof. They actually were getting into it and pulled the crowd into it! I think you are right Brad about the finish. It does seem both like the Hangman-DO loss and like we should trust them to have a killer cage match next time. They do need to heat Rosa up though, maybe have her totally wreck Hayter and Rebel on Dynamite. Glad I took your advice and watched it, but also think the criticisms are valid and not just people being weird about womens wrestling. They need more TV time and to use it wisely. Like after watching that whole match, I just remembered BB's 'sensei' that turned up for 2 weeks and wasn't here or mentioned by the commentators. What was the point of that?

A really beautiful belt.

One of my least favourite wrestling tropes is babyfaces being left alone to have a group of heels make them look stupid. I feel like it took them a million years to figure out that the Usos or Ambrose could possibly run in to help Reigns. Cena would supposedly be mates with someone like Zach Ryder and happily sit in catering instead of helping him get obliterated by Kane. Hasn't Rosa spent weeks earning Martinez's respect, teamed with her on Dynamite etc. only to be left alone to be played by the DMD crew? Outsmarted by Rebel isn't a good look for a babyface.

I just remembered BB's 'sensei' that turned up for 2 weeks

cobra kai cross-promotion, also it was only the one week iirc

also yeah i'm being extremely defensive here.... hoping for more over the next two weeks

also i'm so glad they changed the women's belt, i was just thinking the old one looked... not good next to the world champ/tnt/tbs belts

Ah ok. I've never watched Cobra Kai and presume I missed a concise Excalibur explanation.

Has Tony Khan all but confirmed that a trios belt is coming? Feel like I remember this from somewhere but possibly I daydreamed it?

I have most certainly daydreamed about a tournament with Omega and the bucks, Cole and redragon, Mox/Danielson/a.n.other (make it claudio to complete the Regal connection ffs!), house of black, death triangle, Jurassic express and Christian, sting/punk/Darby, dark order, MJF and FTR, team taz, Eddie and P&P, Garcia and 2.0, a million others who I’ve forgotten

Surely they’ve gotta go down this route now?!

The last time WWE felt like it was worth watching was when they were running Shield and Wyatt Family 6 mans, it’s impossible to fuck up 6 man tags

i heard from somewhere myself that tk is considering adding a trios belt when omega returns

Yeah that’s the rumour, with the Elite spinning their wheels up until they can split Omega and the Bucks/Cole and red dragon

Trios belt would be great and especially if they start to incorporate more ROH guys, it would work well. ROH had the 6-man tag belts for a while. NJPW has the NEVER Openweight 6-man tags as well, and there are so many good trios to be able to do it, especially if they allow it to be intergender, like how it was in Lucha Underground. I wouldn't mind seeing Ivelisse team back up with Angelico (and Jack Evans), and go after a trios title.

The thing that I think most people hold against the women's match is the finish, which was the most surprising outcome to me from the whole show. Thunder Rosa felt like the opponent most primed and ready to finally end Britt Baker's streak. Nobody else really feels as close, but I guess it's good that there's some time for that build.

It’s been quite a few hours out but I’ve gone back to the show. This match, Danielson v Mox, could have been a WM main event and the crowd is possibly as silent as the womens title. They are throwing everything at each other and people barely give a fuck. Only when someone jumps through the ropes or something do you hear a reaction. Really puts the reaction to the womens title match in perspective. The dog collar has killed the heat for both of these.

Also in watching these guys, it is so noticeable the face/heel divide. If they become a tag team, I want 100% sting/Luger baby face friends with a heel storyline.

When was the last time someone did a move off the top rope, like a super plex or their avalanche finisher etc and actually got a three count?

Seeing Mox thrown off the top to a 2 count must have been like the 7th time tonight