That’s what I was thinking. How are Natalya and Lucha House Party drafted, but not Bayley, Charlotte, Seth Rollins, et al. I know they want to give Raw some name-power drafts, but this just makes it look ridiculous. Vince can’t do worked “real”. I’m certain he’s over-riding Heyman on this. Heyman was always smarter than this.
I don’t mind Kofi dropping the belt to Brock Lesnar; that much was a foregone conclusion. But they could have put on a match that was actually pretty good. Lesnar has had great matches with AJ Styles, Seth Rollins, and Daniel Bryan, but they made Kofi Kingston look like a punk bitch. And this is not the first time he’s squashed Kofi, either. He did it a few years ago at a Japan show.
Yeah, don’t ever get attached to any of them. They’re going to be treated like dogshit somewhere down the line, and most likely it will be for impersonal business reasons. They wanted to promote Brock vs Cain Velasquez, and Kofi was irrelevant to those plans. He and New Day are going back to drawing in the kid audience.
Luke Harper is one of my faves, but as far he and WWE management goes, to paraphrase Lawler, “couldn’t get any warmth even if they were cremated together.” Hopefully after his time in contract limbo he’ll pop up in AEW.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Eric Bischoff out, Bruce Prichard in as SmackDown Executive Director (UPDATED)
In case you missed it (which I did), Wednesday Night Dynamite now has a companion series on YouTube, called AEW Dark. It debuts on Tuesday nights and features the matches that were taped before and after the previous week’s live show, and is hosted by Tony Schiavone from a set that looks like the one WWF used on their USA shows in the pre-Raw era.
The matches on this week’s episode are;
- “The Librarian” Tony Avalon vs. Kip Sabian vs. Sonny Kiss
- SoCal Uncensored & CIMA vs. the Dark Order, Angelico, & Jack Evans
- Lights-out match; Kenny Omega vs. Joey Janela
I am now a Marko Stunt mark.
He looks like he stopped growing at 12 yet he dances like a mayfly on lily pads.
Watching AEW for the first time tonight. Let’s see how this goes…
Oh mah fucking GAWD!!!
Darby Allin just worked a match with his hands taped behind his back. It looked scary painful. He is now my god.
2 1/2 years ago, I saw Darby Allin wrestle in an old ballroom outside downtown Seattle in front of 700 people against an Iron Sheik knockoff.
Tonight, he got to wrestle in front of 10,000 people and on worldwide TV, in a world championship match, against a guy who’s been a main-eventer since before he was born.
It’s amazing how quickly he’s come up in the business. He’s gotta be having the time of his life right now, and he’s definitely a future world champ.
Sometimes, wrestlers go through several stages of character development before they settle on something that really establishes their identity. Steve Austin and The Rock, for example. Darby Allin mastered that on his own and at a very young age compared to most. He’s an adrenaline junkie who combined skateboarders’ flirting with disaster and urban graffiti fatalism into an identity like no other in this business.
I predict he’s going to join the 27 Club.
The problem I have with that is that it was very impressive–and now why should I care about Orange Cassidy, whose primary wrestling gimmick is how well he can do wrestling things with his hands in his pockets?
I was definitely impressed with Darby Allen. He looked great in the match while also doing good things with his hands behind his back.
I thought the show itself was fine. I’m not a huge fan of JR’s commentary, but it’s absolutely refreshing to hear commentators that don’t rely on stupid gimmicks or heel/face dynamics. I absolutely hate everything WWE does with commentary.
If there’s one thing AEW really needs to improve on it’s their camera work. There were some great spots that were missed (one in one of the tag matches especially) because the camera wasn’t on the right person at the right time.
We’ll see if I have another Wed night open to watch it in the future.
Nitpick; he spells his name “Allin”, as a reference to the notorious punk singer GG Allin.
Why did Darby Allin have his hands tied behind his back? Did Jericho do that?
Anyone else listen to Jim Cornette let AEW have it with both barrels on his latest podcast?
It was a street fight. They whacked each other with kendo sticks, then Jericho brought out the duct tape while Darby was down and tied up his wrists. Darby could still duck clotheslines and climb the top turnbuckle and do martial arts kicks. He was about to do the Coffin Nail on Jericho when Hager came out and knocked him on side the head. Darby fell to the mat without having his hands to soften the landing. I was cringing the whole time.
Is it me, or does it seem to be fairly obvious on which segments that VKM is getting his hands on? I could be wrong; no wrestling writer is 100%, but Rusev v. Lashley is abysmal, and the handling of Rollins especially in his feud with The Fiend is killing both characters. I’m thinking that Rollins is on a slow heel turn, same way they handled Bayley (or is it Bailey, I forget) whose hell turn was well-plotted. So far, if I’m right, Rollins turn has been ham-fisted, to say the least.
Then you get the McIntyre v. Ricochet match setting up the Saudi show. Awesome match, way to bring back McIntyre and to let him get his heat back on Ricochet. An upper mid-card feud for those two, especially if you give it title shot implications, would be fantastic (see Lee v. Dijavokic). The AoP packages need a payoff soon. Good thing Hawkins/Ryder are still available to job. How about The Ascension? Which brand did they end up on (or were they completely forgotten?) Great packages building Buddy Murphy and Andrade, and good squash matches to help build all these poorly-booked workers.
As for the main event, my guess is we will find out that either KO or AJ weren’t cleared to wrestle, so that’s why it was changed to a straight tag team match. Pretty sure it had been advertised all along as a 6-man with a mystery partner. Feel bad for The OC, but if maybe, just maybe, they stop booking just 2 teams at a time, we can see top teams getting both wins and losses against other top teams, creating a scrum for the title shots.
anyone hear about the new japan of america thing happening?New Japan launches NJPW of America, announces more US expansion details - Cageside Seats
i say its about 30-40:years late …
people are debating if were going to get any of the japanese talent or just a bunch of guys from the indies …i think its going to be sort-of like an indie card with a couple of legend matches thrown in at first to get name recognition go8ng and then it gets more mixed as it gets more well known
I’m deactivating my WWE Network subscription for a month or two. It’s clear that they’re treading water creatively at this point, and I have no interest in watching Braun Strowman lay down for an anti-Semitic, homophobic non-wrestler who’s getting paid more in Saudi blood money than most wrestlers will see in their careers, nor the following PPV where the rosters have to all suddenly get along, ignoring their alignments and rivalries, so they can fight the other roster for “brand supremacy”, which (checks notes) means nothing. I’ll probably turn it back on in time for the Royal Rumble.
In better news, here’s the card for tomorrow’s episode of Dynamite;
- PAC vs. Jon Moxley
- Private Party vs. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix (tag team championship semi-final)
- SCU vs. the Dark Order (tag team championship semi-final)
- The Young Bucks vs. Best Friends
- Joey Janela vs. Jack Evans