What did you think of AEW?

[nightshadea]

heres the rundown from the wwe thread :

@Knowed_Out

Broke down and got 2x or 0. Can’t watch it on Chrome, so I’m actually using Microsoft Edge for the first time.

@Knowed_Out

Jesus god, what’s with this atonal Partridge family knockoff opening the show?

They are definitely showing some growing pains here…

@Knowed_Out

That was an awesome 6-man refereed by the Ancient One Tilda Swenson. Christopher Danielson is a fucking genius, and glad to see he can still perform. The Oriental guys knew their shit.

Weird to hear Jim Ross get outmatched in wrestling history by the other announcers. They are true wrestling nerds.

@Smapti

Awesome Kong is in AEW!

@Knowed_Out

Awesome Kong makes a surprise entrance, then works about 10% of the match. Wasn’t the yellow-clad chick in the Mae Young classic and NXT for a cup of coffee?

Nice to hear commentary that doesn’t have Vince rewriting their words.

@Knowed_Out

I’m digging this so far. It’s not polished, but it’s more real. I like that it’s not sanitized for family viewing. Little things are different here and there, like an announcer that wears a mask and goes by an alias. He’s otherwise a regular announcer. No story behind it. Just kind of an eccentricity that doesn’t need to be explained.

@Smapti

Excalibur is one of the founders and owners of PWG, and he’s retired from wrestling, but he still wears his mask for wrestling appearances.

@Smapti

God damn that’s a lot of blood.

@Knowed_Out

Holy shit, the Rhodes brothers put on an epic!!!

It was the best of Dusty booking. Dustin was squirting blood like a supersoaker. It was like watching a trainwreck, seeing all the wrecked cars get back in line, and wreck again. I was real concerned for Dustin, working as long as he did with the constant blood loss. But fuck yeah, that was Dusty bleeding like a stuck pig when the Andersons turned on him in a cage match.

I do not regret buying this at all. This has already beat to oblivion any WWE PPV I’ve ever seen.

@LibSuperstar

Bret Hart presenting the AEW belt was a nice touch.

@Smapti

They did say it was “at the referee’s discretion”, like Lucha Underground did.

@Smapti

Overall, this was an amazing show. Great matches with great athleticism and storytelling, clean finishes, and satisfying finishes even when the winner wasn’t who I was rooting for.

If AEW can keep this up in future shows, then they’ll be the biggest competition WWE has had in 20 years.

@Smapti

It’s JON MOXLEY!

@Smapti

FU off the top of the stage!

What a way to end a show.

@Knowed_Out

Kind of an anticlimactic way to end the show, I was about to write, then Jon Moxley invaded.

I didn’t expect Jericho to win, but he somehow turned an underwhelming finish into establishing himself as top heel. It’s like what Baron Corbin’s been trying to do, and a master showing effortlessly how it’s done. Jericho might have put on a belly, but he was definitely edgier and unhinged without WWE controlling his reins. Kenny Omega could have been the John Cena of this fed, but AEW’s not trying to win over the kindergarten crowd.

WWE should worry.

@Smapti

Agreed. I don’t think they could’ve put on a better debut show. I was never once pissed off by a finish, or disappointed, or thinking “fuck this company”, or wondering what the hell the bookers saw in the people who were going over that I couldn’t.

If nothing else, then maybe this’ll light a fire under WWE’s butt and get them to stop with the slapdash booking, absence of continuity, endless talky segments and no-contests instead of actual wrestling, and the ongoing and baffling push of Baron Corbin as a top heel/person who appears if you step into an Applebee’s and demand to speak to the manager.