WingedEagle

I know its apparently preordained that Swerve takes the title tonight, but Ospreay should really win it from a big time heel like Joe at Wembley.

Right? How do you not absolutely love and get drawn in by just how much much *he* loves every outing?

Here we fucking go!

Had Jericho lost I wouldn't have had any major objections to that match. Jericho took some sick, stupid bumps for a man his age and for no reason at all. But now this saga must continue to the delight of no one outside of those pulling the strings. Meanwhile, what exactly is it that Hook does other than look cool outside the ring? Dude seems like the stoner version of his dad who thinks he's the human suplex machine and indy Ken Shamrock, but nothing he does remsebles that.

Loved it as well but Wardlow's appearance and involvement brought it down for me. Between this and the Okada/Pac finish with the ref there's been some funkier finishes tonight than is typical for AEW.

Ha apparently I'm on an island here! Perhaps I'll check it out again tomorrow. Just didn't seem to grab me the way both of them typically do.

Am I the only one watching this and thinking something is off between Okada & Pac? The work is fine and both are seemingly doing their thing, but perhaps that's the problem. Okada has been his standard, slow build self while Pac's been looking to GO and as a result neither are really shining. Its been pretty good but pretty good feels like a massive disappointment relative to expectations.

Amen. Minus the fun part! Athena needs to make her way to AEW ASAP. Like before the pandemic ASAP. Every single thing she's done in ROH, from the killer matches, to the promos and squashes would fit into AEW's programming and be the best thing that happened to the division since Hayter was healthy and putting on big matches.

Have any wrestlers addressed any challenges in working with a mask as opposed to unmasked? I imagine those with larger eyelets aren't too difficult, but others seem like they'd severely hinder peripheral vision.

I saw it. Better than her usual fare but the character is simply a miss for me every time out. I don't need to watch her audition tapes for SNL. Hopefully this entire act is shelved if/when the Storm/May story wraps up.

These last few weeks are getting rough. TV matches generally (fortunately not always) seem shorter, workers like the Bucks are now cutting promos on the mic *during* their match and things like the 6 man titles / White/Gunn feud are getting multiple segments per show. What the hell is going on? The women have been an absolute mess. Toni Storm went from being one of the most charismatic and dynamic young women around to a channel changing/fast forward material "character" suffocating an entire division. Purrazzo came in and looked clunky from the jump rather. Couple that with being originally miscast as a babyface and now slow rolling towards a heel without any compelling motivation and you've got someone who's initial shine is quickly wearing off. Meanwhie Mone comes in and her runaway strength -- work -- is being leveraged by having her cut robotic promos while her first match is essentially 2 months after her debut? Some really puzzling decisions and priorities. I've got no doubt Dynasty will deliver in the ring because the PPVs always do. But outside of Joe's promos and a literal dream match in Ospreay/Danielson (which outside of the first, silent face to face they've done little to establish just what a bonkers match this is) they haven't given people much to sink their teeth into.

I'm actually kind of shocked they had Rhea vacate the title if there's actually a chance she's only out for ~3 months. You could easily smoke & mirrors your way through that without a proper defense.

Probably demanded some Affliction gear and Prime energy for a year.

With Tonga very clearly joining Bloodline Wolfpac, does that mean Jacob Fatu dons the black & white to balance things a bit?

Strapping up Mox certainly makes for a fun spring. Umino & Narita seem locked in for Dontaku & the May US show, and I imagine Mox will make a couple more appearances in Japan before presumably dropping it back to Naito at Dominion. Then we're right back where we are today while hoping some outsiders spruce up a rather bleak looking G1. Hope!

If Ospreay winning the title at Wembley is in fact the goal I think it would make a lot more sense to keep the title on Joe and let Ospreay conquer that massively over heel rather than put Swerve, the other babyface you're grooming, in that position where there's nothing he can do but play heel. But I'm just the schmuck here rather than the one running Wembley.

I assume Joe is dropping the title to Swerve this month but hope there are big, big plans for him thereafter. He's very much righted the ship of the title and establishing a serious, important tone for the show overall by virtue of his positioning and I'd hate to see that just disappear. At worst he could be used like an AEW Brock who's this incredible obstacle for anyone in a big setting, but his promos allow room for so much more.

Between the White/Gunn match/angle/nonsense that never ended and Willow/Mone running a pointless promo with their back to essentially a hometown crowd for both, someone roofied the last half hour of Dynamite.

Was Santo a mystery partner here or teasing whether he'd work rudo/tecnico before joining the fray?

Loved this! Taka slid right into Hayabusa's house style here mixing the flying and brawling while both hit just about everything flawlessly. Sleeze's comments about selling are more than fair although I don't think the leg work was so extensive as to be unforgivable that it didn't carry through the rest of the way. Someone said about Dandy/Black Warrior on this disc that you had to view it through a certain perspective to really appreciate it. I think that's a great point even if I'm not sure I agree -- but when I watch Hayabusa vs. Taka I want to see them go all out, try a bunch of ridiculous spots and hopefully hit more than they miss. I don't want them to tell a story on the mat. It just so happens that on this night they not only hit just about every spot but chained them together in a cohesive fashion and built a really great match in the process. ****

Did I miss a non-televised angle where Rock turned back babyface?

I wouldn't press the panic button for a long time. They're essentially rebuilding with a lot of new faces on top and shouldn't overreact to anything. But I still find this number disappointing.

Super disappointing rating at first glance. Yes, a big NBA night but this show had been hyped for weeks and presumably a sizeable audience knew what to expect. https://x.com/wrestlenomics/status/1768393297083445342?s=20

I'd have to think long and hard about how high to rank someone so young, but would likely end up going irrationally high on someone who's only turning 31 in a couple weeks. We're now at at over half a decade where he's arguably the best wrestler in the entire world. Top 10 sounds like something I'd potentially regret. But 20? 30? It'd seem silly to put him any lower given everything he's already done. EDIT: Ha! Just realized I expressed the same thought 6 months back. Certainly no less conviction today.

*All* of this. Blind ignorance here is almost nearly impossible to fathom and I'm comfortable saying impossible given some of Kelly's activity online in recent years. There's only so far you can bend trying to give someone the benefit of the doubt before you end up looking beyond silly. Some things are just simple.