El-P

I'm an atheist. So, Mauro as a good announcer actually doesn't exist.

Edit : (sorry, I first replied in a serious manner !)

She's truly a repulsive human being, with no conscience whatsoever. She looks the part too on that Twitter pic.

Since I was intrigued by WALTER vs Kushida, I watched a bunch of matches from NXT. It's hard. After ten minutes of hearing Mauro, I'm nearly in a panic attack mode. Really enjoyed Gulak vs Rush. Both look really strong workers. Isaiah "Swerve" Scott is a terrible, terrible name, especially when your real name is Shane Strickland. That being said, The Messiah of Backbreakers from the Undisputed Era just makes me lose IQ points every time either of these names are mentionned. This match is the picture perfect illustration of why I don't care about WWE style. I've seen Strickland have some terrific brawl in LU and interesting, solid matches in MLW. This was neither. A bunch of cool moves without any kind of story, and not very exciting either. Mauro dropping the most useless Nick Cave reference (Red Right Hand WHY THE FUCK ? THE GUY DOESN'T EVEN WEAR WHITE NOTHING ON HIS WRISTS OR HAND YOU DUMB FUCK !!!!) in history is exactly why this guy makes me want to slap the fuck out of him. And really, no 50 years old nerdy white guy should try to drop hip-hop reference in a "check my street cred" way. I like Bianca Belair. Match wasn't good. WALTER vs .... "In the name of MF DOOM" OH SHUT THE FUCK UP !!!!! WHERE IS JBL WHEN YOU NEED HIM !!! Seriously, Mauro is unbearable. After watching three matches, I was only wishing to stop watching this. So honestly I did not enjoy this match as much as I should. It was really good. It would have been a hundred times better in Japan with Kevin Kelly calling the match. Honestly, I pretty much muted the match. Mauro is worst than Mark Madden in term of making me want to NOT WATCH a match. Seriously. I'm not touching any NXT anymore, it's just bad for my nerves.

Because they need yet another hot looking blonde in their roster… Hope for her she gets a good deal and doesn't get too wasted. I have no faith that they will get her character though, none at all. IMPACT fucked up so bad with her and Kross.

The issue with women is that so many of the best, including from Japan, are signed with WWE already (we need more of that girl who looked awesome at the last PPV and whose name I don't remember… That Cool Japanese Girl…). Riho is an experiment, maybe she can draw teenage girls. I see potential in Baker, but she's still a work in progress too, like Rose (who impressed me quite a bit last week). In term of being a strong character, Allie should be the centerfold of the division right now. She can be a lovable, kinda loony babyface, and she can turn the switch and go batshit insane, so both ways work. Brandi is a great promo and a great manager… Of course, Awesome Kong should do cameos and kill someone from time to time. Are we gonna get a match with Aja ? Since they are working with AAA, they should try to get Ayako Hamada or Fabi Apache, who are terrific veterans. No idea how cool ruda like La Hiedra or Lady Maravilla could get over, but it would be interesting to see them here. IMPACT has THE two girls AEW would want in term of star power, character and work : Taya Walkyrie and of course Tessa Blanchard. And there's Scarlett Bordeaux who's a free agent and who hopefully will show up one day with her boyfriend, now that would be an awesome surprise on TV.

It's safe to say after only two weeks, throwing NXT against AEW was a bad idea. And it really appears to be unfair to the NXT talents to me. For now, it seems they are led to the slaughterhouse for no good reason. NXT, which used to be the cool and fresh brand of WWE, now comes off uncool, yesterday's news and low-rent compared to the AEW show. Even worse, NXT is now the first WWE branded show that is a loser against any competition since the glory days of Nitro. What do you think the perception will be now when some of those guys are gonna "graduate" to the main roster ? It's not like most of the NXT talent has been used properly there anyway, but at least the perception was these were the exciting cool guys, even if they weren't treated as such by the office. Now, they are the losing crew. You think Vince is gonna push hard for those people who are losing the ratings war against that pissant company ? Of course there's the idea that NXT is its own brand and that these guys won't be called up as much as before, but then again, what does that mean for their financial status ? Stuck with NXT contracts forever ?

Except there isn't. SCU were barely involved this week and the show was better. So, "there's an inverse relationship between SCU's involvement and the quality of the show." See. Works too. Hell, Allie hasn't been on Dynamite yet. "There's an inverse relationship between Allie's involvement and the quality of the show." Confirmation bias at work.

Nick Aldis is absolutely cosplaying (does an awesome job at it). The rest of the cast, not so much (well, except Eli Drake, but in another way). I would watch a Nick Aldis vs Eddie Kingston feud, if only because the promos would be terrific. I'm not such a fan of Aldis once the bell rings though, he reminds me of Jeff Jarrett in WCW in 99/00 (minus the Russoiffic booking of course) : dated style, unexciting, feels way forced for a main event worker. The best match I've ever seen from him was against Cody at All In and it was because of the tons of smokes and mirrors (which kinda fits the Jarrett 99/00 analogy).

Apparently, that match was insane. I'm hyped as all hell for this one.

Odds of Sofia showing her face at The Crash anniversary show ? That would be quite the earthquake.

Like I said before, loving this format of shooting the shit in hotel rooms and telling stories of the road. Talk about cool look behind the scene and getting another way to connect with these guys. Of course, only the hardcores are gonna do it, but that's the point. Really funny story about the Nzo fight and not so funny story about the Cass incident too. Joey

Point taken. Let's say that he working with Okada drew more in the Tokyo Dome than it's been the case in eons, which is an accomplishment in itself.

This. I feel JR is talking too much over the other two. Tony is doing a masterful job pointing out details in characters, matches and angles to put the whole thing over. I can't believe it's 2019 and Tony Schiavone is back in the saddle in a hot new promotion and sounds like the great announcer he used to be. I wish they had someone like Don Callis. A bit heelish but not too much, with a good sense of wit. That's the only thing missing thus far.

I'm not gonna pile up on what's already been said. I loved the show. After two weeks of TV, AEW becomes officially my favourite promotion today. Every segment makes you forget about the previous one because of how good it is. Its flows so easily, there's no dead time, no piss-break match. Love the way things are building with simple logic. Love the fact they aren't afraid of pushing guys in the 20's at the same time as featuring great veterans in their late 40's in the same match, as showed by the main event. When you see Dustin there and really think about how much he could have contributed in WWE but "he too old", it's crazy. So, they are even getting the best use of Jake Hager thus far. Jericho killed it on the mic. I'm stoked about the fact Emi Sakura of FMW fame (to me) was on my TV ruling it hard. Dr. Baker is slowly growing on me, I like the non-ironic dentist submission hold. Tully is crazy good as a manager (surprise surprise). Mox debut was excellent, I thought Spears really was game. What else, oh, yeah, that crazy ass opening tag match with the upset of the year. Again, not afraid to push young talent. That multiple diving sequence was bonkers. The Bucks are the new MX, oh, the irony. Jimmy Havoc in a straight wrestling match >>>> Jimmy Havoc doing comedy garbage in MLW. Darby Allin is gonna be a huge star, he's got unlimited potential. Kenny Omega channeling his inner Mick Foley was quite interesting, a hardcore brawl against Mox would be insane. The ending angle reminded me of those super hot Nitro endings when the show was still fresh and new. I won't lie, I marked the hell out. I must admit, not a huge fan of JR's work thus far (well, I never was). I would be quite happy with just Excalibur and Schiavone (who is really, really good here). Also, when I hear Inner Circle, I think about black metal dudes shooting the shit in Helvetes, burning wood churches and eventaully Varg stabbing Euronymous 36 times in self-defense, but that's just me. It's a cool name for a heel faction. Yeah, at this point, just call me a AEW mark like I was an ECW, ARSION and Lucha Underground mark. I don't mind at all.

Except Youtube numbers really don't mean that much. MLW are actually selling tickets to actual events and apparently are doing pretty well. They also are on TV. So yeah, this first show did extraordinary well, all things considered. But it's way too soon to draw any conclusions.

The first show of everything always does better. Let's see where they are in 6 months. First Season of Lucha Underground was hyped as fuck. By S3, no one but me was watching, it seems.

Yeah, which is incredibly hypocritical coming from the guy who managed Bobby Eaton and worked with Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson for the entire peak of his career. Cornette also thought Matt Morgan should be pushed as a star because he was tall and had a good body... For all the great knowledge Corny has about pro-wrestling, his views have been incredibly dated and out of touch forever by now because he's also got a terrible biased view of everything. The fact he still refers to Kenny Omega as "the geek for worked with a 9 year old girl" and not the guy who was an active part of NJPW getting really hot in the last few years and sold out the Tokyo Dome is embarrassing coming from an historian like himself. He's still an asset as an announcer (he's easily one of the best to this day) or a performer (could still out-promo 99% of the guys today) and probably a detail guy backstage, as he was in TNA in the mid 00's. It's too bad he's as biased as he is, because he could actually be awesome in AEW. It's interesting to see old-school guys like Schiavone have a much more open mind (and I don't mean just because he works with AEW, the fact he had so much fun during those ECW watch-alongs before he ever got back into the field is telling).

While Eli Drake, THE Austin/Rock cosplayer of all cosplayers, was in the ring. Which is another reason why it cracked me up. But anyway, since the Callihan debacle, Corny has lost a whole lot of credit with me (and that's a big, long time fan speaking), so I just laugh at the stuff he says now. He's still great on announcing, so there's that.

Yeah, but it's good to polarize everything and ignore pretty much the points people are making. At this point I'm just repeating myself : although I don't care for that stuff, I thought they deserves a A+ for their presentation. I just pointed out how silly Corny's comments came off. Maybe Corny himself doesn't understand the sens of cosplaying though. Well, he probably doesn't, actually, so there... As far as nostalgia goes, it is proven it works on short burst for WWE. An entire company built on cosplaying (sorry, but there's no other word, SMW was much more "contemporary" in the 90's than this) 70's/80's NWA presentation, it's anyone's guess.

I enjoyed it tremendously. Exactly why a B show should be, a bunch of good and dynamic TV matches thrown together. Loved the six-men, SCU are a great base for everyone in this company to have a very good match; CIMA vs Allin was quite the solid affair and Allin definitely looks like someone with tons of star potential; I also thought Allie finally showed a bit of what she could do in that match and kinda stole the show. Ford is green, but she can do those cool spots which is what is gonna get her over since they won't do crazy intergender stuff she was so good at on the indies. This is so cool to have that stuff simply on Youtube every week.

From most of the replies here, the only curse is actually shitty workers and shitty bookers who don't understand what made great wrestlers great.

Got the exact same feeling. Also, considering the amount of discussion it is getting and the fact a lot of posters seem to really enjoy the show, it should probably get its own thread. Can a mod move the entire stuff from the first post to its own thread ?

This and this. Even I who *did not* enjoy the show very much, said that for what they are trying to do, it was excellently done.

The ENTIRE set up is cosplaying the 80's presentation of NWA studio wrestling. The logos, the furniture, the credit (Dokken, for fuck's sake), the fonts. Plus, it's not old-school at all. It's retro, which is very different. Studio wrestling was an advertisement for house shows. This is a show cosplaying the whole presentation of studio wrestling of the 80's but in essence is just a contemporary show in that it's shown on Youtube for its own value : it has nothing to sell apart from it own self, which is not old-school at all. The aesthetic presentation is a total cosplay. Nick Aldis is totally cosplaying Ric Flair, in that he's replicating the form but in reality doesn't tour territories and pack houses defending a prestigious title. In a way, it's the most pretend pro-wrestling show of all, even faker than the stupidest Joey Ryan dick spot, because it is aesthetically trying to reach to a form that's dead for pure retromaniac pleasure. Lucha Underground was pretty much studio wrestling in its most contemporary, even futuristic form. This is retromania. Why not. It's very well done. I personally don't care for it because I don't care one bit for nostalgia and can't stand people blabbing about them good ol' days in general (in pro-wrestling or otherwise). But yeah, Corny is the one talking about "cosplayers" (and you know he's talking about those guys he hates who are all packing houses and doing ratings on TNT), which is the ultimate irony considering the entire show looks like a Truman Show of sorts where he's locked into his little world, protected from the Joey Ryan's, the Young Buck's and the Kenny Omega's of the world. So, nothing against the show itself, as I said I find it half-cool (as a one shot special from a regular promotion it would be an awesome idea) half-sad (because I find nostalgia to be a sad thing). But Corny saying stupid shit is triggering a fact check and a big laugh at his face when he drops the "cosplay" argument while sitting on a desk that looks like something straight out of some TBS broadcast in the mid-80's.