Matt D

This week must have been a massive relief to Koon.

Dark was a lot of fun with a really hot crowd. Here's my thoughts from last night:

The Freebirds popped his tires.

This is what I led with: And i ended with the notion that he should be trying to get Regal to talk about anyone and anything BUT himself.

I had a back and forth on DVDVR on the pod as I feel for Koon about more than the meandering. This is kind of where I ended up (but i insulted Abrahantes along the way if anyone needs me to go back and pull that too):

I was hoping we got to the Dangerous Alliance year at least. It’s not ground that has been trod often.

Rewarding the fans by timing your hope spots for the clapping up is a huge thing for me.

Taz sings to select theme songs. They talk about him having a helicopter and submarine. Taz jokes how Excalibur’s Tiger Driver 98 is the most dangerous move in wrestling history and how he’s the second best masked wrestler after Super Strong Strong Machine. It’s basically Monsoon and Heenan talking over a bunch of squashes and fun mid-card matches, except for they’re both sort of Heenan. Though Taz is great at explaining stuff like Shafir’s hip attacks before her throw.

You’d dig them breaking each other almost every match on Dark.

Probably should just toss Tay and Sammy at her at this point.

The Tiger Jeet Singh school in Canada is the real deal though.

Plus the webshows have a different tempo and tenor than the main shows as they either have engaged early-in-the-night or studio fans, and don’t have to worry about commercials or fitting into a TV slot. Deeb was cycled back to Elevation last night and I’m really looking forward to four months of her teaming with Nyla/Emi/Bunny/Diamante.

There are more interviews that lean into it a bit more but i can't really find them. You get a taste of it here though: https://wrestling-edge.com/cody-rhodes-angle-dusty-rhodes-despised-leaving-wwe-stardust/

I wrote more at DVDVR but I'll put it simply as a counterpoint: I think this was a purely business decision for Cody, not at all about martyring himself for the boys, in as such it'll help him market himself in the future. Likewise, Vince. Doing this made it more likely the company will get even further behind him later. He saw how Britt and, more relevantly, Becky made themselves off of bloody images and saw an opportunity to make an image of his own. Plus, he wanted that third win over Rollins to close out the program. The idea that he trained too hard and got hurt would tarnish a comeback that has to be as perfect as possible for him to achieve his goals. It wasn't about proving his toughness. It was about lining his wallet for years and decades to come. If the boys in the back go nuts for it at the same time, then he's happy to work them with that goal in mind This will be front and center in his WWE HOF entrance video. I'm not saying Cody doesn't have some legitimate things to work out, like his resentment for fans who dare to have an emotional connection to the memory of Dusty, but a lot of what he does is pretty mercenary. I'm in the same boat with the flaming table spot and the moonsaults. Those were to get him in every AEW promo package/opening to run on TNT/TBS, to create something so spectacular that they would show it over and over again. This fell into his lap and he's going to milk it for everything it's worth. If it screws over younger wrestlers, I'm sure he can rationalize to himself how much he does for them anyway. And a lot of them would the first to agree with that rationalization anyway.

Conrad would. I imagine episode 4 will be "That time Chris Jericho pissed in your tea." I'm sure it's not on Regal. He basically said "The gimmick was just five weeks you know and I barely remember it, but I'm sure you'll jog my memory."

I get that time is tight but they should have a 2 minute highlight package of Elevation/Dark every week with just clips of finishes to get over that people are getting wins. They won't lose ratings on seeing a bunch of finishes in a row. The scroll at the bottom of the screen really doesn't pay off the investment they put into the webshows every week. I'll say this, in general. Past Danielson and Punk matches, the number 2 comp that I'd suggest someone make for the last year of AEW would be the women's tag matches (mostly with Nyla and Emi) from Dark/Elevation. There's not much more fun on a week to week basis in the company, especially when people like Ryo Mizunami or Yuka Sakazaki cycle in.

It was that whatever plan they have for MJF, it’s probably a very long story and they’re not going to jump right to chapter 7.

MJF just feuded for months with Punk. They weren’t ending up together again. The MJF thing is a marathon, not a sprint. Punk was going to have a run. He’s their biggest draw. They’d use him on top as ace for a while.

I just wrote a thousand words about how great the Punk win was and I was absolutely ready for a reign. That said, the only answer is Danielson.

I'm maybe 2/3rds through and there's a lot of overlap from other interviews he's done in the last few months but I think that was sort of necessary. If he ends up revisiting that stuff over and over again over the next few weeks/months in a JR-ian manner, it'll be a problem, but here it was ok. It's a little weird that Conrad isn't on this one because the new bits were everything he wanted from the initial Arn podcast. A lot of backstage talk on how things were done in NXT. Whereas with Arn, it became quickly apparent just what road agents did and how thankless and ultimately meaningless to Vince and corporate it was.

In case you're curious about the Segunda Caida thoughts: Phil covered a few things over at the Ringer and I covered 3 matches over at SC, including 1000 words on the main.

Is Matt Koon any good?

Matt is more than capable in having good matches in 2022, but they need to worked around his physical limitations and a dream match with the Bucks would never be that.

Totally agree. The complete reverse of the Cody/Miz bow and arrow.

I really, really don’t like watching Adam Page matches. He doesn’t have a first or second gear. No mid-level offense. No nuance. It’s all bombs. While he was away, Danielson and Punk came in and the house style grew up and he didn’t grow along with it. His does some things well enough and his matches are exciting and there’s definitely a place for him on the card but it’s not as champion of the promotion AEW’s become.