El-P Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 Been catching up with last two weeks, with the awesome Dark Order angle last week, my girl Ivelisse winning the tournament with Diamanté (well deserved too), the great MJF/Mox and Orange/Jericho build-ups. The Omega/Page/Bucks slow-burn feud is the best thing going on. Anyone thinking this was the payoff and Page is just "turning heel" is completely missing the point, this is just another step in a long story. And this is the most compelling stuff happening today in pro-wrestling. It also totally makes sense in Page's arc of him wanting to take time away from the Elite because of his insecurity last year before ending up winning the tag team championship with Omega. Speaking of which, can't wait to see his reaction, as he was already kinda losing his mind lately with the FTR bullshit and was showing signs of being the Bullet Club Cleaner again. Dark Order has totally turned the corner, they are awesome. They also finally displayed some of the stuff they do on BTE this week. Tay Conti joining is gonna add more fuel to their fire. Brodie Lee finally got out of his shell, finally, he's made. I can watch Archer kill jabronies every week. Matt Hardy vs Samy Guevarra was brutal, I don't like this gimmick match but they made the most out of it in a short while to boot. Thunder Rosa showing up with NWA footage to boot is super interesting, guarantees a really good match against Shida and also, hopefully, opens the door to Aldis vs Cody III eventually. Just a great deal. However... that Swole vs Baker stuff is getting worse each week now. I realize that it's not supposed to be serious, but it is not funny either, the work sucks, Swole is not good and her character is annoying as fuck (and really, she's been abusing an injured woman for months now, she's a terrible babyface). Total waste of Baker and Ford here. I've been watching some TNA 2011 and the idiotic Winter & Takerlina Love storyline (and matches) is *better* than this. And there you have some really cool women working on Dark every week. Let's not even mention IMPACT which had Grave vs Purrazzo going 30 mn and killing it this week. Come on AEW, gotta work on this. Also, JR, JR, JR... Messing up names all around, saying Brodie Lee is AEW champ, has to throw a fucking college football reference about Lance fucking Archer who's just a giant psychopath who likes to kill motherfuckers. Again, sorry, but he's just painfull to listen too at times. Schiavone & Jericho calling the show by themselves would have been much better. Been mostly loving the show lately, they really have delivered constantly lately. The crowd chanting "delete", finally, was quite cool to hear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 It's weird, most of us are on the same page about JR: he's lost his fastball, other combinations of announcers would be better, etc. Yet I see a lot of casual and/or lapsed fans loving the fact that JR is back calling wrestling again and apparently having him was a big get for the TNT execs as well. Plus I would imagine it's still a bucket list item for wrestlers to have him call one of their matches. I know top level guys were still trying to lobby for JR late in his WWE career when he was barely allowed near a mic anymore. It's like an Emperor's New Clothes deal where it seems like we're the only ones who see it for what it is and everyone else is still pretending it's 1997. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirEdger Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 To me, it's fairly obvious that the main reason AEW grabbed JR was to get credibility from the start, showing that they were "serious". Yet, I haven't felt a iota of what JR could bring as an announcer to a match since the promotion started. It's always been Tony Schiavone & Excalibur that have accomplished that. I wouldn't mind keeping JR for sitdown interviews and video package analysis to build a feud but I honestly don't have the feeling that his heart is fully into this. Does it have to do with the tragic death of his wife Jan a few years back? Maybe, probably....hell, Gorilla Monsoon wasn't the same either after when his son Joey Marella died in that car accident in the mid-90s. I don't know what is Excalibur's status currently with AEW but if he's scheduled to come back, maybe keep strictly Tony & Excalibur, with alternating between Taz and guest commentators on random occasions if they really want to stick to the 3-men booth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 JR calling the Cody-Dustin match was legitimately fantastic and was probably his best non WWF moment IMO. I think the biggest issue is too much of what AEW does is so out of his wheelhouse and he struggles to keep up/adapt. It almost seems mean to expect 2020 JR to be able to call a PWG style match with people flying everywhere, but that's the position he's put in. Ironically having Tony around seems to expose him more, having a guy from the same era (more or less) who's clearly overjoyed to be calling what he's seeing and having the time of his life doing it just makes it that more apparent JR is out of place. Right now he's probably the 5th best guy they have after Tony, Excalibur, Taz, and Jericho when it comes to calling matches but right now moving him off commentary would make the company look like big meanies in the eyes of a lot of folks who still have an idealized version of him in their minds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 36 minutes ago, sek69 said: Ironically having Tony around seems to expose him more, having a guy from the same era (more or less) who's clearly overjoyed to be calling what he's seeing and having the time of his life doing it just makes it that more apparent JR is out of place. Yeah. When JR is like mumbling and confusing names of the *workers* and being grumpy about not holding the leg and not going for the pin, Tony is like "POISONRANA INTO A CANADIAN DESTROYER ! I LOVE THIS !". But Tony at his peak was better than JR anyway. JR is a name of the glory days of WWF when wrestling was hot. He brought credibility to AEW because of it. But as an actual weekly TV announcer now, yikes. 36 minutes ago, sek69 said: Right now he's probably the 5th best guy they have after Tony, Excalibur, Taz, and Jericho when it comes to calling matches Add Veda Scott to the bunch. She's been good on Dark with Taz & Tony. I would guess Excalibur is back either this week or at the PPV. He's been sorely missed as the glue of the announcing, honestly (although I love Taz). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 Tony rediscovering his love of wrestling is probably my favorite feelgood story of the last few years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted August 31, 2020 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 Losing those Nitro tees which used to be about 5 times bigger than his size also helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kas Posted August 31, 2020 Report Share Posted August 31, 2020 JR remains a good to great big match announcer, but he's not good for the smaller matches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiva Posted September 1, 2020 Report Share Posted September 1, 2020 I thought JR did a decent job with the Kingston/Cody match because he could get into the story behind it with Eddie’s sacrificing and his one big shot. That’s the stuff he can still nail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rovert Posted September 1, 2020 Report Share Posted September 1, 2020 18 hours ago, sek69 said: Tony rediscovering his love of wrestling is probably my favorite feelgood story of the last few years. Me too. Tony said he and others were working on bringing Tenay to Double Or Nothing and the subsequent Dynamite which were both in Vegas. But then COVID hit. In the other 2020, Mike may have been coaxed back too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirEdger Posted September 1, 2020 Report Share Posted September 1, 2020 Oh man, what could've been if they could've pulled that off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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