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AEW All Out 2021 - September 5, 2021


gordi

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1 minute ago, Strummer said:

I can remember a bunch of people here hated the JeriKO stuff in 2016. Even going as far as saying it was the reason for the falling ratings. Never quite bought that as as I seemed to enjoy that act more than most.

I remember hating that tag despite the Festival of Friendship being a fucking killer segment.

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I always got the impression that, upon entering WWE, by those us at RSPW and other places, Jericho was seen as the "better Triple H" and I think that comparison remains fairly apt.

I'm about as low on Triple H as people can get, but if I look back at my own match reviews of hundreds of hundreds of matches, I'd be lying if Triple H wasn't involved in a dozen 4+ star matches. Jericho, similarly, has a bunch of matches that I think, in context, when I watched them, I found to be really good to great throughout his career and against a fairly wide variety of opponents - from Regal to The Rock to Eddie to various multi-mans in the 2000s. I'd never consider him a super worker, but his resume stands up pretty well (and that's before we even include his higher end stuff against Mysterio and Michaels). 

As far as charisma/mic work, I think there's some short-changing going on because we're 20+ years removed from the context. At the time, Jericho's irreverent humor was unique and it got him over. It didn't necessarily age well, but context matters. And Jericho continued to carry himself like a star for a long time, which helped make his returns seem like much bigger deals than they really were.

I'm far from a Jericho stan and think he himself has a very inflated ego, but saying that he "sucks" and "has always sucked" is going a bit too far the other way.  

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Literally everyone else that's ever been in the top position in the past 20 years has been blamed for killing the ratings so of course it doesn't hold up. The ratings have been on a pretty much straight decline since the night after WM 17 and no one has made any significant impact for any sustained period since.

 

But Seth Rollins really killed ratings.

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The only reason Jericho never became a bigger star in the early 2000's is because of the bad booking and HHH cutting his knees out from out of him in their programs. Same thing that has happened to, you can name 50 people over the last 20 years who wasn't as big as they should have been because Vince never fully invested/gave up/bad booking. 

It is funny, I can remember the Shawn Michaels feud and all the criticisms Jericho gets now was aimed at Michaels. Jericho was a favourite on this board, viewed as a supper worker having to carry a can't work, pass his prime Shawn Michaels. 

I don't think the match at All out was a classic, but as a match everything worked for the story they was telling and the end was well done. Didn't see any mistakes or bad wrestling in it, yes Jericho slower than even 2 years ago. But he's 50 year's old having worked for 30 years, He's over with the crowd, he can still cut an great interview and can help get people over. Plus lets not dismiss his impact on how important he has been to AEW since it started. 

Should he be moved out of the top of the card yes, but he can still be effective with the right person in a main event slot once or twice a year. 

 

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Speaking of Jericho, it's funny to me that while it's so ubiquitous in AEW and I love metal, I still have never actually heard the song "Judas".

Anyway, more shit I like about AEW at first glance:

Everyone has friends!

I like that so much of the roster are in these official-to-unofficial groups of friends who have each others' backs and occasionally valet or tag together. With so many people on the roster, coming out for your buddy's entrance is a great way to get your face on TV for a week without having time for anything else. You have natural tag team and 6 or 8 man tag matches to run once one guy from group A is fighting with a guy from group B. Or you can turn it into full blown Faction Warz.

It also means that if someone gets attacked or beaten down, their friends are not far behind to make the save. It cuts out those interminable "Triple H 20 min beatdown" segments, and shows that the babyface that you like is actually liked by his friends he travels with every day! Imagine! It humanizes everyone who needs to be humanized.

Think about how much it adds to Orange's act that he CBF but one thing he WILL get up for is supporting his friend in a big match!

Think about how much it adds to the Hangman story that the Dark Order, newly crowned champions of friendship and positive support, embraced Page and showed him how to believe in himself.

And for someone like me popping in to their first PPV or TV show, seeing the amount of guys who were there simply to valet their friend or congratulate them after a win or stand in the background of a promo... it makes the "AEWverse" (so to speak) seem HUGE. It gives the impression that there are SO MANY MORE people involved than just the guys wrestling on this particular show (which is true), and it makes you want to tune in to all the other shows to see what everyone else does.

I love it.

Another thing I absolutely LOVE is how much they emphasise WHERE they are.

Everything about Punk's return and All Out was Chicago. It was a huge deal and for a couple of weeks Chicago has felt like the wrestling capital of the galaxy. It mattered that the shows were here. When they go to Cincinatti this week, it matters that they're there, because it's Moxley's hometown. It will matter when they go to New York, because that's where people like Kingston are from. It motherfucking mattered that Pittsburgh was Britt Baker's hometown.

And it matters on a level so far beyond the trite WWE First Commandment: Thou Shalt Always Lose In Thy Hometown. It's truly laughable.

These guys come off like conquering heroes for their people. It places them in the real world in a way, that they're an actual person who has an actual home and family and friends and roots, and connections to life beyond the company, but in a way that doesn't completely disregard who they are ON television as a wrestler. Another thing WWE fails immensely at.

It will sell tickets in markets forever, not just because "I'm from Pittsburgh and therefore I love Britt Baker", but also "I have to see Britt Baker in front of the Pittsburgh crowd". And it comes off like a million bucks. And the more you establish these guys in their home markets and put them over and give them these moments, the more effective the eventual (and EXTREMELY INFREQUENT) "heel ruins the homecoming" angle will be.

I could have kept this shorter and just said "They do all the things WWE should have been doing the entire time." But I guess they don't, and that's why we're all here.

I love using the real songs too, another thing that you can only do with money, and another way they can outstrip WWE. I've literally been going around my house singing "Ruby Soho" and "KAZE NI NARE" like it's 2016 and I'm banging Nakamura's theme. Again, I haven't been this excited about a wrestling show since peak NXT.

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Hearing Dave mention he has "Ruby Soho" stuck in his head because he listened to it so much on WON last night gave me the mental image of Dave doing a deep Youtube dive of Rancid's catalog that makes me smile for some dumb reason.

Also how stupid are Europe's management team asking for money well beyond even TK's music budget. When you have a dude who just gifts people theme songs as birthday gifts say "whoa, that's too rich for my blood", you know your asking price is too damn high.

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30 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Also how stupid are Europe's management team asking for money well beyond even TK's music budget. When you have a dude who just gifts people theme songs as birthday gifts say "whoa, that's too rich for my blood", you know your asking price is too damn high.

We need to know the details to this story. Tony Khan got "Ruby Soho", "Tarzan Boy", "Wild Thing" and "Where's My Mind". 

Jericho mentioned they tried getting "Running with the Devil" from Van Halen, but they asked half a million dollars. I cannot imagine Europe asking nowhere near that price.

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What i've heard from others is Final Countdown runs you $250k.  It's one of the all-time meme songs and has a billion views on Youtube so i get it.

EDIT: Also Ruby Soho was literally given to her for free because the Rancid singer is a huge wrestling geek (appeared on Phil Schneider's podcast and hosts one of his own)

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6 minutes ago, funkdoc said:

What i've heard from others is Final Countdown runs you $250k.  It's one of the all-time meme songs and has a billion views on Youtube so i get it.

EDIT: Also Ruby Soho was literally given to her for free because the Rancid singer is a huge wrestling geek (appeared on Phil Schneider's podcast and hosts one of his own)

Yeah Dave was also mentioning he met him at a PWG show, and Ruby said in an interview she knew the song would be perfect but figured it would cost too much until Lars called her and suggested it himself. 

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Also licensed music was such a huge part of what made wrestling seem cool in the 70s/80s. To this day when I hear "Sharp Dressed Man", "Hot Stuff" or Smooth Operator" my first thought is Jimmy Garvin, Eddie Gilbert, and Rick Rude.  Hell, ECW pretty much built the whole promotion around it.  Even WCW tried it as best as they could in a a corporate environment with their Nirvana and Pearl Jam knockoffs for DDP and Jericho. 

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5 hours ago, The Man in Blak said:

 

Having said that, I also don't think there's anything I saw in that match that would make me want to write off Punk any time soon. In a way, there was no perfect opponent for Punk because the expectations were astronomical; they got a "holy shit" chant before the bell even rang when Punk sat down in the middle of the ring. We're not going to get seven years back in one night.

 

I kinda agree. But I think Miro would've been the perfect opponent for Punk's first match. Simple story with him working from underneath and trying to survive the onslaught while Chicago rallies behind him so he can slay the beast. But considering Miro is a champion, it wasn't a realistic option. And giving the spotlight to Darby made complete sense too.

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2 hours ago, DMJ said:



As far as charisma/mic work, I think there's some short-changing going on because we're 20+ years removed from the context. At the time, Jericho's irreverent humor was unique and it got him over. It didn't necessarily age well, but context matters. And Jericho continued to carry himself like a star for a long time, which helped make his returns seem like much bigger deals than they really were.

I wonder if something similar will happen to Omega and The Elite in 15-20 years. Granted, I don't think they've ever been tounted as promo guys like Jericho but I wonder if their type of humor and sketch comedy will hold up in the eyes of the coming generations.

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Some notes about The Final Countdown as I understand it:

- Europe apparently asks for $50,000 per play--that means if Bryan wrestles and wins, that's $100,000. $150 if he comes out to do a promo first.

- The band itself doesn't really like the song, so one reason the price is so high is the reason some old guys charge so much for indies: they don't really want to, but aren't going to say no to a stupid amount of money either.

- I don't like Europe myself, but they're still big enough on the continent that they've put a lot of money away and can make more doing nostalgia tours every couple of years.

- They had to send a cease-and-desist to Trump when he was using the song on his campaign without permission, so they may be even more leery about putting it out there.

The bottom line is it's their song and they can do with it what they want, if anything. 

(As for music in the '70s and '80s...come on. Almost none of that shit was licensed.)

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3 minutes ago, Jimmy Redman said:

Also I just realised... they almost put the battle royal and Ruby's debut on the pre show. 

Happy accident, but how about we don't need to wait for happy accidents hey. 

I don't think that would've been a bad idea at all. Remember, the pre-show was free for anyone to watch, and seeing such a big, hot debut like that might have enticed some last-minute buys. As fun as the ten-man tag was in a clustery sort of way, I doubt it had the same effect for anyone who might have been on the fence about ordering the show.

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