AEW TV - February 16/18 2022

[Stiva]

Great show, I thought just about everything clicked. Whoever said that Dynamite's formula should be giving almost half the show to Punk and Danielson has it on the money. Anybody in their orbit comes away looking like a million dollars. PPV Build AEW is my favourite AEW.

If the Hardy/Andrade/Darby/Sammy cluster leads to us getting The Hardys vs Darby and Sting, then everything will have been worth it. Also, the Jokers in the Casino Tag Battle Royale have to be The Briscoes, right?

[NintendoLogic]

I didn't have a problem with Sammy's leg selling. Performing moves that require use of an injured body part is fine as long as you sell the impact afterward. It's the idea of "this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me." On the whole though, I agree that body part selling is a major problem in modern wrestling. For most wrestlers, it consists of grabbing the part for second and wincing in between doing all the things they usually do with no apparent difficulty. Sometimes they'll do a couple of highly performative "Look at me, I'm selling my leg!" spots, but it never seems to meaningfully hinder them or force them to alter their strategy. By the way, my man Darby picked up some more brownie points from me by applying the figure-four to the correct leg.

[SirEdger]

13 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

What was the giveaway that that was Matthews? 

The blurry silhouette at the end of the House of Black vignette. That was 100% Matthews.

[C.S.]

12 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

I mean, the nonsensical spoooooookyyyy~ style is the same, so it could be Bray, yeah

Black's presentation has been Bray Lite for months, so I wouldn't take this latest development as any kind of hint for or against.

[Alucard]

12 hours ago, Stiva said:

If the Hardy/Andrade/Darby/Sammy cluster leads to us getting The Hardys vs Darby and Sting, then everything will have been worth it. Also, the Jokers in the Casino Tag Battle Royale have to be The Briscoes, right?

Judging from last year's, the tag team version doesn't do the whole 'deck of cards 'bit so there was no surprise. 

[El-P]

Great show (only the Warldow segment was meh to me, but although I get why it works for he audience, Wardlow is just meh to me for now)

They are setting up one hell of a PPV. Mox vs Danielson, Adam vs Adam (that only would get Vince totally insane), Rosa vs Baker, Punk vs MJF in a dog collar, a three way tag team clusterfuck, a hoss ladder match clusterfuck, Jericho vs Kingston, surely some variation of Sammy vs Andrade vs Darby. Only having 4 PPV's a year is a huge plus, because they can stack the cards and really make every match look big time.

19 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

I agree that body part selling is a major problem in modern wrestling. For most wrestlers, it consists of grabbing the part for second and wincing in between doing all the things they usually do with no apparent difficulty. Sometimes they'll do a couple of highly performative "Look at me, I'm selling my leg!" spots, but it never seems to meaningfully hinder them or force them to alter their strategy.

The issue is that pro-wrestling today requires a lot more than 20 or 30 years ago. It was okay to sell the shit out of your leg all the time when the biggest offensive move you had to do was a cross body or a fucking discuss punch, but modern pro-wrestling has way past that point. Also, the idea that you can't perform a move because your a limb is damaged is overrated. It very seldom happens, and not just in "modern" (whatever that means, is that the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years ?) pro-wrestling. Also, if everybody was doing it, at some point every match would look like Ole & Gene working the arm for 30 minutes, and that shit was already boring as fuck in the 70s.

Pro-wrestling is a spectacle, big spots (and in this case, finishers) are the hits and the pops, and if the narratives always prevents the players from playing the hits and getting the pops, especially in an important setting like a big TV championship match, then it's simply bad narrative. Which is why when I hear about some case of "smart" pro-wrestling, I kinda roll my eyes because the point is being missed in term of what actual pro-wrestling psychology means. It's *mostly* a relationship between what is produced in the ring (really, a bunch of signs, at a certain pacing, under a certain form) and the audience, way more than an inner narrative dictated by a physiological logic, which itself is completely skewed (because nothing in pro-wrestling makes actual sense, even UWF style was not "realistic", as showed by what actual MMA is). And sure, sometimes body work actually preventing the expected action from taking place is great psychology, and the failed or non-happening spot is actually *the spot* (a negative spot, of sorts), but it should also be reserved from some token moments, making those occurrences even more striking and dramatic.

Plus, let's be real, having a body part hurt does not prevent you from using it. Especially if you consider the adrenaline flowing in a context of major championship match. Pain, like fatigue, comes and goes. Sometime, 5 minutes after feeling my knees hurt when I'm training, I feel perfectly fine and even better than before actually. Then I get tired and some body parts shake, then I fell stronger when I do the same routine on the other side a few minutes later. The idea that "leg hurt = can't do this" / "too tired = must long-term sell = can't jump back up" is just not realistic to begin with.

[strobogo]

I just find it lazy. If you're going to do a whole match around limb work but none of it impacts the rest of the match, why even bother? Just do your spots without making me feel like you're wasting my time. There's near endless creativity when it comes to move set ups and sequences, but so rarely will people just do something as simple as not hit their big moves or modify them or just hit some other random thing that makes more sense in the moment. But again, that's about as old as time in pro wrestling, it's just something that has been annoying me more as I get older.

[El-P]

16 minutes ago, strobogo said:

I just find it lazy. If you're going to do a whole match around limb work but none of it impacts the rest of the match, why even bother? 

Depends what you call impacting the rest of the match. To me the injured knee of Sammy did impact the match, in the way it flowed. On the other hand, if you spend 15 straight minutes working the leg and then the guy gets back on offense and basically no-sells it (yeah, I've been watching some Koji Kanemoto matches lately), I agree, it's a waste of time and a cop out. Just JIP then for the good parts (wait, that's why NJ matches in the 90's did this !).

That being said, I was thinking another thing about this lately : if you know the guy you're working against/with is not interested in (or suck at) doing that kind of sell job and you still insist on going into the "I'm gonna work on a limb" route, then it's on you. The guy is a shit seller (hi Koji Kanemoto !) ? Let's approach this a different way then. To me there's shared responsibilities here. It's a dance. If you know your dance partner can't or is never interested in doing a tango, go for a waltz instead.

[BigBadMick]

Similarly with notoriously loud spot callers - should the ringside audio be turned down? 

[strobogo]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

Depends what you call impacting the rest of the match. To me the injured knee of Sammy did impact the match, in the way it flowed. On the other hand, if you spend 15 straight minutes working the leg and then the guy gets back on offense and basically no-sells it (yeah, I've been watching some Koji Kanemoto matches lately), I agree, it's a waste of time and a cop out. Just JIP then for the good parts (wait, that's why NJ matches in the 90's did this !).

That being said, I was thinking another thing about this lately : if you know the guy you're working against/with is not interested in (or suck at) doing that kind of sell job and you still insist on going into the "I'm gonna work on a limb" route, then it's on you. The guy is a shit seller (hi Koji Kanemoto !) ? Let's approach this a different way then. To me there's shared responsibilities here. It's a dance. If you know your dance partner can't or is never interested in doing a tango, go for a waltz instead.

I guess I'm just tired of LOOK AT ME I'M SELLING, PSYCHOLOGY!!! stuff that doesn't actually mean shit in the match and doesn't impact moves or spots in anyway other than a pause to wince and telegraph a kick out after a finisher.

[Matt D]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

That being said, I was thinking another thing about this lately : if you know the guy you're working against/with is not interested in (or suck at) doing that kind of sell job and you still insist on going into the "I'm gonna work on a limb" route, then it's on you.

The Benoit vs RVD feud in a nutshell.

[Flyin' Brian]

Ratings were not great this week. Side effect of Cody leaving, Olympics or other sport options, or some other reason? Thought this week's show was really good and has a lot of things I thought people would be excited for. 

 

[Jmare007]

Yeah, kinda surprising so many people didn't translate from one week to the other considering last week was a damn good show and I thought it did a good job at making you want to watch this week.

5 hours ago, El-P said:

 

That being said, I was thinking another thing about this lately : if you know the guy you're working against/with is not interested in (or suck at) doing that kind of sell job and you still insist on going into the "I'm gonna work on a limb" route, then it's on you. The guy is a shit seller (hi Koji Kanemoto !) ? Let's approach this a different way then. To me there's shared responsibilities here. It's a dance. If you know your dance partner can't or is never interested in doing a tango, go for a waltz instead.

Completely agree. I'm puzzled by wrestlers continuing to go into "work the leg" mode when nowadays is so hard to pull it off in a compelling and satisfying way. There's a lot of body parts to work a match over and most of them are easier to buy into the other person being able to withstand pain and execute a move than the legs (specially on high flyers, were not only the move but also the execution has to look good/"pretty".). I do think it's kinda lazy, in the sense that there's others ways to go around a match if you feel you HAVE to work a body part and make it a relevant factor throughout a match.

People working Nakamura's legs in New Japan was the thing that broke me. It was so frustrating to watch awesome wrestlers do awesome shit and at the same time, continue to do the things they knew they wouldn't put much attention to (the consequences of hitting Nak in the legs to make his offense less deadly). Nakamura never sold shit, it was so evident he wasn't going to, and they kept going to the same dwell every time, specially Tanahashi.

[MoS]

Last week had a huge main event. Sometimes people take a week off, especially with a PPV nearby. This was an episode to set up angles more than anything, so I can see people tuning out after they saw the Bryan-Mox angle (which gained a massive amount of viewers btw, and while Bryan is Bryan, due respect must be given to Mox, who I feel is underrated around these parts). I wouldn't worry about it at all unless it becomes a multiple-week trend, there have been plenty of such one-offs/two-offs .

[MoS]

IIRC, Bret Hart hated working matches around legwork precisely cuz he thought they'd have to sell the leg, and thus the match would be a lot less exciting for the fans

[Boss Rock]

Show was still third on cable (only lost to basketball) and Big Bang Theory supposedly had low numbers as well. Just a weird night I guess.

[MoS]

Tbh the fact that that show is still such a massive hit is so weird to me. It's also crazy popular here in India (cuz of Raj Koothrapalli) but I find it absolutely unbearable 

[El-P]

4 hours ago, MoS said:

IIRC, Bret Hart hated working matches around legwork precisely cuz he thought they'd have to sell the leg, and thus the match would be a lot less exciting for the fans

Like I could not love Bret more than I did. Bump him one spot higher on GWE.

[ohtani's jacket]

4 hours ago, MoS said:

IIRC, Bret Hart hated working matches around legwork precisely cuz he thought they'd have to sell the leg, and thus the match would be a lot less exciting for the fans

I'd like to see that quote since so many of his matches involve legwork. 

[Flyin' Brian]

Shawn Spears and Preston Vance should have a feud over the number 10. 

[ragemaster]

The only time I remember Bret moaning about working the leg was the match with savage on SNME. As they had a great match laid out and had to change it at the last moment due to directions from the back to work over the leg. Savage promised Bret they would have a classic match later on, but it never happened. Think they planned to have a great match in Japan, but the agent in charge talked them out of it.

[KawadaSmile]

We getting some big beefy action Sunday. Let's GO.

[sek69]

39 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

We getting some big beefy action Sunday. Let's GO.

I wasn't expecting them to make it a Big Meaty Men Slapping Meat With Ladders match, but I'm here for it.

[Stiva]

Hobbs vs Dante ruled. Hobbs has come on leaps and bounds and I am hyped for the Big Boy Ladder Match. Who else can we throw in? Vance? Brody King? I hope there’s one lunatic bumper in there and they all take turns launching him about.

[El-P]

Not sure putting a bunch of big men in a ladder match is the brightest idea ever though. Especially Keith Lee, the last thing he needs is to get injured again. Intriguing choice though. Hobbs is a cool choice, he's also much better than Wardlow.

Jay White vs Trent was a great TV match. White is still one of the best wrestler in the world, watching him is taking a masterclass. It's tricky because both are heels and I guess Jay is not here for the long haul at all, but White vs Danielson is a dream match of mine, that would be a ridiculous level of brillance.

Jade's outfit !!! Hey, I'm all for a match against the Bunny, that's a pretty cool mix. Yeah, Jeff Hardy is coming BTW...

It's interesting focusing on Adam Cole's work (which I'm not overly familiar with, since I only seen like two NXT matches before), because he really comes off like a total star despite the fact he's really small (let's be real) and not the greatest athlete around. Again, watching him work against #10, who looked quite good, is like taking a lesson. So many tiny little stuff he does that makes him stand out. Of course he's a great mechanic too, which doesn't hurt, great control of timing and space. That bump he took on the lariat was godlike. No wasted motion either, even in the little steps he takes. That guys knows...