AEW TV - August 3/5, 2022

[sek69]

3 hours ago, Matt D said:

Woods looked like a beast at the end with that German, and Keith looked like a beast in blocking it for so long. Win win (unless you're the table).

They did, but man would I "that doesn't work for me brother" any spot that resulted in me being smushed by Keith Lee 

[Timbo Slice]

JamIe Hayter. Cowboy Hat emoji. 

[Blehschmidt]

If AEW had any balls, they'd change the title here. Hayter/Storm matches have been awesome, Hayter winning making Britt crazy is a built in story, and Rosa's reign has been Meh with a side of making Miyu Yamashita look bad.

[Timbo Slice]

The sequencing in this match has been weird. A lot of slow-motion portions in lieu of communication, it seems. 

[sek69]

Jamie Hayter got her nose broken in the match it seems, no doubt by a stray sandbag 

[NotJayTabb]

23 hours ago, El-P said:

That being said, there's a reason Rampage gets killed in the ratings. For all the talk about not being a B-show, it has absolutely became a B-show. A fun B-show, I like the randomness of it sometimes, but a B-show nonetheless. One year ago the debut show had Kenny Omega losing the IMPACT title to Christan Cage, which was huge because it was Omega's first loss, of a title no less, since he won the AEW title from Mox after a long reign of terror. Now we get Josh Woods & Tony Neese in the main event, Mance Warner showing up, a squash thrown on TV for a guy who hasn't won a match but stil gets a title shot for the ROH title... It absolutely feels like Thunder in 1999. They probably would need to re-think their strategy for this second show, including make it look a bit different.

Heck, Rampage is where CM Punk made his big return to wrestling, which is definitely not where they'd have that happen now. If you look at the ratings graphs that Brandon Thurston tweets out every week, there's a hilariously big spike in the Rampage rating for one week last year before settling down to be the lowest show of the big two companies 

[El-P]

9 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

If AEW had any balls, they'd change the title here. Hayter/Storm matches have been awesome, Hayter winning making Britt crazy is a built in story

Agree with this. I actually thought they would go that way, as Battle of the Belts would be better if some belt actually changed hands. Hayter as champ and Britt being jealous si such a logical and easy feud. And it would be terrific too. Match was very good. Rosa sure made the day of that little girl in the crowd at the end.

Takeshita vs Claudio was great, despite a very much WWE "let's kill the pace during commercials" optic which I guess is Claudio not shaking off 15 years of working the E. Takeshita NEEDS to win now, because he's been so organically over working great matches. Regal on commentary was so great again, especially the part he just stopped talking as Claudio was in dire straight. But Takeshita, that guy should be in the winning half of the G1 or something. 

On the other hand, Wardlow is not. And don't give me "But he's with Lethal", Lethal actually gave him probably his most compelling match thus far with all the powerbomb escapes and that beautiful bump off the lariat. But there's a reason why the Wardlow match and win got the least response of the three, if the guy was as over as people think, he would get those huge reactions no matter who he's in with. Also, Wardlow vs Satnam Singh is precisely what I don't want to see in AEW. 

28 minutes ago, NotJayTabb said:

Heck, Rampage is where CM Punk made his big return to wrestling

I wasn't sure but yeah, of course it is. With Levesque taking over, hopefully it sparks a new flame in TK and changes will be made.There are some stuff right now that just aren't working, and for a while all the hype will be on WWE's side.

[strobogo]

Any show at 10PM on Fridays is going to be a B show. They'd probably get more viewers 6:05 Saturday night.

[Matt D]

More cross-posting with quick DVDVR thoughts.

Spoiler

• Lethal vs Wardlow was what it should have been. I question the wisdom of putting him against Satnam so soon, for both wrestlers' sake. Honestly, I would have done Joe vs Satnam first, or maybe even a series of those so that he could have learned from Joe, maybe? Match itself worked with Lethal getting a small advantage due to distraction but Wardlow quickly and definitively overcoming it.
• Really liked the women's match. Here, you built from the previous match on the show by having the distractions and interference be the difference in allowing Hayter to keep control through most of the match. I'd probably rather see Rosa work from underneath than control a match and she did a very good job here helping Hayter to look like a force, not that she needed much help. Baker was really annoying on the outside, but in a good way. If Hayter did break her nose on Rosa's shoulder coming down on the brainbuster, then amazing resilience in her finishing the match so strong. The finish was very believable just in the way it was caught on camera. That's a thing with the announcers all night. They did such a great job of logically connecting dots and taking visual possibilities and making them into logical reasons for things. 
• Main really over-delivered for me. It got a ton of time but there was a real sense that Claudio knew what he had there and knew how to maximize it. Primarily the athleticism and size and heart and intensity of Takeshita. They worked together to give a very competitive "title match" opening with chain wrestling and counters that really played into these strengths. Then you had the backwork to help ground things and give the match meat and substance that a bomb-fest (which would play to Takeshita strengths in a different way) wouldn't have. To me, the best moment of the match was during the PiP when he fought so hard for a suplex that everyone knew was going to hurt him as well, that, at best, would only buy him a few seconds of respite at even a higher personal cost, but once he saw the opening and once he committed, he couldn't back down. It was a moral victory but a step towards losing the war, but it tells you so much about who Takeshita is as a character that he couldn't back down. He did a very solid job of giving little touches towards the back as the match went on but very believably leaning in to adrenaline as he was coming back. I was ultimately ok with the strike exchanges/pop ups because they were 20 seconds in a long match, at a time and in a way that fit into the match. It was one-two spots each, and further what they were trying to do instead of becoming some sort of centerpiece or and end until itself. For something like that, it was very focused/controlled/conservative, and as such it worked as a tool. I probably would prefer them to have not done it, but it didn't bother me because it was very much one thing instead of a whole chapter which is usually the case. (It's not an automatic demerit or anything; it's about the context. It's just that usually the context still doesn't justify it in practice; this time, it came much closer than usual). And hey they went to the back again for the finish which felt appropriate. Mox vs Takeshita was very good but it was more about Takeshita passively having to be plugged Mox's formula and having to survive him through his own attributes. This was more about Claudio actively interfacing with Takeshita to create a match that brought both of their strengths to the forefront to create something even greater than the sum of the already impressive parts.