AEW TV 1/4 and 1/6 - The One Where Danielson Wrestles Nese

[sek69]

I have a feeling Swerve is going to end up being this era's "WCW had Steve Austin under contract and cut him".

Also holy shit that Darby/Joe match. A guy who likes ragdolling people vs an actual human ragdoll is just the perfect pairing. 

[C.S.]

Count me in as someone who doesn't get Swerve at all.

Comparing him to Steve Austin? Come on, man.

Good wrestler? Sure.

Decent character? Yeah, he's fine, I guess. 

Charisma? Larger-than-life personality? I'm not seeing it.

But I'm open to coming around on him. 

[sek69]

57 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Comparing him to Steve Austin? Come on, man.

Is he at that level? Of course not, but they both are "I can't believe the other company had this guy and let him go" types.

[Champagne]

Cody, Jericho, and Wardlow were forced to run a gauntlet to earn a match with MJF. Did Punk do so as well? I can't remember. Regardless, we've seen this story before, Tony.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

Is he at that level? Of course not, but they both are "I can't believe the other company had this guy and let him go" types.

You could say that about a good quarter of the people WWE let go during the pandemic though - including and especially Keith Lee.

[sek69]

You're not wrong, but I won't complain about anything that gives us more Bryan matches. 

[sek69]

1 minute ago, C.S. said:

You could say that about a good quarter of the people WWE let go during the pandemic though - including and especially Keith Lee.

Swerve is on a different level than most of them. He just oozes charisma and his in ring is smooth as silk.

I would agree on Keith Lee, especially since a big guy who can work would seem tailor made for WWE, but there was always going to be the obvious reason he would never reach his ma potential in a Vince-run company. 

[strobogo]

Any comparison to WCW cutting Austin is silly because while it was a bad call on its face, no one could have predicted Austin to become such a singular ultrastar.

That said, Swerve is definitely a very unique talent that any company would be crazy to let go. Everything he does is so singularly him, he's one of the few guys that are legit cool in a crossover way.

[Big Pete]

That opening Jericho-Starks epitomised the issue with Jericho. Starks took everything Jericho could have possibly thrown at him, won the match and yet none the post-match rendered it meaningless. Whatever momentum Starks may have received from the win was quashed and what more can they really do to put Starks over stronger?

I can't quite put my finger on the Hangman-Moxley stuff either. My read is that giving Hangman an opportunity to provide a weekly status report makes him an attention seeker and kind of an asshole. He's like the guy in the wheelchair promising an ass-beating, at first you feel sorry for him, but eventually you just want to tune him out. They should have laid this out better with one status report where Hangman buys himself some sympathy and then when he's ready you have him make a triumphant return, cut a promo issuing the challenge and then you follow through with it.

Lethal is a perfectly solid all-rounder, the problem is that you could effectively use fresher talent to fulfill his role and make others look good and hardly know the difference. Because AEW is booked like 96-98 Nitro and is filled with predictible matches, Lethal somehow winds up on TV more than a lot of other talent and it just makes the show feel repetitive. Even when he gets the odd win, it's usually clear it's to do a bigger job on Rampage or Battle At The Belts. Throw Jarrett into the mix and the Satnam Singh dynamic and you can understand the fatigue.

The strange thing with Lethal is that he's had this rep for over 10 years. It isn't so much that fans think he's terrible, it's just that there's better talent he's pushed over. For instance in 2011-12 he got a bad rap because Cornette was a bigger fan of his than El Generico and it was clear he was the 'safe' 'corporate' pick as TV Champion and eventual would-be challenger to Steen. Of course when Cornette left, the first thing Delirious did was bring El Generico into make it clear that Corny was gone (I'm pretty sure since then Corny confirmed this was his blessing and Generico was always an option. It was just that Generico was being wishy-washy with them since he clearly had ambitions of joining FCW/NXT and wasn't going to commit to ROH.)

Then in 2015 he became Adam Cole's stand-in as champion and I think fans realised Lethal had a ceiling and he just wasn't as good as a lot of other talent on the indies.

After all that hubbub Danielson-Nese was exactly what it should have been. Not surprisingly, the match was better than the promo which dragged on and on. More labours, Yo Mama jokes and kind of an iffy Iron Man match reveal. Hey if there's one guy that can pull it off it's Danielson but it feels like ages since MJF has done anything exciting in the ring. I'll give fans Punk-MJF, but for me that 40 minute Dynamite match where Punk destroyed MJF until his body quit on him and he started working like he was on qualudes was a drag.

I'll stop short of recapping the entire show, but if the whole Saraya segment was a misdirection for Merdeces Mone it seems like a waste. AEW enjoyed so much success when they teased Punk & Bryan and they never did anything to make you doubt it. If Mercedes is coming just promote it like that and enjoy the ratings bump. As it stands, Saraya is making a strong claim to being the biggest heel in AEW.

[Migs]

11 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Now I REALLY want one of Danielson's matches to be against Low Ki. Would be hilarious if dude refuses to job and fucks the whole angle up

I will say, doing that match would be totally in line with Tony being a DVDVR guy. He owes it to all of us to rematch the best indy feud of 2001-02.

[Embrodak]

5 hours ago, C.S. said:

You could say that about a good quarter of the people WWE let go during the pandemic though - including and especially Keith Lee.

I thought that with Lee at the time, but at this point, I get exactly why WWE let Lee go. Swerve has been good in AEW, Lee has been thoroughly underwhelming and appears to have lost several steps after his Covid infection.

[KawadaSmile]

Sometimes Swerve moves a little too weird in the ring to set up his actions in the ring, but he has been wildly entertaining and getting Rick Ross has been a huge fucking hit. He is one of a kind. Made Hit Row a tolerable act despite having a horrible cast and the worst fucking theme song in wrestling.

Lee had one big shining moment in WWE which was the Survivor Series match, and had some cool moments in NXT, extremely memeable too. COVID took that man's career, and him getting bigger did not help.

[Tetsujin]

One of the absolute best shows they have done in a while, not without its flaws but overall a big improvement on content and build up to the PPV. I even enjoyed the Acclaimed-Lethal/Jarrett thing.

[Migs]

14 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Why not have both, tho?

Because there's only so many main events to go around. The idea that everyone should be a fully protected star is killing wrestling discourse. If Wardlow can't take a couple of losses and still be a valuable piece, so be it. Picking Darby over Wardlow is very reasonable, when Darby's been able to stay over for 3+ years at roughly the same level.

[Migs]

12 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

I was going to post that exact same thing. That guy has nothing but upside. He should be and hopefully will be a Main Event level player, and hopefully sooner rather than later. His ring skills are consistently solid to sometimes excellent, but more importantly he just has that mythical “It Factor.” Charisma and personality to spare. If TK has half a brain, he will push the hell out of this guy. It absolutely baffles me that WWE had him, and released him.

I really liked him before he went to WWE, didn't see much if any of his WWE work and was a little surprised at how obvious a star he was the minute he set foot in AEW. He might be the dumbest of the 2020-2021 WWE releases, and that covers a lot of ground.

[Embrodak]

13 minutes ago, Migs said:

Because there's only so many main events to go around. The idea that everyone should be a fully protected star is killing wrestling discourse. If Wardlow can't take a couple of losses and still be a valuable piece, so be it. Picking Darby over Wardlow is very reasonable, when Darby's been able to stay over for 3+ years at roughly the same level.

Wardlow can handle loss just fine. It’s that his post-MJF booking was with charisma black hole Scorpio Sky, then feuding with a fake comedy lawyer and having an embarrassing match with fake security guards, then having an ice cold tag team with Samoa Joe that existed *only* to be broken up and precipitate an extremely disjointed and boring feud that was half stippled with Joe being an RoH champ. I didn’t want Wardlow to be Goldberg, and he didn’t *need* to be Goldberg. He’s not a marvel in the ring, but he can go well enough to get by, and with that many vets in the locker room, you can’t tell me that they couldn’t have found something to capitalize on him becoming the hottest motherfucker in the company off the MJF feud, especially with how many upper card to main event openings there were in the wake of all those injuries. Darby’s overness is going to last as long as he can bump like a Dolph Ziggler mannequin, but Wardlow may have had just the one shot, unless he moves to WWE. One can reverse what you’re saying and argue that if AEW is so inflexible as a company that they can’t push a guy unless he’s an MJF level wrestler or better, *that’s a problem, too*. 

[The Man in Blak]

Wardlow is to MJF as Virgil is to Ted Dibiase. Wardlow killing people wasn’t about Wardlow, it was about the promise of what he could do to MJF if he got the chance. Once the heat magnet (MJF) was removed from the picture, you were left with a big guy that powerbombed people in a territory that really isn’t about that. Even if they pushed him to the moon and threw him at the world title, I don’t think that would have fixed anything because what he does in the ring isn’t really interesting, even along the Goldberg axis of work. I’m not sure that Wardlow is even on the level of Ryback and I don’t even like Ryback.

If I had to choose something for him as a follow-up, I would just had him disappear for a while after murdering MJF and then showing up as a joker for one of the casino battle royales. Give him some *space* away from MJF, let the myth grow a bit by making his appearances more rare. But alas.

As it stands now, I don’t know what they can do with him, other than find him someone to tag with so he can be the Anvil to their Hitman.

[C.S.]

12 hours ago, Embrodak said:

I thought that with Lee at the time, but at this point, I get exactly why WWE let Lee go. Swerve has been good in AEW, Lee has been thoroughly underwhelming and appears to have lost several steps after his Covid infection.

Keith Lee got Covid because he was in a company that never took safety seriously and made backdoor deals with corrupt governors. IMO, Keith Lee should have a lifetime contract with WWE.

[Embrodak]

32 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Keith Lee got Covid because he was in a company that never took safety seriously and made backdoor deals with corrupt governors. IMO, Keith Lee should have a lifetime contract with WWE.

On the one hand, WWE clearly did not take Covid that seriously. On the other, as a nurse, I can say that absolutely no politician other than Xi Jinping took Covid seriously enough. Lee might have been fucked no matter what.

[SirEdger]

Xi Jinping? Like "My country did everything it could to cover up Covid before it spreaded like wildfire in the world" Xi Jinping? GTFOH.

[KawadaSmile]

Dynamite is not doing great ratings. At this point I wonder what the fuck does the fanbase even want.

Was JAS/BCC the key to it all?

[Embrodak]

8 hours ago, SirEdger said:

Xi Jinping? Like "My country did everything it could to cover up Covid before it spreaded like wildfire in the world" Xi Jinping? GTFOH.

That’s not what happened, but this ain’t the forum to discuss geopolitics. Sorry I dropped that name. Message me if you wanna argue, I don’t wanna derail.

 

Bubba Kawada - I suspect that they just did a lot of damage with the booking, injuries, and other bullshit last year and are going to need time to rebuild trust and interest. When was the last time they had a truly hot feud, honestly?

[Coffey]

2 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Dynamite is not doing great ratings. At this point I wonder what the fuck does the fanbase even want.

I honestly think the biggest problem is sometimes - often times - they give matches that no one really cares about way too much time. Like, every match doesn't have to go 15 minutes & go back-and-forth. I think sometimes it's OK if you just have the bigger star win quickly. It helped Wardlow early but more than that, it's just boring if you're having a match that people didn't really care about to begin with go through a commercial break & then have a post match too. 

[NintendoLogic]

3 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Dynamite is not doing great ratings. At this point I wonder what the fuck does the fanbase even want.

Was JAS/BCC the key to it all?

Ratings have historically lagged behind attendance as a barometer of how hot or cold a company's product is. AEW's Seattle debut just drew more paid than WWE's debut in the same building. And their PPV business continues to be incredibly strong.

[Embrodak]

Honestly, contemporary wrestling has an incredibly bizarre business model that even the people inside of it probably barely understand, let alone any of us outsiders. What used to be a business of ticket sales to the broadest possible audience has become a business of merchandising and media rights finding increasing ways to more intensively mine a diminishing pool of fans.