AEW TV - 7/19 - 7/22 - Guts and Blood

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

He made one kick against Mox look real good. Im gonna echo that was the worst of the blood and guts matches but not as bad as some other war games. The camera work was horrible, it cut during multiple spots and it missed Mox giving up killing the finish. I thought Yuta gave up originally

[Perfectly Straightedge]

6 hours ago, sek69 said:

 

That was his shoe with the tacks on the bottom that he used in the last plunder match. The announcers should have put it over better, but there was a reason for it. 

I know what the shoe was but 2 things make that stupid.

1. If you are a new a viewer and had no idea that Matt Jackson does that you are going to be confused as to why this guy had two of the same shoes and now has one different color.

2. You are in this violent match but you have enough time to change shoes. 

My problem with the match was that it honestly felt like whenever someone was working it’s building to the next spot. It didn’t feel like a feud ender to me. It just felt  meh. 

The glass being introduced so early and then having people constantly have to take bumps on it just made that glass a spot early that had no real meaning. Just a weird showing tonight. I don’t know what the gameplan was but it felt like this match didn’t come across the way it was envisioned. 

[The Thread Killer]

So PAC gets the ROH World Title Shot against Claudio at the PPV on Friday. Could be an interesting matchup, I suppose. I’m still not sure I am going to bother ordering the show, it feels so slapped together.

[Tetsujin]

Moxley saved that match as much as he could.

[MLB]

I wasn't meaning to say Ibushi is entirely washed up, but his best days are likely behind him. I didn't see Bloodsport, is he a good shooter? If there was rust, he should've seriously been more ready to go. Ibushi is a performer that relies a lot on his looks and athleticism. Last night, he looked 41 and less defined than I've seen in the past. The flashy handspring triple axel kamikaze moonsaults aren't going to be as crisp. He disappeared in War Games and got a chant off some very basic kicks to Claudio's chest. American fans are hyped to see him and waited a long time for his full-time arrival in the States.  

I agree with @Tetsujin that Mox had the right energy for War Games.

[Timbo Slice]

It’s not even a full-time arrival. The word is that he’s close to re-signing with NJPW after squashing the issues he had with management post injury. 

[The Man in Blak]

58 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

Moxley saved that match as much as he could.

Moxley brought the right energy -- the shot of him flipping off Ibushi while covered in blood and smashing Omega's hand into the bed of nails with his foot is probably the one iconic image that will survive out of this mess -- but I also feel like he's mostly responsible for bringing a dollar store deathmatch mentality into the match that almost singlehandedly sunk it. Crappy fork spots with no color, a bucket of broken glass that Nick Jackson didn't even bother to sell when he came into the match, a bed of nails that mysteriously couldn't draw blood from Omega when he was body slammed directly on top of it...all of it signaled a level of brutality that superficially felt like an escalation in the moment, but ended up going nowhere because the match ended up going way too long afterwards.

[Tetsujin]

That's not on Moxley tho. Everyone should have bled here (it's called Blood & Guts ffs) and obviously the Bucks are never gonna sell a shit. It reminded me a lot of the second Anarchy in the Arena, where everyone was more focused on putting their personal big spots on the match over rather than actually working throughout a violent fight, except Mox.

[NintendoLogic]

Two years ago, Ibushi was 39 and looked like he was 29. Now he's 41 and looks like he's 51. When he hit the wall, he hit it with a vengeance.

[strobogo]

I don't understand how there were 700 STABBINGS and yet no one bled from them. Meanwhile, Moxley is blading every 45 seconds in front of every camera. 

 

Bed of nails shit was wild, though. Ibushi turning into a NJ Dad seemingly over night is some real :titus: shit. 
 

Sammy Guevarra having absolutely no rhythm despite his athleticism is weird to me.

[The Man in Blak]

58 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

That's not on Moxley tho. Everyone should have bled here (it's called Blood & Guts ffs) and obviously the Bucks are never gonna sell a shit. It reminded me a lot of the second Anarchy in the Arena, where everyone was more focused on putting their personal big spots on the match over rather than actually working throughout a violent fight, except Mox.

Outside of the gimmicked boot that the Bucks use and maybe Omega, I don't know that anybody else would have taken a weapon-based angle on this sort of match other than Moxley, since he seems to be incapable of eating breakfast at this point unless he's taking a cheese grater to the face of the Waffle House line cook. That said, it's all speculation on my part - who knows who was actually planning what with this match.

Which gets to your second point, which I completely agree with - this was the ultimate "wrestlers getting their shit in" match. There wasn't really a protracted violent struggle as much as there was an ongoing your-turn-my-turn exchange of spots; it ended up feeling more like a (bad) hardcore Royal Rumble than a Wargames match.

[strobogo]

Most War Games are kind of not good.  The only way to do it in the current era is make it a big spot fest. Sometimes it works (like it has in WWE), sometimes it does not (like it hasn't in AEW or MLW). There's a reverence for War Games because it is a cool theory and two rings and two cages is  but you can really count the good ones one like...3 fingers.

[Jmare007]

13 hours ago, sek69 said:

I was fine with PAC leaving since he's an angry little gremlin and his only beef was with Kenny breaking his face.

But he didn't do anything to Kenny besides putting him in a submission for like 30 seconds. It didn't feel like PAC would've been satisfied or got enough revenge on Omega for him to just bail on the match after a couple of very forced and silly clashes with Claudio.

[The Man in Blak]

16 hours ago, sek69 said:

I took it as him burying his old gimmick, literally

Yeah, the body he was dragging into the pit was wearing his old Jungle Boy boots.

I actually thought the whole opening of the show was the first sign of life for post-turn Jack Perry - Beethoven's 5th (and the opening, in particular) is such a classical music cliche that it's perfect for someone like Heel Perry to signal that he's above it all. And he did a surprisingly good job heeling it up throughout the match with Hook, including the perfect finish: the smug smile on the pin after he clobbered Hook for his first loss and the FTW title. It's taken him multiple weeks to get here, but maybe now Perry has finally found something that fits for him in this role.

[KawadaSmile]

Ibushi looked soft. I think the safest explanation for his physique is that he's not on the juice (his GCW match was four months ago), as he's barely needed to be in action in like over a year and didn't seem to be in a rush to return to the ring. 

Still, that's no excuse for having such shitty strikes.

[The Thread Killer]

8 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

he's barely needed to be in action in like over a year and didn't seem to be in a rush to return to the ring. 

Still, that's no excuse for having such shitty strikes.

He sure didn’t seem to be in a rush to get down the ramp and literally get into the ring last night.

There is a clip circulating right now online of Ibushi rubbing tacks on himself and then taking a deliberate bump in the thumbtacks by himself last night, after the show went off the air. And then he did a little dance…because of course he did. 

[strobogo]

2020 Ibushi coming into a war games in full demon mode and absolutely killing Yuta would have been delightful 

[sek69]

There's also the fact that Ibushi was dealing with a bad shoulder for about a year and you're going to lose definition when you cant lift. 

[Stiva]

13 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

So PAC gets the ROH World Title Shot against Claudio at the PPV on Friday. Could be an interesting matchup, I suppose. I’m still not sure I am going to bother ordering the show, it feels so slapped together.

They’ve added 

ROH World Six-Man Championship: Brian Cage, Bishop Kaun, & Toa Liona (c) vs. Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Leon Ruffin

Fight Without Honor: Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds, & John Silver vs. Vincent, Dutch, & Stu Grayson

Komander vs. Gravity

which, outside of the FWH, don’t add much appeal, even if I’m sure they’ll be perfectly good. I have a feeling that it’ll be a show that will deliver on the night but I’m not sure the card will sell any more tickets to help fill that building up

[MoS]

Curses on Tony Khan if he books MJF/Cole to break up before All In at minimum 

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

they will win the tag titles

[Matt D]

I reiterate: The main event of All In should be MJF/Cole (c) vs Page/Omega with the pressure of an already booked despite Cole's wishes MJF vs Cole title match at All Out hanging over them.

It's the most "AEW"-ish match possible for the biggest AEW show and the logical successor to previous most iconic AEW match ever in Page/Omega vs Bucks.

Whatever the initial plans were (Unless they're Omega vs Punk, sure) they should change them.

[Migs]

I won't get into a long discussion of the body of the match, but the end of Blood and Guts was great. Instead of a 50/50 match determined by some big spot, like most modern War Games, they isolated a dude and beat the fuck out of him until one of his partners had to surrender to keep him from being totally taken out. Echoes of '89.

[Jmare007]

I'm also on the camp of keeping Cole/MJF together for longer. The angle Is clearly working and breaking them up for a title match that fans want to see less than them working as a tag would be a shitty idea.

But then again, we all know how stubborn Tony Is when booking so if the original plan was Cole vs MJF for September, it will be hard for him to change course.

Also, who else do they have to challenge Max in such short notice? Punk seems to have dropped the "I was never defeated as a champ" angle, Darby Is going for the TNT belt, Starks seems to be going heel. Omega is the only one I can come up with.

@Matt D 's idea works in theory but a Kenny/Hangman pairing going for the tag belts with 3 weeks of build sounds completely out of nowhere. And why would Cole get a title shot he doesn't want? Because Max wants an easy PPV match? Even still, that whole scenario leads to them breakimg up anyway, which people wont like.

[Matt D]

14 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

@Matt D 's idea works in theory but a Kenny/Hangman pairing going for the tag belts with 3 weeks of build sounds completely out of nowhere. And why would Cole get a title shot he doesn't want? Because Max wants an easy PPV match? Even still, that whole scenario leads to them breakimg up anyway, which people wont like.

They just won Blood and Guts. And did the Last Call. And they're former champs that never got another title shot after they lost their title. I think you could make it work. 

As for Cole, you have him win a couple of singles matches or a battle royal or a one night tournament or something where he almost can't help himself. Kind of a Sting/Flair 1989-90 Scenario. And then he realizes the implications after the fact and they're stuck with it. Or just have Tony Khan announce it since he had a draw with Max and then they've done nothing but win since.

But yeah, the time could even be further extended out I guess. I have no actual mental idea when All In is. I barely know what today's date is. It's summer and things get muddled.