AEW TV January 17th - 20th

[sek69]

Well Collision was pretty fantastic.

[MoS]

Fingers crossed, AEW's 2024 has been really good so far. 

Copeland v. Suzuki is the kind of match that makes me thankful AEW exists.

[KawadaSmile]

Edge vs MiSu is such a Fire Pro match. AEW's early vibe of just being random as fuck in interesting ways is back. Just needed to take the belt off of MJF (my agenda is thriving)

[sek69]

Starting to think TK invited bubba @KawadaSmile to be on the booking commitee

[El-P]

One great thing about AEW is that thus far, every world champ has been very different from one another. Each has brought a different mood and dynamic. Not even one month in, Samoa Joe is my second favorite already. He's such an awesome pro-wrestler. 

Shithead meta-troll Young Bucks are the best Young Bucks. They are just the greatest, period.

I wish they would have introduced Deonna as a heel, because she's that much better in this role, but I understand why they did not (big pop in her hometown, facing Toni Storm who is kind of a heel, Serena Deeb coming back soon). She'll be fine anyway, but I sure hope she gets to turn eventually and be all dismissive and vicious and unlikeable. She's awesome at it.

As much as I haven't cared for the E&C Nostalgia Feud, Adam Copeland facing random young talent has been very fun. And now what ? WHAT ? MINORU SUZUKI ?!? Yeah, this is what AEW is all about. 

There's definitely a shift of mood of sorts in the last few weeks, and it's one for the better, I must say (and I'm not even an MJF detractor at all). Fun and promising start of the year for sure.

[Robert S]

I am surprised that everybody seems to be excited for Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki. (1) Suzuki is someone who is not above coasting through a match if he is not interested in it and I doubt that he was a huge WWE fan 15 years ago and (2) I am not sure if I have seen a single Edge singles match since the Smackdown Six era that I enjoyed that was not full of smoke and mirrors.

[El-P]

37 minutes ago, Robert S said:

I am surprised that everybody seems to be excited for Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki. 

To me it's less the match itself (which will infact be whatever, most probably) than the fact it is happening. Call it the old WAR Randomizer effect, if you will. 

[KawadaSmile]

MiSu has been coasting big time for years now. People lost their fucking minds when he faced Mox (and his entrance got cut before the chorus lol) and he gave them no energy. Still, it's such a fucking wild match to make that one cannot help but either be mesmerized or completely weirded out by it.

[Robert S]

1 hour ago, El-P said:

To me it's less the match itself (which will infact be whatever, most probably) than the fact it is happening. Call it the old WAR Randomizer effect, if you will. 

Fair enough.

[Embrodak]

Suzuki is just so slow and lacks oomph, these days. I can’t really get excited for him.

[strobogo]

Suzuki popping up every 7 months out of the blue to do the greatest hits is always fun gtfo losers

[El-P]

'member when Mike Santana basically threw away a great tag-team because he thought he could be a single star, got a few vignettes and a match on Rampage against the guy who he would barely talk to ? Where he is now, while Ortiz just main evented Collision against Danielson & Claudio, tagging with his friend Eddie Kingston ? Funny thing is, when you looked at LAX, as they were called, Ortiz always was the most charismatic of the two. If anyone would break out, it would have been him. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

4 hours ago, strobogo said:

Suzuki popping up every 7 months out of the blue to do the greatest hits is always fun gtfo losers

I'd agree if his greatest hits were ever any good to be worthy doing again

 

 

[C.S.]

Not sure where this Minoru Suzuki hate comes from. He's a fun attraction to trot out every few months. I loved the whole Murder Grandpa shtick when I saw first it, and he's far more over than most of the generic international and/or indie talent they feature without any backstory or explanation.

As for Mike Santana, 99% of wrestling audiences would be dead if a gun was held to our heads and we had to correctly guess his first name. Granted, the same is probably true of Oritz. I literally have no idea what that dude's first name is either. I guess not Tito?

[The Thread Killer]

According to Konnan, the heat between Santana and Ortiz came from the fact that Santana was upset they weren’t being used in AEW at all (they basically spent an entire year standing behind Chris Jericho, and did not wrestle on TV once in a straight up Tag Team match.)

Santana wanted to either start working indies as a team or ask for their release and try and get on somewhere else, but Ortiz was content to sit on his butt and collect a paycheck.

It’s pretty sad because they were a great team, and I think they are definitely an example of the sum being greater than the individual parts. I don’t know how marketable they are as singles guys. It’s a shame they couldn’t work this out.

[El-P]

I don't remember Santana & Ortiz not being used before Santana got badly injured. I dunno. They sure weren't in any memorable stuff for a while apart from the awesome street fight with Best Friends. 

7 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

It’s pretty sad because they were a great team, and I think they are definitely an example of the sum being greater than the individual parts. I don’t know how marketable they are as singles guys. It’s a shame they couldn’t work this out.

Well, one would not even talk to the other apparently, even when they had to work this match together on Rampage. Ortiz has tons of charisma, can be funny, he'll be allright if they use him alongside other people. Santana. As a single, unless he totally reinvent himself, I don't see it. He's a good worker, but he's one good worker out of a sea of good workers, and there's nothing really specific about him. They sure seem to have totally forgot about him, after he won his match with Ortiz no less. They were the hype of the late 2010's on the indies and such, but time flies.