AEW TV 4/3-4/6 Ospreay is the GOAT bruv

[sek69]

How silly it seems now that anyone doubted he could have a good match with Hobbes.

[Jmare007]

 

28 minutes ago, sek69 said:

How silly it seems now that anyone doubted he could have a good match with Hobbes.

Hobbs is dope, who thought the match couldn't be good? Morons on Twitter? lol

[sek69]

Just now, Jmare007 said:

 

Hobbs is dope, who thought the match couldn't be good? Morons on Twitter? lol

He's so outside of Ospreay's normal style of opponent I guess there were questions on if it would be a style clash or not.

Also I'm getting real sick of Jericho and his heat vampiring.

[WingedEagle]

Between the White/Gunn match/angle/nonsense that never ended and Willow/Mone running a pointless promo with their back to essentially a hometown crowd for both, someone roofied the last half hour of Dynamite.

[sek69]

Joe/Swerve, in addition to being a AEW world title match is also a for the world championship of suave motherfuckers.

[MoS]

Why would you choose Adam Copeland of all people to do a Rah Rah AEW promo 

[El-P]

That sure was an episode of peaks and valleys. Ospreay vs Hobbs and Archer vs Danielson were both excellent. How shocking. This is truly the GOAT vs GOAT match of all matches. Not even in a cute, gimmick kinda way. They legit are probably the two best wrestlers I've ever watched (if Omega was around, this would be a triumvirat).

Young Bucks vs Best Friends was excellent too. These damn Bucks actually made me believe they were losing for a second, just after I thought there was no way. The Beretta heel turn was really well done too, in that I saw it coming while not saw it coming *that quick*. I sure hope they don't fuck it up from now on though. As far as the tag team tournament goes, I absolutely want Bucks vs FTR 4 (is that 4 ?) with the current dynamic. 

The contract signing was tremendous shit. Samoa Joe is just a ridiculously great promo, but everybody knows this already. Still, that P. Diddy line. And although Swerve is not quite at that level, he shined in that post beatdown signing in blood moment.

Then. Jericho needs to turn heel, no one wants to cheer him anymore, and I have no doubt that's what he's doing. And then he needs to go away for a while, the Jericho fatigue is real.

I'm guessing Mariah May vs Toni Storm is the match for Double or Nothing. Would make sense. Match was kinda scuffed, and Rosa is not nearly as over as she used to be, but they sure made up for it by beating the hell out of each other. Mariah May is IT.

9 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

Between the White/Gunn match/angle/nonsense that never ended and Willow/Mone running a pointless promo with their back to essentially a hometown crowd for both, someone roofied the last half hour of Dynamite.

That 1-2 punch was terrible. There's no reason why Jay White, who should be pictured in the main event scene, is not beating 60 years old Billy Gunn in 5 minutes. Billy Gunn ain't Sting. And although White cracked me up with his begging and trying to do the chant (the guy is so fucking smart), this went for way too long and a fucking DQ ? Who booked that shit ? Acclaimed needs to move on from the trio stuff and go back to the tag team scene. It was nice for a while, but that ship has sailed. Bang Bang Gang unites the trios title, then we forget about that and Jay White moves onto much bigger and better things building toward Wembley. PLEASE, NOW.

And then, the BAFFLING interview segment with the back turned from the hometown crowd. Mercedes Moné saying nothing (and getting a TNT title shot at Double or Nothing because reasons I guess, in a company that is supposed to have rankings) for the third straight week. Ya know, that big corporate hire they did a few months back that comes from WWE and was supposed to oversee Mercedes stuff or something, maybe she should have been cut already, because thus far, the Moné stuff has been dire. This is AEW, "Where the best wrestle" (god, I love this campy shit unironically, this is SO WCW), I love Mercedes Moné the *wrestler*. Her doing a Jade Cargill thingy where she just stands there and say "I'm a star" is not cutting it. Hopefully she has fully recovered from her injury and she can get down to business, because this stuff thus far is unengaging as you get.

59 minutes ago, MoS said:

Why would you choose Adam Copeland of all people to do a Rah Rah AEW promo 

Actually, not a bad choice at all, since it kinda negates (well, it won't, really) the tribalism effect, him being basically a WWE guy for ever saying "I never had that much fun ever and that locker room is as good as any I've been in". EDIT : Although you could also look at it the other way and find it kinda pathetic that they are trying to get a form of validation from a guy who has been "in the big league" as opposed to the "fuck this shit, we're the rogue company anyway, go fuck yourself" kinda promo that would be given by Mox (who also has been there, but it's different) or Eddie.

Anyway, in the end that was kinda super awkward. When you're cool, you don't need to TELL people that you're cool. Copeland vs Penta should be cool in itself though, as Copeland taking on random challengers is actually fun.

EDIT : Dax Harwood also cut the same kinda "promo" apparently addressing the crowd at the Collision tapings.. Yeah, actually, him saying a few cool things in-between a few choice words about the tag tournament on TV would have been much, MUCH better, for reasons that don't need to be explained.

[WingedEagle]

I assume Joe is dropping the title to Swerve this month but hope there are big, big plans for him thereafter. He's very much righted the ship of the title and establishing a serious, important tone for the show overall by virtue of his positioning and I'd hate to see that just disappear. At worst he could be used like an AEW Brock who's this incredible obstacle for anyone in a big setting, but his promos allow room for so much more.

[Coffey]

I just wanted to say that Sasha Banks becoming Mercedes Moné shows how much a gimmick name can actually matter. The Moné name is TRASH & I actively think it has helped sabotage her post-WWE career.

To me, her aura is completely gone.

[Jmare007]

I think he's always sucked as a babyface promo. She makes everyone forget about it as soon as she has a match and once she turns heel.

6 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

I assume Joe is dropping the title to Swerve this month but hope there are big, big plans for him thereafter. He's very much righted the ship of the title and establishing a serious, important tone for the show overall by virtue of his positioning and I'd hate to see that just disappear. At worst he could be used like an AEW Brock who's this incredible obstacle for anyone in a big setting, but his promos allow room for so much more.

He should win the Continental Classic this year.

[DMJ]

I liked Copeland's promo. Though, I still think in one of those weird "Big Show" ways, they should call him "Rated R" Adam Copeland with "Rated R" being his go-to name and the more used name on commentary. Yes, calling someone "Rated R" a dumb name. Its an adjective, not a noun. Its like calling someone Delirious. Or Super Crazy. Or Precious. So...kinda not a big deal in pro-wrestling?

"The Big Show" did not roll off the tongue in 1998 compared to The Giant and I'm sure people can come up with a ton more names that were verbs, adjectives, or just plain awkward and not even bad puns (Bron Breakker, Dolph Ziggler), but ended up being alright given enough time. I mean, my best friend in elementary school was named Aaron Maggied and most of us called him by his last name, which sounds like a past-tense verb. (As in, "Aaron maggied his way to the door" or "Aaron wanted to go to the movies, but he was too maggied after football practice"). The point is - Adam Copeland is too plain, can't be chanted, and doesn't even have the benefit of being established on the indies like Danielson and Moxley and Claudio. In fact, I think there was another kid in my school whose name was Adam Copeland...but everyone thought Maggied was way cooler.

I apologize for the rest of this because it is definitely a massive rant, but...why not? Its been a long week...feel free to scroll on by if you don't want to read a lengthy defense of Copeland's (and Dax's) pro-AEW promos:

Spoiler

I've seen alot of folks, especially the Camp Cornette loyalists and other AEW haters, really wanting to paint Copeland's (and Dax's) promos as being some sort of retaliatory response to the CM Punk interview that Tony Khan forced them to go out and do. I don't think so. I wouldn't say the timing is 100% coincidence, but the piling-on and bashing of AEW has really turned up over the past 3 months. It's not just one interview. It's a bunch of stuff: Punk debuting in WWE in November, the awful Devil reveal, Vince's ousting, the undeniable attendance issues...its all built up to this, a massive gray cloud over the company that is even worse than the fallout from either of the two major Punk blow-ups. At least when those happened, there was still a feeling that controversy might create cash, that the good outweighed the bad on-screen.

The tribalism was bad a year ago, worse 6 months ago, and has now reached the point of being ludicrous to me. Like...I get it, the "traditionalists" are sick of dream matches-for-dream matches sakes and matches with too many high spots, too much blood, too much action, not enough selling, etc....but, fuck me, are we really at that point where people are just going to deny that a match like Ospreay/Takeshita or last night's Ospreay/Hobbs and Danielson/Archer matches were good? I'm as critical of the "go-go-go" style as anyone and still prefer the wrestling I grew up with and the style and tempo of those matches that I'm nostalgic for, but goddamn, you're playing yourself if you think guys like Samoa Joe, Danielson, Ospreay, FTR, Takeshita, Jay White, Darby, Omega, Brody King, Orange Cassidy, etc. aren't really fucking good at what they do and wrestle completely different from each other. 

I've seen people say that Austin Theory can do everything that Ospreay or Omega can do. Sure, bruv. Except nobody talks about an Austin Theory match except to say they'd rather not have watched it. 

And so I took Copeland's promo at face value. I think he was pretty clear that he's sick of people - Cornette maybe most prominently - spewing such vitriol against a company that, ultimately, is giving jobs to wrestlers, that has a deep roster full of AMAZING talent, and that is giving wrestlers the freedom to wrestle (ratings be damned*). It's become tiresome. For the wrestlers and the fans. 


* It's ironic that a guy who calls himself CM Punk is forgetting the actual meaning and history of the term "punk rock" as not at all being about how many records or tickets you sold or what "the gate" was, but about artistic expression that pushed boundaries, challenged conventions of "success" and "the right way to do things" and influenced like-minded artists. Multiple times Punk in his interview used the term "business" as a way to say what AEW isn't - which is fine - but, y'know, money isn't the sole motivator for everyone. I do think Danielson and Mox and others legitimately enjoy and appreciate the fact that they are getting paid well to check things off their personal wrestling wishlists in a less corporate structure. And, as stupid as it sounds to us working folk, in that sense, TK is almost some coked-out patron of pro-wrestling. 

Then again, CM Punk thinks RaNcid are the be-all-end-all of artistic integrity and has probably never heard a Fugazi album in his life. (Also, shout-out to Tim Armstrong grooming Brody Dalle when she was a sixteen and he was 30! Nothing more punk rock than an adult man dating a high school sophomore!)

 

[strobogo]

It's wild there needed to be a promo like that, but at least it wasn't the TNA special of a former WWE guy shitting on WWE and their booking. It's a literal WWE hall of famer who basically was an anchor main event for 5 or 6 years, who has consistently said nothing but good things about WWE and his WWE career. 

The negativity about AEW has been baffling to me the whole time. It's a hardcore promotion for hardcore fans that actually pays well and puts on consistently great shows and matches and promos for years now. The same weirdo AEW haters are also hyped for Cody and Jade in WWE so the whole thing is so dumb. It isn't like the late stage WCW or the worst eras of dogshit TNA programming. Guys like Cornette and Bischoff are making their current living shitting on AEW because it gets the views and clicks, because their statements are obviously dumb trollbait.

 

A lot of AEW's crowd size problem is ticket price related, imo. AEW running smaller venues than WWE but ticket prices for most seats being like double the price especially when WWE is so hot is wild.

[sek69]

Decades of WWE monopoly gave a portion of wrestling fans brainworms where they see any competitor as a threat to "their" wrestling that they have to do anything they can to prevent that from happening. AEW being mostly successful for 5 years now has driven a lot of them crazy despite them constantly moving the goalposts of what they would consider seeing AEW as a viable alternative.

Its also why the Cornette/Bischoff stuff rubs me the wrong way, both of those guys know better but are happy culling the lowest common denominator for easy cash. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at Eric since he seems dedicated to being an asshole any way I can, but it's embarrassing seeing two important names in history doing this nonsense largely over personal beef they have with people in the company (you'll never convince me Eric isn't mega salty TK didn't offer him a job).

[El-P]

11 hours ago, DMJ said:

I apologize for the rest of this because it is definitely a massive rant, but...why not? 

This, almost entirely (except the part of nostalgia, I'm not nostalgic at all, nostalgia is my enemy, and pro-wrestling is great now). This has reached ridiculous levels of bad faith and tribalism. Then again, that's next level capitalism and fetish for brands for you, coupled with social media echo chambers polarization system and algorythms negative stuff push. A toxic mix if there ever was one. The same people would go completely gaga over Ospreay if he had signed in WWE anyway. 

As far as CM Punk goes, he's about as punk rock as Green Day doing stadium shows. It's pretty ironic that if you consider the pro-wrestling field, the Young Bucks actually are a thousand times more punk rock than anything he ever did. 

The interesting thing about the lack of reaction to the Copeland promo when he talked about the "negative stuff" is that it showed how much social medias aren't real life. People on X and reddit may think that CM Punk interview was a big deal, guess what, no one seemed to even know what Copeland was talking about.

3 hours ago, strobogo said:

The negativity about AEW has been baffling to me the whole time. It's a hardcore promotion for hardcore fans that actually pays well and puts on consistently great shows and matches and promos for years now.

This. 

3 hours ago, strobogo said:

A lot of AEW's crowd size problem is ticket price related, imo. AEW running smaller venues than WWE but ticket prices for most seats being like double the price especially when WWE is so hot is wild.

Yup. I don't know about the smaller venues, but like I said I wanted to go to Wembley last year, then I saw the ticket prices (and no, I'm not gonna go to fucking London to sit in the cheap seats and watch a show on a big screen from afar) and said nope. Not doing it. Then again, I've checked the Backlash prices out of curiosity, the prices are ridiculous too. 1500 euros to be ringside ? What the hell is going on. I guess I'm totally disconnected from the prices of big time entertainment events. I only go out to 10-15€ concerts in small venues and such. Don't get me started about the fucking Olympics while I'm at it...

[WingedEagle]

14 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

I think he's always sucked as a babyface promo. She makes everyone forget about it as soon as she has a match and once she turns heel.

He should win the Continental Classic this year.

If Ospreay winning the title at Wembley is in fact the goal I think it would make a lot more sense to keep the title on Joe and let Ospreay conquer that massively over heel rather than put Swerve, the other babyface you're grooming, in that position where there's nothing he can do but play heel. But I'm just the schmuck here rather than the one running Wembley.

[DMJ]

Seems to me like they might try to do Ospreay/Swerve at Wembley and do Callis' big heel turn on Ospreay at the show. At least that's how I'd figure your typical booker would do it.

It would put a ton of heat on Callis, but I'm not sure who you have step up as the top heel for the Don Callis Family at that point. Takeshita, Fletcher, and Hobbs have all lost to Ospreay clean already. Maybe Callis finds a new ace? I can think of one guy specifically that might work and hasn't been up to much and also would probably get a big reaction (he's from Newcastle and a match against Ospreay would probably bang hard), but I'm not going to throw out the exact name...

Swerve keeps the strap and Ospreay has a couple-month feud and then you revisit later down the line? 

[Jmare007]

3 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

If Ospreay winning the title at Wembley is in fact the goal I think it would make a lot more sense to keep the title on Joe and let Ospreay conquer that massively over heel rather than put Swerve, the other babyface you're grooming, in that position where there's nothing he can do but play heel. But I'm just the schmuck here rather than the one running Wembley.

Swerve has to win the belt, imo. You kill him if he doesn't beat Joe and then has to play n°2 babyface while Ospreay goes for the belt at Wembley, he just becomes another guy on the roster and I don't think AEW can afford that.

Strickland winning would feel important. And him main eventing a 50-60k Wembley as champion against a white hot Ospreay would elevate him and solidify him to a point where you can then start putting him in angles and feuds without a belt and still feel big. Swerve vs MJF, Swerve vs Mox, Swerve vs Cole (well, Cole fucking sucks but I'm talking from what the core AEW fanbase seem to perceive as big deals) would all feel much more impactful if Strickland has a 4 month run that culminates in the second biggest show of the year in all of wrestling (after Mania weekend, of course).

[El-P]

Toni Storm showed up at the Stardom show (which was a fun, short and easy to watch ECW Arena show) to salute Mariah May. She then confronted Mina Shirakawa and talked Forbidden Door business. Oh yeah. Gimme more Mina in AEW. I wonder if and when Megan Bayne will debut in AEW, since there was talks before that she actually was contracted to the company (which has never been confirmed I don't think). She sure is still green, but she has some really impressive stuff to showcase and looks so physically impressive. Maika did one hell of a job in that main event.

As far as Swerve goes, of course he needs to win, unless they have a very VERY smart booking trick up their sleeves, and even then. Joe is awesome and should never leave that main event scene now though. But you know what feud I want, right ? Samoa Joe vs Kazuchika Okada, Continental Title.

[The Man in Blak]

5 hours ago, El-P said:

The interesting thing about the lack of reaction to the Copeland promo when he talked about the "negative stuff" is that it showed how much social medias aren't real life.

I would say this is a great lesson for AEW and its fans to take moving forward, actually.

9 hours ago, strobogo said:

The negativity about AEW has been baffling to me the whole time. It's a hardcore promotion for hardcore fans that actually pays well and puts on consistently great shows and matches and promos for years now.

I don't know about "consistently" here, but I will agree that it's a promotion for ride-or-die wrestling fans and it's great that the talent that's working there is being paid. If there is anything that they are inarguably consistent at, it's putting together solid (or better) PPVs. It's been their calling card from the very beginning and, no matter how things play out in the long run, I think AEW will always have a legacy of being one of the all-time best supercard promotions to their credit.

I will also say that there have been glimpses of AEW becoming more than this -- moments where it seemed like AEW could be more successful and even more of a viable alternative to WWE -- and I can't lie and say that watching those moments largely be squandered hasn't been disappointing for someone like me that would like to see a healthier wrestling industry as a whole.

But I also think that, in a funny twist of fate, none of that really matters anymore because the scandals with Vince have completely changed the context. For a certain segment of the audience, AEW will always be immune from criticism because They Aren't Vince but, ironically, the stakes aren't as high for AEW anymore because Vince is gone. With his departure, the imminent threat of late-2010s WWE poisoning the industry as a whole and salting the earth on Vince's watch as the company seemed poised to crumble into irrelevance is gone as well. (And, credit to AEW, they absolutely had a hand in stabilizing things by capitalizing upon the increasingly disappointed fanbase that had been driven away by that period of WWE.)

So now, both WWE and AEW have an opportunity to just Move Forward; all that baggage is gone. And that leaves AEW to survive on its own merits, so we'll see what happens. I have tickets for Dynasty in St. Louis - I'm sure the matches there are going to be great because they always are. Hopefully, great matches are enough for the company to keep all that talent employed and well paid.

[Coffey]

6 hours ago, El-P said:

This, almost entirely. This has reached ridiculous levels of bad faith and tribalism. Then again, that's next level capitalism and fetish for brands for you, coupled with social media echo chambers polarization system and algorithms negative stuff push. A toxic mix if there ever was one. The same people would go completely gaga over Ospreay if he had signed in WWE anyway.

Here's another thing, which I'm guilty of myself: Too many people want AEW to be too many different things. AEW can't be the spiritual successor to WCW, ECW, JCP, PWG, ROH, Lucha Underground & NJPW all at the same time. Yes, the roster is incredible but I feel like too many different groups of fans from different corners of the world & online want AEW to be one thing & then another, different group want it to be something else & it leads to a lot of bickering. From the jump, just because of The Elite, I feel like AEW was always going to be most similar to PWG. It felt like Cody Rhodes wanted it to be JCP. They also had Kenny Omega at the height of his Japan stardom, so people were wanting NJPW main event style. They also brought in Jericho so people were expecting Sports Entertainment. They brought in Sting, so people wanted some WCW Nostalgia. AEW has always just been trying to wear too many hats & once the initial "oh shit, new wrestling company on national cable television!" charm wore off, it has felt a little bit directionless because they don't really know what direction they're supposed to be going in. They've never really dug out their own direction or been able to say what AEW is.

All of that before even getting to the AEW Vs. WWE tribalism. 

They've also had really shitty luck with injuries at terrible times. C.M. Punk, MJF, Adam Cole, etc. & it has thrown wrenches into their plans multiple times, not just at the main event level but when trying to built stuff too. 

[El-P]

3 hours ago, Coffey said:

Too many people want AEW to be too many different things. AEW can't be the spiritual successor to WCW, ECW, JCP, PWG, ROH, Lucha Underground & NJPW all at the same time. Yes, the roster is incredible but I feel like too many different groups of fans from different corners of the world & online want AEW to be one thing & then another, different group want it to be something else & it leads to a lot of bickering.

That's an interesting point.

Personally, I just want ONE thing out of AEW : don't be WWE. That's fucking it. Be WCW, be NJPW America, be PWG, whatever. Just don't be WWE. On so many levels. Whatever else you are, I'm fine with it as long as you deliver great wrestling. The WAR Randomizer promotion is totally fine with me.

[Big Pete]

The other issue is that when the scale is 7 stars, a 5 star match only takes you so far. You can't say you're the best wrestling show when we saw the best wrestling several years ago and you're asking inexperienced talent to live up to that standard. When you have five to eight hours of television you're either setting up talent to fail or you're letting talent hog up far too much of the limelight.

The television could certainly be more compelling. You can only sign so many free agents, introduce so many titles, beat so many luchadores before fans get bored. They're trying to push this brand new direction but they haven't set the table. They're trying to use Mercedes to feature the women more, but they've essentially put her with a bunch of B-show talent with questionable creative. The story with Ospreay is that they couldn't find opponents for him so he's fighting guys in his own stable in these glorified exhibition matches. This is all leading to a match against Danielson who has been in pin me pay me mode basically since he arrived. Ospreay-Danielson who wins? Who cares it'll be a five star match!

That right there is the conflict in a nut-shell. There's fans who don't care about the result, just as long as it's a good match. Then there's fans who want to engage but can't because the presentation hasn't connected with them. I'd say the vast majority on here fit into the former and as long as you're getting the chance to see what these men and women do everything else is just a bonus. That's fine but it's difficult to sustain so being able to build that emotional connection provides more bang for your buck.

Speaking of to give some credit, pairing Okada up with the EVPs was a smart move. It's a very similar presentation to NJPW where he's the chosen one and there's some momentum there with the EVPs main eventing Revolution. Putting a mid-card strap on Okada with barely any history was a curious decision but at least you have something there with future Omega and Page matches to look forward to.

When AEW was at it's best it was when they had Hangman as the struggling millennial who couldn't handle pressure. You can't force it but AEW needs to find that emotional core and promote that.

I'd argue they were on track with the MJF/Cole storyline before it became too goofy and convoluted.

[Stiva]

22 hours ago, El-P said:.

As far as Swerve goes, of course he needs to win, unless they have a very VERY smart booking trick up their sleeves, and even then. Joe is awesome and should never leave that main event scene now though. But you know what feud I want, right ? Samoa Joe vs Kazuchika Okada, Continental Title.

Samoa Joe Vs Eddie Kingston in a series of escalating violent matches would be my pick. Just pick whatever flimsy premise you need to set them off, let them cut promos and you’re off to the races