AEW 2022: The year of the bloody bunny

KOR is easily my favorite of the whole group. Always thought it was talented, but he won me over huge at the first NXT Wargames. I've loved him ever since.

Was hyped on The women's trios tag match! Always happy to see Willow Nightingale on my screen, and happy to see Trish Adora on AEW! Though would have been happier with a different finish.

IN OTHER NEWS, WE PROUD:

WHEELER YUTA IS IN BOSJ 29!!@WheelerYuta pic.twitter.com/Kci2tKM5aG

— Ciarán (@CiaranRH93) May 1, 2022

i'm kind of immediately sold on the baddies section as a faction. they looked great

Agreed. Jade has big money huge star potential, and I've always loved Kiera Hogan from her time in IMPACT. Red Velvet fits so well with them, and I think the heel attitude suits her really well with how well she swaggers. I think it's really revitalized her.

FTR fighting each other was a lot of fun, but man I wish that it was a quarterfinal match or something. Wish it was for something more than just to qualify for the Owen Hart cup. Though it looked like they had some fun working against each other rather than as a tag team. It was easy to call who was going to win, but I didn't expect that sort of finish, though I guess it makes sense for how early this match was.

when you got a women’s division like riho and yuka in them, you can’t lose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bIhwKDYOr8

i was at the long island show with maura, it was wonderful pretty much the whole way through except the crowd sucked ass (e.g. seconds after a nyla rose/emi sakura tag match started i heard someone behind me shout transphobic shit, anyone who shouts transphobic shit at nyla rose should get powerbombed through the earth; also during the ruby/riho match on rampage i heard someone dissing the entirety of joshi. can you imagine??? the total absence of taste??? on long island??? i guess you can)

very pleased to hear you enjoyed it for the most part, very sorry to hear there were people putting a downer on the experience.

it was objectively a good show and i thought the Hayter / Storm match in particular was excellent so idk if it's just a wider depression-induced malaise but i'm struggling to take as much pleasure in it atm as i used to.

I have been umming and ahhing but i think i might actually really fucking hate the presence of Adam Cole, ReDragon, Jeff Hardy, Tony Nese, Jay Lethal and (god forgive me) even kinda Samoa Joe. like if i wanted to watch a 2016 indy or NXT show I could just go and watch one. there are quite a few people who I enjoyed and who i would like to see more of who are getting no tv time because all these new guys keep coming in and shunting them out the picture, it's exhausting

enh maybe it is just depression-induced lack of interest in anything much, as i say. but it does feel like TK has been going way too far in his quest to assemble the perfect c.2014 wrestle-nerd's roster.

i wish he could find more use for Serena Deeb, Miro, Pac, Lance Archer / Jake the Snake, Jamie Hayter, the Butcher and the Blade, the Best Friends.

why the fuck am i watching another 20 minute Adam Cole match when neither Andrade nor Malakai Black are getting reliable tv time

totally projecting here but I am increasingly entertaining the thought that unfiltered TK has pretty shitty taste in wrestling i.e. loving all these completely tedious early 2010s indy dopes like the Undisputed Era, and that the best stuff which goes on in AEW is basically talent-driven, whether by Omega, Punk, MJF, Jericho, Danielson, Moxley, FTR, whoever

that's probably unfair but i'm feeling sour on it all tonight for some reason.

will be ponying up for DoN 22 regardless, of course. I think this Punk vs Hangman thing has legs

I kinda agree with you. And with the (possibly kayfabe) news that MJF wants out, hopefully it makes Tony have a reassessment of how he is using his roster.

That said, I’ve barely watched any wrestling in the past 6 weeks thanks to moving my whole life/work taking all my time, so I’m not the best for judging it. Still made time for hookhausen

i really do not agree with the last few posts lol

like how would mjf wanting out make tk think about anything? mjf gets tv time EVERY WEEK

would say he def can’t afford to keep the roster this big tho

I'm not at the 'get these gobshites off the television' stage but I see where you're coming from. AEW has a lot of moving pieces and I suppose it's only natural that TK would get distracted by a few at the expense of the others, but yeah they could mix it up a bit. They have a lot of time between PPVs and can afford to slow-build so you can swap people in and out of in-ring stuff while keeping the angles alive with backstage bits, video packages, etc.

checking out the card for tonight's Dynamite and i stand by my comments from last week. they're really focusing far too much on recent and recent-ish hires. i;m certainly not saying that they're at risk of running off talent or any of that stuff - i'm speaking purely in terms of my own enjoyment of the show.

and i don't mean to be a downer, i love the whole thing pretty much top to bottom and they still do almost everything so well. it's a miracle it even exists. just.. enough Adam Cole for a bit, please. AEW has always had the indy-to-end-all-indys vibe but recently it's veered too hard in a direction that doesnt interest me as a fan.

less NXT, Impact, ROH (or whatever) guys who have been around and wrestling each other for a decade. more joshi, more PAC, more Deeb, more Hayter, more Acclaimed. much more Miro. in fact if Miro is the joker tonight and we get him vs Joe all is forgiven.

excited for Takeshita tonight - that's a new hire that genuinely carries some intrigue

if the joker is Johnny Gargano i will explode with rage

I went to Miro's Twitter yesterday to see if he'd been tweeting much through his mysterious absence and he'd just retweeted something from Glenn Jacobs about keeping Knoxville "pro-business and pro-life" 🤮

ffs

ban all wrestlers from twitter.

except for CM Punk. "go suck a blood money-covered dick you fucking dork" is one for the ages

joker reveals were both huge surprises, no one i know guessed them both

only punk, danhausen, and nyla rose should have twitter

hangman vs. takeshita match of the year

i'm glad tony khan knew i wanted to see more konosuke takeshita

i appreciate that punk and hangman have yet to do a promo where they talk at each other. they've been building this up just with monologues and silent stares

i really loved this whole episode. perfectly-paced long promo between the bcc and the jas, just the right amount of surprise and dynamism added to the owen cup by the joker selections, astonishing deeb promo, and kor vs. fenix was nearly as good as hangman vs. takeshita

is the endgame of the men's owen kor vs. cole???? have to say that i actually am fascinated with the instability of the undisputed elite

Honestly, Brad, as much as I want Samoa Joe to take the whole thing, I would be very interested in your final two. Honestly, I've always liked KOR more, and felt like he's a much more complete performer, which almost everyone I know disagrees with, but he always looks good in the ring, and honestly, can always make his opponent look good, too.

I was definitely surprised by the Jokers, but not by the outcome of the matches.

Catching up with Dynamite. Great Hangman match. Serena’s promo got my excited. Lol at JE seem to be the third in the tag team match at a second pay per view in a row. Just a shame this Cole Hardy match is the “main event”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Co5Eq8ncw

so excited for this week :)

now that cole is telegraphing kor vs. cole as the final, i believe it's gonna be joe vs. cole... and joe may go over

i really hope you're right.

alas i am really struggling to gaf about the men's side of this tournament;
also about Adam Cole (the dirt worst and together with Johnny Gargano the surest sign that Dave Meltzer doesn't know wtf he's on about in the 2020s);
also his reDRagon buddies (Kyle O'Reilly is a good wrestler and fun in a vacuum but he's stuck orbiting this boring bullshit);
in fact really anything to do with the Undisputed Era;
2018 Bullet Club-adjacent in-group tensions;
various ROH guys;
Jeff Hardy;
John Morrison;
Big Cass;
Big Damo;
even, sadly, Samoa Joe.

stop debuting people, even for a one-off. stop pulling "surprises" out the hat. there's about 100 wrestlers (ok maybe 50) that got over to a greater or lesser extent between 2019-2021 through time, effort, good matches, good stories, good booking. i love those guys, the AEW guys. i do not want to watch 2019 NXT, 2017 Impact or re-runs of old New Japan feuds. AEW was the escape route from all of that shit, that was the whole point

to focus on the positives (which massively outweigh the negatives), I am wholeheartedly onboard with the Wardlow / Spears match, anything involving Ricky Starks, FTR, Toni Storm, also for Punk vs Hangman showdown.

gonna stop whinging now cause im a broken record on this stuff and i'm obviously gonna buy the PPV anyway, which I'm confident is gonna be amazing from top to bottom

what was i moaning about again?

I think Daddy Magic may be my favourite new wrestler. I’m a simple man.

mind blowing dynamite tonight

well except i was pretty disappointed in the women’s owen booking (and i think i have been… in general)

wrong choice in the women's bracket again tonight i think

in the spirit of not being a purely negative presence in this thread, i have been daydreaming about Punk turning heel and winning the title from Hangman and dropping it on a big show to Eddie Kingston for the Mick Foley title run. that's probably enough wanky fantasy booking for one night.

people are gonna look back on the CM Punk comeback run as an all-time peak in pro wrestling history. Punk vs Eddie is where the money is

"where the money is" is wrong, sloppy syntax. that match isn't a money maker (p much nothing other than Rock / Cena appearance is these days) but it'd be an aesthetic / artistic triumph and that's all that counts

i think they know that which is why the punk/eddie conflict continues to simmer on twitter... i want it to happen but i don't want to get my hopes up

i actually predicted ruby would win tonight but then stat not only gave her best promo ever she looked like dynamite the whole match. finisher felt like it played with my feelings and echoed the (admittedly much worse) britt rollup, crowd responded accordingly

i actually am coming to terms with my disappointment and feel like i'm finally learning what it means to be a real wrestling fan and it's all good bc i know the ppv's gonna be bonkers good

it's just a bummer because the women's division is so stacked and the women's owen feels like a missed opportunity and like it's not even moving any storylines forward at this point (except for maybe ruby's established feud with britt, but who hasn't feuded with britt?)... the men's comparatively had a lot more drama and tension imo

i mean it's a moot point bc they don't even have equal tv time. i just need the world and the company to change already. i'm aware i won't get it

but then stat not only gave her best promo

Her in-ring has been on a higher level for a while, she’s been getting better every match since the gimmick refresh. But that promo is the first time I’ve believed in her. Before now she didn’t get it, there was no passion there. Now I feel it. More of that, please.

(And less of Britt in the Jack Sparrow shirt, eugh.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMfvgiZqm6A

#AEW EXCLUSIVE: An emotional @MadKing1981 #EddieKingston vows to make @IAmJericho pay for dragging the demons back into his life, ahead of #AnarchyInTheArena THIS SUNDAY at #AEWDoN LIVE on PPV 8pm ET / 7pm CT/ 6pm MT/ 5pm PT - Available on @BleacherReport & major cable providers pic.twitter.com/iHGVyXZgSP

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) May 28, 2022

eddie's version of the bathroom scene from mandy afaict. incredible. greatest promo in the game

house of black vs. death triangle is my match of the year

the owen results: lol

that show was awesome. it was probably the least great of the last three aew ppvs but the highs were all beyond cathartic. deeb vs. rosa was awesome, and it was so beautiful to see the two best wrestlers in the world (i'm calling it) do their thing in front of a hot crowd. page vs. punk... pure storytelling, you could see every emotion traveling in the air between them. wardlow vs. mjf was almost a wholesome feel-good opening after all the feel-bad shit mjf stirred up this weekend behind the scenes. and finally.... house of black vs. death triangle..... i'm so overwhelmed i can't even talk about it yet lol

the remainder of the matches weren't band in fact several of them were phenomenal... hardys/bucks did exactly what it needed to do and was so fun (alternately: so terrifying when jeff hardy did anything), kor vs. darby as a story feels like it came out of nowhere and then disappeared right back into nowhere but the match itself was dynamic and inventive and it made me want to see a lot more of kor solo as usual. the owen finals... both were good, eventful matches, and the results were absolute bullshit engineered to make me wanna die

the only total dud on the card was jade/anna jay, a bummer bc i love anna but they never aligned at all, i guess it's fitting bc the interference/match coda ended up being way more important than the match

how could i forget the brawl and the tag match??? the show was too long. both were great though. not everyone is thrilled with the tag results, i sort of agree it's time for jurassic express to drop the belts but i'm undecided what direction they should go in (unless the direction is ftr, in which case i am enthusiastically for it). but i think they need to build it more and i think they think they need to build it more

I’ve had quite a different reaction. I thought the show has been a bit sloppy, lacking a bit of direction. I think the first five minutes of the JAS-BCC should have come with 2 paracetamol, the camera direction was so sloppy and constant that you missed seemingly everything until they kinda reset the whole match. And that Tony said in the start of the main event, to paraphrase, “Hangman said this about Punk but I don’t really know what he’s on about” shows how lacklustre and confusing the build has been. sad that page went from “I’m not gonna have Bret hart masterbation matches” to… directly ripping off Bret hart at wm8

Absolutely adored Thunder Rosa - Serena Deeb and Rosa’s outfit though. My favourite ring gear in years. And I love Wardlow.

I still liked the show. I just think it’s been my least favourite AEW PPV since… idk that one where Sammy-Matt Hardy shoulda been stopped.

I skipped the Sammy match, the Darby match and the TBS title so I could watch it before work.

Death Triangle-HoB was fun. Bucks-Hardys was a bit meandering but still alright. Martha nearly put me back to sleep and the belts seem pointless. The matches were alright but I thought they could have done something more with the winners.

The main event great and hard hitting, a solid ****. Hope it builds some actual story and character coming out of it.

Some stuff that bugged me Jeff Hardy’s boot hanging off all match, making him botching everything.

Why was it 4 million matches? So much should have been left for rampage.

JR seemed to have one of his off nights. You get Rancid to play you out, so why is this guy banging on about you being a farmer?

The JE seem like the least interesting thing in any feud and I think it’s starting to become a problem. ( Ricky Starks and Hobbs need all the gold.)

Lol the medical care MJF received.

I don’t think Martha congratulated either winner by name. They just stood around looking like goons in their merchandise and underwear. I really don’t care for Cole/UE and I hope they don’t drag Baker into that.

the hangman punk build was great! i don’t understand

“Hangman said this about Punk but I don’t really know what he’s on about”

tony said that because no one believes either hangman or eddie when they say they know the real punk. it makes sense!

I don’t think Martha congratulated either winner by name.

this is good actually bc i didn’t want to think about who won at all. besides it wasn’t about them