AEW 2022: The year of the bloody bunny

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

idk if i can spoiler tag an image so i'm just gonna hope everyone who hasn't seen the ppv is avoiding this thread like the plague

https://i.imgur.com/tgitWUj.jpg

my new favorite wrestler julia hart

the hookhausen match in the buy-in was so good too, prob my motn after house of black, rosa/deeb, and hangman/punk. they should've put it in the actual program

(and removed one of the other matches)

(honestly the tnt belt match was about as good as it could've been and i'm thrilled kazarian threw sammy and tay under the bus bc they're insufferable)

(so maybe the no-build darby/kor even though i'd hate to throw away a match that good) (it's certainly a rampage matchup tho)

Sorry I messed my spoiler tags upthread, it should have been all of my ppv thoughts, not just the first sentece.

Wtf is going on with MJF

Years to run on his contract. Even the threat of no showing such a major event seems like a bizarre thing to do. I guess it’s possible for him to row back from here but it seems as though he may have really torpedoed all the good will there was towards him among fans and you couldn’t blame TK if he doesn’t trust him in important spots from now on

Speaking of TK, that post-show presser….woof

lol i'm still pretty upset with mjf and i'm glad i got to see him get powerbombed ten times :)

just silly diva shit imo. afaict the issue is that he wants to get paid more (fair i guess, he's amazing, though the payscales in wrestling seem super fucked up to me lol) without signing an extension, but there's no reason for aew to invest in him if he's also not investing in them

tk going off on one of the five wrestling journalists left in the industry was idk pretty hilarious to me, i didn't even understand what it was about

Tbf some sources were reporting MJF had no expectation of being able to get a raise without adding time to his deal, hard to think he would expect to have any leverage to do that with 18 months left to run

Per T Khan's OTT tweets, cringey digs at WWE and particularly the Big Swole stuff he is evidently at the very least immature and a terrible communicator, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple strands to the beef

(Doing anything to jeopardise Mickey Wardlow's ascension to megastardom should carry a custodial sentence though, read the room Max jfc)

All of us after MJF shows up and wrestles his match without incident. #AEWDoN pic.twitter.com/nAVMQFHDXl

— JamieOD (@JamieOD) May 29, 2022

maura sent me this tweet before the ppv and it's still accurate

lol

i guess we knew this already (and most of this is fuckin Wade Keller and therefore to be taken with a fistful of salt) but it sounds as though the gist is that all sorts of people are now being paid substantially more than him, the vast majority of whom have nowhere near his value to the company and some of whom aren't even active on the roster.

and rather than airing his grievance about this in full MJF might have just given broad indications that he wasn't particularly happy about this state of affairs while quietly taking it extremely personally, stewing and finally exploding. and as biscuits points out, it's quite believable at this stage that Tony Khan wasn't particularly sensitive in his handling of this.

which, now that the dust has settled and the initial outrage about MJF potentially screwing Wardlow out his big moment, tbh I think the guy has a pretty cast-iron case. the no show nonsense was the wrong move cause how is Khan supposed to bow to that kind of pressure and establish the precedent that he can be pushed around by his wrestlers

but the only people hired since day 1 who have offered / can offer more than MJF in the men's division are Punk and Danielson. that feud with Punk alone ought to have been enough to earn him the raise.

i hope they work it out. he's the best they've got and it would be a fucking tragedy to see him wasted in WWE.

finally got round to watching DoN in full (and if anyone wants me to stop bringing negative vibes into the discussion I won't take it all personally as I know I'm like a broken record and I don't wanna shit up the thread), but they're in a real rut atm.

there were a bunch of good matches but that's par for the course. Cole and Britt as cup winners was a tremendously bad idea and the booking of the whole tournament, right down to the choice of participants on the men's side, has been a let down. the Hardys are done. this was a waste of the Young Bucks. Darby / KOR was a fine match but it did not need to be on a 4 hour show. i still can't muster any enthusiasm at all about Sky, Kazarian or Sammy in the TNT title scene given all the talent they've got elsewhere.

it's fine, obv, cause it's now full steam ahead for the NJPW show which is gonna be electric. but they've made a lot of bad choices this year and it's showing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsIwKOafWG8

great coda to the ppv

If MJF bounces for WWE, good for him, but if he thinks he’ll be getting the Cody-level push…. Lol.

one of the best dynamites ever

yeah that was an incredible show

this is maybe my favorite tweet ever

demo of elvis costello's rejected triple H entrance theme pic.twitter.com/GlMrO5hWl1

— bossmoz (@BossMoz) January 7, 2018

A bunch of my friends went to Double or Nothing, and they said that Anarchy in the Arena was great for them in the actual arena, but they couldn't imagine what it looked like for those watching at home.

Best debut, however:

If ever there was a perfect pairing in wrestling this would have to be it...@Jade_Cargill @Malcolmvelli #AEWDoN #AEW @AEW pic.twitter.com/QT57JO4bGj

— Scott Lesh (@ScottLesh724) May 30, 2022

So this MJF stuff - started out real. They reached a compromise position before the ppv (temporary? long term?) and did the match. MJF cuts that promo on Dynamite (real emotions perhaps but would have to be fake for them even to consider letting it air). May have actually landed sufficiently badly with the Warner execs in the audience on the night that it’s now back to being a shoot, in some respects?

How the fuck are you even supposed to keep up with this?

Either way I think MJF is pretty clear the guy. Within whatever narrow scope it’s possible for a wrestler to blow up to superstardom (particularly without the WWE machine behind you), he’s the one