AEW 2022: The year of the bloody bunny

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

Considering how much Tony Khan loves playing the classics, I’m 100% convinced this is just them playing Pillman & Punk, and they knew it would only work if they really created a mess to begin it. MJF was the golden child like a month ago and acts like a spoiled brat going into the match where he was guaranteed to be power moved 10 times? He has also been known to quote old Punk promos, so I can see him feeling like a kid in a candy shop trying to figure out with TK how to get his own “is this real” pipe Bomb that echoed that one from 11 years ago. I bet he was disappointed he couldn’t spear Cena through a table to start it. I presume the Sasha/Naomi thing really helped them pull the trigger.

Idk or maybe it is real. Work or shoot, he deserves a better pay check.

The one real fucked up thing is Cody’s injury. There is absolutely no way he should have worked that match looking like a 1/3 of a corpse, and I really hope it hasn’t set a precedent to make other people at WWE have to work hurt.

it seems like in this day in age to break out in WWE you need some unexpected violence. Becky Lynch had a rocket strapped to her after that Smackdown invasion from then on out.

And I guess this is the first “breakout” star since then haaaa

more of Stokely Hathaway making 90s r&b-laced promos.

Jeff Hardy. Dammit. They’ve got to fire him.

Evelyn Waugh was a prick but “a blow falling on a bruise, no shock, just a dull and sickening pain” pretty well captured the particular blend of sadness and revulsion that the unsalvageable addict inspires in ppl who care about them

Do what you can to help and support him, pay for treatment if he wants it, but they can’t continue to promote him. He shouldn’t have been on the show anyway for obvious aesthetic and health-related reasons but this isn’t that. He’s done

Fuckin sucks

hear hear

pretty much every take i've seen on this has been utterly infuriating, from smug "WWE was right all along" to complacent "i don't get it, he couldn't possibly have had a cushier job, why self-destruct like this now" to self-righteous "fuck him and all drunk drivers, i hope he burns in hell". wrestling fans really are the worst. he's not a well man and it's a heart-breakingly sad story. always hoped he'd find a peaceful place but it's looking less and less likely

not that the wrestling side of things matters at all in the bigger picture but he truly was special. for such a terrible talker and mediocre wrestler he inspired a level of devotion in his fans that very few wrestlers of any level and in any period or context have ever achieved. and not only because he threw himself down from absurdly high places. that intangible quality that just makes people love you, that. shit can't be learned or faked, you either have it or you don't and he had it in extraordinary quantities.

Amen to all of that.

I’m sick of all the bad takes.

we all knew will ospreay vs. dax hardood would be match of the year, and it was

all of the forbidden door microfeuds are unfolding in a way that seems drawn from the pages of someone's au wrestling fanfic, and i love it

I’ve not seen it yet but Wardlow v 20 was my pick for potential MOTY

finishing up dynamite right now. the ladder match is incredible. feel like you could put together a pretty long youtube comp of "the most insane aew ladder matches" at this point

yeah that was yet again one of the best episodes of dynamite ever, real bounce back from last week's (understandable, given the storyline cleanup you gotta do when both punk and danielson are injured) confusion

yeah i really enjoyed that. Will Ospreay has never really been my guy, either as a wrestler or a human being, but in certain respects he is absolutely amazing. certainly his matches are lots of fun.

Jay White very much is my guy and I would happily watch this douchebag wrestle against practically anyone (except Adam Cole)

a lot of my criticisms of AEW this year have revolved around Tony Khan's new toy syndrome and how the hell you end up in a place where the detestable Adam Cole, Jeff Hardy, John Morrison, Big Cass, Killian Dain, Jay Lethal, reDRagon (I like Kyle O'Reilly but it's still been too much) etc. etc., whoever, how these guys have been getting featured to a greater or lesser extent on AEW shows ahead of more talented established AEW wrestlers that already have that crowd connection. i stand by those criticisms. i think it's done more harm than good.

but i'm a total hypocrite because i don't extend those criticisms to guys like Switchblade, Ospreay (warts and all), Takeshita, Shooter (back for the PPV on the Moxley team!)

that's all really exciting to me, and the idea that a guy like idk, maybe Zack Sabre Jr. for example, might run out of things to do on NJPW shows and could be traded across to AEW for a few months in exchange for an AEW guy who is also looking to freshen up - what a great idea. can't wait for the PPV, can't wait for the freshness that talent trades could (should) be bringing to both companies.

p.s. breathe with the Switchblade

John Morrison, Big Cass, Killian Dain

again you’re focusing too hard on the negatives bc to me these all elicit a big “who?”

(except for cass who i knew from wwe and who was on 1 episode of dynamite)

cass was also a sub for someone else, can’t remember who

yes you're right, those were all more or less one-and-done guys and that's not the end of the world. the good stuff outweighs the bad by orders of magnitude. shouldn't be nitpicking when there's stuff happening like MJF vs Punk, 2022 FTR, the rise of Wardlow, Hookhausen, everything Eddie Kingston does, the Blackpool Combat Club etc. etc. still the best wrestling show ever

wardlow's star power is amazing to me. he barely spoke before a few months ago

yeah it's one of the most exhilarating things in wrestling when someone catches fire like this. you think you've got a handle on someone's ceiling and then they smash through that and just keep on going. he could be a really big deal for them. will be really interested to see where he goes from here

Ospreys-FTR bald was a clinic. Liked Ortiz’s intense head shaving too.

Only problem I’ve had with dynamite so far is the worst nickname I’ve heard in years, Inhuman Dante Martin. That guy has lost a hell of a lot of momentum. Take him away from jobber Evan Bourne and give him a couple months holiday to come up with a better gimmick. He doesn’t need to be saying “I’m good now, honestly guys” and losing to bigger names every week.

“Catalyst of pro wrestling” also a wack name but I’ll let it go cos Jay White is obviously awesome

pretty good

opener was probably match of the night (Eddie Kingston doesn't miss, ever) but everything about that show ruled. best bit was either the Danielson replacement or maybe all of the NJPW guys visibly revelling in how much the crowd loved them after years of clapping-only crowds in Japan

the swerve/lee match in the buy-in was incredible

I’ve seen the first couple matches. My favourite bit is Sting no selling the super kick party. Don’t think I can finish it until tomorrow.

i have also only seen the buy-in and the first few matches bc i’ve been on vacation in vienna with my mom. on the bright side i’m now aware of how much my fellow ilxors suffer bc of ppv timing

i was immediately won over by the simultaneous english/japanese ring announcing though, i don’t know why but it just made this feel so special and cool

i just watched the all atlantic title match, clark connors had huge shoes to fill and he really brought it

lmao the bullet club/dudes with attitudes match. i've still got two hours left and i'm ready to call this the most delightful wrestling ppv i've ever seen

Orange Cassidy is a great fucking wrestler. Absolute classic with Osprey.

enthusiastically seconded, what a match

i am so obsessed with okada

what a fucking ppv

gopro jones

i am so obsessed with okada

yeah it was v cool seeing him in the context of a major US show. he's been around for so long and done so much now that it's hard to see him with fresh eyes but on both Dynamite and the PPV he has leapt off the screen.

who knows where they take the AEW / NJPW thing from here (they'll probably do less with it than I personally would like because neither company is going to want to trade off their major players for extended runs abroad (and it's very sad to think we might not get Danielson in the G1 or Omega having one last big NJ run as a result)) but if nothing else this show proved you could drop guys like ZSJ, Ospreay, Shingo and Okada (him most of all) into major programs in the States and have it get over huge

always got to account for the ferocious Chicago crowd but they were cheering for fucking Yoshi Hashi lol. loudest Kaze ni Nare ever, too.

if they're not prepared to send main-eventers back and forth i definitely think ZSJ is a guy who has found his ceiling in New Japan who could be a major player for AEW on a talent exchange deal. for all the talk about him and Bryan being the top two technical wrestlers of their generation, they're not actually all that similar. ZSJ is pretty unique.

Swap him for Miro for a year and let the Redeemer go and hurl himself at Cobb and Ishii and Shingo and them

What’s the Japan covid situation? I can see them making a couple big temp trades (like your Miro for zsj suggestion) and there is already talk of FD2 in Japan.

Absolutely no way it’s a 1 off when Kenny at a FD type show will sell a bazillion tickets.

The Japanese covid restrictions have only recently started to loosen, but with the G1 coming up, I can't imagine that they would send anyone there yet when those blocks are set. They might have a few people show up later, and I'm convinced at least FTR will be in World Tag League this year.

As far as I know, the situation with Kenny is still a stinger for NJPW, as they had invested so heavily in him only for him to walk away. They were lucky they had a star in Jay White, but if they didn't, it would have been a pretty dire situation. You can tell that Jay White's initial push post-Omega came from the spot that they had formerly carved for Kenny. Plus, Kenny surely is on Ibushi's side with everything that happened earlier this year with his injury and the conflicts he had with NJPW, even after he (Ibushi) chose to stay with them.

The real money on the Japanese side is all in getting a few more big matches out of Kenny, they’ll make that happen for sure if he’s physically up to it. Wouldn’t be surprised if Omega vs Okada headlines a US show either

i adore wardlow

Yeah he is *the guy*. He can work, he can (more or less) talk, he looks the part in a way none of their other guys do, everyone loves him and he’s very much an AEW original

They’re gonna have to book him well to sustain that love from the audience but he feels like the breakout star from that pack, together with MJF (remember him?)

That is a nuclear title program for those guys a year or two down the line, assuming no disasters in the meantime (where the fuck is MJF?!)

Being in the Blackpool Combat Club #BCC is utter Madness. ⁦@GentlemanRegal⁩ pic.twitter.com/XtrosBU21v

— William Regal (@RealKingRegal) July 14, 2022

obv i'm watching dynamite right now, anyway pretty astonishing the chemistry between claudio and hager... first time i've given a shit about a hager match lol

also.... takeshita is my new favorite wrestler

xxp would buy a shirt of that

Hager was in a pretty good Fox News tag team with Claudio for years. If Vince didn’t hate tag teams, they could have had a second team to fight. Oh I guess the rainbow Usos would have been around.

Holy fuck that Dynamite main event! My girlfriend watched it with me who usually doesn’t care and even she was losing her marbles at it. They all looked so good! There was so many great spots that it reminded me of the wm17 TLC match.

def couldn’t believe that match. so wonderful

rampage was also great this week. feel like a broken record

I am very intrigued by Stokes trying to recruit more clients. I would be very into him managing Lee Moriarty, which is a pairing I never even thought about until Stokely walked into frame last night.

Both nights of Fyter Fest look great. Excited to see Wheeler and his 3 dads wrestle on Wednesday.