AEW 2023: Scissor Me Daddy!

Lmao this show sounds like it was incredible, on holiday and not sure when I'll next have WiFi good enough to order the replay

yeah i cant wait until wednesday and can watch.

There is a funny story circulating about Punk refusing to shake Regal's hand and calling him a "stooge for Triple H" when WR first arrived, but otherwise no new shots fired in the closing stages of the Punk Wars

Idk what kind of final pipe bomb Punk will/is legally able to throw over the wall, or if it'd even make any difference, but if Khan gets through this week having done an 81k show at Wembley, strong buy rates and reviews for both the All shows and successfully ripped off the Punk plaster without major damage to the Chicago market...he's probably gonna feel pretty good about life!!

If they successfully got through a big Chicago week, I think you'd have to be a p big Punk stan to not see how he's fucked up. It seems like the overall feeling seems to be that Tony did right.

The Regal story is hilarious, considering how much Punk thought of himself as a locker room leader and got fired for getting angry at a youngster for how they should act. A real man's man would have handled that situation a looooot differently.

I followed and then quickly unfollowed a self-professed ‘leftist’ wrestling Mastodon account whose whole angle on the thing seems to be that TK is a ‘ghoul’ because he’s a billionaire and Punk is the put-upon working man and I can’t even. I know whose side I’m on in the class struggle but seriously, “Punk=hero” is the hill you want to die on?

Would love to be the kind of working man who can afford to buy 20000 ice creams for the first day back at work

what a fucking show that was.

the Danielson/Starks match.... hooooo boy. it was kind of all smoke and mirrors but it was amazing to see what a true master can achieve when working with those physical restrictions.

the crowd not knowing which way to jump in the 8 man tag and deciding to just *make noise* was hilarious. Switchblade lowkey the most protected guy on the roster - this is excellent news

this felt like a proper reboot for Miro and he seems to have an angle coming out of it - more excellent news

they seem to have come to the realisation in the last few weeks that Samoa Joe is not washed, he is *SAMOA JOE*, and can in fact be a serious player for a major national promotion, this is once again excellent news

it's excellent news all around. Tony Kahn (sic) cured cancer

Holy fuck Darby jumping at Luchasaurus off the top rope and just bouncing off him. This is looking like one of my favourite matches of the year.

The dinosaur is starting to make my list of favourite wrestlers ever. I’m so glad he carried on working with Christian after he noticed he was way better than the jungle perm.

Fascinating to see my questions about 2023 in the first post.

Is Sasha/Mercedes Saraya’s partner? no and injury has kept her out of most of the year

Does RoH ever get TV? no, it has become glorified Dark
Will Miro and Serena Deeb ever be seen again? yes and no. Where the hell is Serena?
Will Mox ever get to go on holiday? lol
Is Punk gone forever? loooooool
Will they ever put more than one women’s match on Dynamite? looooooooooooooool
Will they ever do something serious with the best wrestler in the world, Eddie Kingston? errr… kinda? TBC
Is there going to be Forbidden Door 2? YES AND IT WAS DOPE, BRING ON WRESTLEDREAM

Seriously, Luchasaurus v Darby was 5 star. The ending was so hardcore that the forgotten chair pervert Shawn Spears had to come out to say Christian was being too hardcore with chairs. Shame I need sleep and can’t continue watching, as I’ve only heard great things about Miro v Hobbs

the progress of the Gunn brothers has been sneakily great. It suddenly dawned on me during their match how great they could go with their talent.

Finally given All Out a proper watch. Genuinely would mark 4 match’s 5 stars and everything else was still very enjoyable. If you told me 10 years ago that Punk’s eventual second blow up & firing would be overshadowed in my mind by a undercard dinosaur, I’d have maybe quit drink&drugs sooner than I did.

Orange Cassidy deserves a lovely holiday. I love that the show ends with a THANK YOU ORANGE standing ovation.

——

It genuinely feels like they need to start a lot of new storylines. Hopefully this coming week has Raw After Wrestlemania vibes. And the great thing is I don’t really know what they may pick*. I think only Miro-Hobbs and Omega-Callis stays as an ongoing feud. The rest of the names get to go back in Tony’s hat.

*half truth, as it seems like MJF-Joe is booked and Eddie-Claudio might just continue forever until the point of X Pac heat.

I know it’s always good but really recommend listening to the Picture in Picture from Jericho-Sammy. I feel like maffew needs to do a mega cut for YouTube, like 4 hours of Tony and Taz just hanging out.

Eddie-Claudio was boss too.

Excited for Wrestle Dream but I’m kinda concerned that it’ll be the second PPV without a world championship match. I don’t know how much the plan was based on Punk, but they seem to have no idea what to do with MJF. And Cole seemingly being injured definitely doesn’t help.

Even though the TV is pretty good right now, it kinda feels like a while back where everything seems a bit aimless. Hopefully Tony and crew are working hard to sort out storylines, because there just doesn’t seem to be any hot feuds anywhere going forward now I think about it. Maybe they should just give Takeshita (/Callis) the title and have everyone fucking hate and chase them while they reset.

I do love these random Dynamites though. Accidental champ Fenix v Jeff Jarrett? Great stuff. A Young Buck v Brian Cage v Cesaro? Tony picked this out of a hat and I love it.

Nothing would make me happier than Edge joining AEW under his Sexton Hardcastle moniker.

Wait is that a possibility? Because that might finally make me care about Edge

There’s no way in hell he’d do it, but one can always dream….

When the hell did MJF start referring to the crowd as his “poors” and why the hell do people cheer it?

Glad to see him against Jay White, hoping Cardblade takes the title

I’m not excited for WrestleDream at all. Currently all of their champions are weak because they have no real competition. MJF especially should be pretty upset by it, but he’s over so maybe that’s enough for him, I don’t know.

Can’t help but notice there’s only one women’s match on the card. At the same time, you’ve got all but one of the ROH belts on main-roster people but never do any recaps of what’s happening on the ROH show so I have no clue what’s going on there. You could give Athena a PPV match (I mean an AEW PPV) but that must never cross their minds.

I really hope BD-ZSJ isn’t a stinker like when Bryan and Jericho tried to have a technical match and just bored me to tears. Of course they have it set up that it could be my favourite match ever, but I do worry about the memory of that Lionheart Jericho match.

oh come on, that match is going to rock

What do people think of the Start Of A New Era branding around this week? They’ve never really done anything like this that I can think (maybe the start of Rampage/CM Punk?)

I can’t imagine the shows change look. Other than Edge or maybe some returning New Japan names (Okada could challenge Bryan to a rematch maybe?) there won’t be a big roster change. Storylines already look to be in place (like Jay White v MJF or the continued rise of the Callis fam) for what happens going forward to Full Gear.

So what makes Wrestle Dream the start of something new? Hopefully it’s not just hot smoke and Tony has something exciting planned.

(Obviously as a non American I won’t care and will be a bit disappointed if it’s just something to do with a streaming service or whatever)

it’s probably a streaming service!

it was not a streaming service

it was honestly just edge, but the crowd losing their minds was worth it

great show. another ppv plagued with innumerable issues that they just knocked out of the fucking park. anytime someone here posts "i'm not excited for [aew ppv] at all" i'm gonna be reflexively like "that means it'll be stupid awesome"

hangman/swerve was a classic, put a belt on swerve within the next year pls

anytime someone here posts “i’m not excited for [aew ppv] at all” i’m gonna be reflexively like “that means it’ll be stupid awesome”

I feel seen. I wasn’t saying it to be contrary or to moan for the sake of it, I genuinely wasn’t feeling this. But the more I thought about Swerve/Hangman, the more I wanted to see it and they really delivered. It felt like a dry run for a future title-on-the-line main event.

It did! Kind of like Rock-Trips matches in 98.

This has been a good show but nothing has really grabbed me tbh. I think I’m not in a great place to concentrate though, someone starts selling and I start looking at my phone. Swerve-Hanger, DBry-ZSJ and the 6 man have been enjoyable though.

Just started the main event and I just love Christian giving us the gun show in his sleeveless turtleneck. Hope Nick Wayne’s mum gets a Karen Jarrett esque role.

I have never cared about Edge and him not being called Sexton Hardcastle isn’t helping. I wonder what youngster he gets put with, if they follow the way they’ve gone with other “legends”. Feel like he could do well with the Martin brothers at his sides, or maybe 2.0

Wait holy fuck this main event has suddenly turned into something absolutely brutal. All I’ve seen people talk about is the Edge reveal, I really wasn’t expecting this! MOTY right here, possibly liking this more than Omega-Ospreay.

Aaaand Edge has gone and ruined it.

Absolutely hate this. Sting is about to be murdered and you need a video, some pyro and to take in the crowd? What a Babyface! Save him already!

that whole last 10 minutes was all over the map, kinda felt like they needed more time in the writers' room to figure that finish out.

AEW = Adams Every Where

this should probably go in the wwe thread but since it was brought up during the Hardys Hey-EW interview i'll post it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX1TLMNaONk

Ummmm wtf to Max Caster celebrating their win with miming opening up and eating ass?

fka bear country did it first tbf

i like everything about the iron savages gimmick except the name. finally, two wrestlers who drink cum and eat ass

I didn’t know that about Bear Country. Tbf it made me laugh my ass off, I was just very thrown off.

I adore Timeless Toni Storm.

Fascinating to see Jay White’s name has been put on the white board where Punk’s has been wiped off. The bang bang gang are one of my favourite things going at the moment, and I’m getting bored of face-mjf already, so I hope they push Jay to the moon.

toni storm is the most brilliant wrestler in the game rn

I have to hand it to AEW - that is the kind of ending to a ratings war episode that would've made Vince proud.

shida!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shida!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i did not intend that double post but it reflects my enthusiasm

i was super excited to see the next Toni Storm segment and it just played silent in the background over commercials. idk if that happened to anyone else but that sucked.

it was a silent fillum

Looking forward to catching this Dynamite

Watching DBry v Swerve and it’s brutal. Def worth seeing. It’s not ended yet and it’s already one of my favourite TV matches of the year.

Wow collision looking good too, can't believe the most preternaturally gifted wrestler of the last several decades and possibly ever is going to go one on one with the American Dragon Bryan Danielson

yeah this is really something. two absolute masters of the craft

has Dustin Rhodes retired now? i wanna see both of those guys vs Dustin before they collectively hang it up, itd be the peak of tv wrestling

dustin was in a team with keith lee pretty recently but idk. he might be gradually drifting toward more backstage/production stuff

Only this week I’ve picked up where I left off watching all WWE ppvs in order and I’m in 2003. My second show Judgment Day, was god awful but the end of the battle royal had Goldust v Christian go at it for a bit. Feels like it might be a mid card feud from that time I might see a lot of, unless that’s when Dustin got sacked for loving the drugs too much. Will report back if I see them have a banger.

Danielson and Dustin wrestled on Dynamite in 2021 and it was pretty good iirc

Dustin I think said 2023 would be the last year of his in ring career but he hasn't had that many matches, not sure if he's been hurt or just not featured in plans much

I would have liked to see him work in the flesh at Wembley, but I guess he was never getting squeezed onto that card. Will settle for the Stinger