BRM Reviews AEW Double or Nothing 2022 (disappointing... and WAY too long)

[Big Red Machine]

AEW Double or Nothing 2022 (5/29/2022)- Las Vegas, NV

THE BUY-IN:
There was a video package for the House of Black that seemed to explain some of their targets over the past few months (if you slowed it down I could probably get more out of it), but it didn’t provide a sufficient motivation for why they would embark on this path of action. What do they get out of it?

HOOK & DANHAUSEN vs. TONY NESE & “SMART” MARK STERLING- 4.5/10
This went exactly how you’d expect, with Hook getting shied up, Danhausen getting cut off and being the insufferable sh*t-clown in peril, and Sterling making a mistake which allowed Hook to get the hot tag. I really didn’t like Hook letting Danhausen get the pin. I get that it’s his way of being nice without saying anything, but it doesn’t feel in character for him.



MAIN SHOW:

IF WARDLOW WINS, HE IS RELEASED FROM HIS CONTRACT WITH MJF; IF MJF WINS, WARDLOW CAN NEVER SIGN AN AEW CONTRACT: MJF vs. Wardlow- no rating, acceptable segment
So… MJF did, in fact, show up. He tried a trick or two but Wardlow thwarted them and destroyed him, with MJF doing a stretcher-job. I thought this was went too long, but I can understand not wanting people to feel like they got short-changed on a PPV match, and if you’re not going to let them have a full match (completely understandable, given the situation), this was the best thing to do.

TONY SCHIAVONE INFORMS WARDLOW THAT HE IS NOW ALL ELITE- um… shouldn’t he have signed a contract first? If you’re going to do this, you should have Tony come out and give him the contract (personally, I’d have held off and done it on Dynamite).

HARDY BOYS vs. YOUNG BUCKS (w/Brandon Cutler)- 7.75/10
Caprice Coleman joined the commentary team for this match.
Because nothing says “serious dream match” and “intense PPV confrontation” while poking each other in the chest with your stupid hand signals. Other than that, the match was pretty great, but certainly didn’t live up to the “dream match” billing. The Hardys won, which I guess ca work if you’re giving them a title shot soon and then give the Bucks their win back (and then give the Bucks a win in a rubber match).

SOME GOOFY CRAP WITH THE ACCLAIMED AND GUNN CLUB- Why is this happening at all, never mind on a PPV?

AEW TBS TITLE MATCH: Jade Cargill(c) (w/the Baddies) vs. Anna Jay- 5/10
Much interfering happened from many different sources. The important parts were that Sterling’s attempt to interfere backfired on Jade, but the debuting Stokely Hathaway’s helped her win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- too much
The heels went to beat up Anna Jay after the match because the booker needed something to happen to provoke this segment. Kris Statlander came out to make the save and have a stare-down with Red Velvet. Then Athena came out, doing a bunch of poses and stuff, before we got a three-on-three stare-down. This would have worked better and felt a lot less orchestrated if they had just had Athena come out afterwards and have a stare-down with Jade. They’re the big stars here, so that’s where the focus should be. If you want to book a six-woman tag, you don’t need do justify it with an angle involving all six women.

HOUSE OF BLACK vs. DEATH TRIANGLE (w/Alex Abrahantes)- 7.5/10
There was an unexplained small child in a Penta mask in the babyfaces’ entrance. They did what felt like thirty minutes of flips and superkicks before the babyfaces cheated by having their manager distract the referee so that Pac could Malakai in the nuts. Pac went up for the Black Arrow but the lights magically went out, and when they came back on, Julia Hart was in the ring and she blew mist into Pac’s eyes, setting up Pac getting pinned by Malakai… so we’re pretty much back to square one, except now the heels have a manager who also shoots mist. Without that finish, I would have given this something in the range of 8.25-8.5 (or maybe 8.75 if I REALLY liked the finish). Instead, we got a finish that was completely deflating and made the proceeding fifteen minutes of flips feel mostly unimportant (was it really necessary to risk burning the crowd out when you were going to do a finish like that?) and which got in its own way by having the babyfaces cheat right before they wanted me to get upset at the heels for cheating (which is not the first time they made this same mistake in recent months).

OWEN HART FOUNDATION MEN’S TOURNAMENT FINAL: Samoa Joe vs. Adam Cole- 7.25/10
Cole worked over Joe’s injured arm, creating a story of Joe having to fight from underneath and overcome. Joe seemed to have things won with a Coquina Clutch, but Bobby Fish distracted him, setting up for Cole to win, because G-d forbid Adam Cole win something cleanly.

OWEN HART FOUNDATION WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT FINAL: Ruby Soho vs. Dr. Britt Baker, DMD- 7/10
Both women got live musical entrances (though I have my doubts about the guy doing Dr. Baker’s). Ruby didn’t get an actual introduction because of the musical performance.
Ruby injured her ribs early on, and that was the story. Britt won cleanly, then showed Ruby respect after the match, acting like a babyface out of nowhere. Jim Ross also said that she was a “beautiful human being in the eyes of so many.” This would be the woman who has been a cheating heel for well over two years now.

TOURNAMENT TROPHY PRESENTATION- a much-needed bathroom break
When I came back, Martha was still talking, putting Cole and Britt over as worthy representatives of her husband’s legacy. In kayfabe, these are two of the biggest jerks in the company.

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH IN WHICH IF GUEVARA, CONTI, & KAZARIAN LOSE, GUEVARA &KAZARIAN CAN NOT CHALLENGE SKY FOR THE AEW TNT TITLE FOR THE REST OF HIS REIGN: Frankie Kazarian, Sammy Guevara, & Tay Conti vs. Men of the Year & Paige VanZant) (w/Dan Lambert)- 5.5/10
They did stuff. It was fine. Paige looked perfectly serviceable. Sammy and Tay got a little too cartoonish at times. Sky pinned Kazarian to get the win, so I assume Sammy will blame Kaz for the loss and they’ll start feuding, which is a fine rebound feud for Sammy.

DARBY ALLIN vs. KYLE O’REILLY- 8/10
Kyle won a crazy match cleanly. This was a wonderful mix of these two men’s styles.

AEW WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Thunder Rosa(c) vs. Serena Deeb- 8.25/10
This was the best match of the night so far. They just went out there and had a world title professional wrestling match that built and built and built, and it always felt like it was inching closer and closer to the end, because these two did such a great job of showing the wear and tear on their bodies as time went on.

ANARCHY IN THE ARENA: Jericho Appreciation Society vs. Eddie Kingston, LAX, Jon Moxley, & Bryan Danielson-4.75/10
It’s just a no DQs match. If you don’t want to be “sports entertainment, just call it a “street fight.” Don’t give it a stupid alliterative name.
Jericho’s group is dressed like clowns. All in white, of course, because they’re going to bleed. Moxley’s music played for a long time after they started fighting. This did not set the mood well. It got to the point where I popped when Jericho smashed Moxley into the soundboard, stopping the music.
The two thirds (maybe even three quarters) of this had WAY too much going on, and it was impossible to follow anything. Say what you will about Stadium Stampede (and I’ve said a hell of a lot), but at least the format of that match allows you to follow all of the action.
Eventually Dragon got Jericho in the LeBell Lock, but Kingston showed up with gasoline because he wanted to get Jericho on fire and murder him, and, when he poured the gasoline all of Jericho, he got it on Dragon, too, so they started fighting, letting the heels back into it. That spot was very clever, and everything that came after it was great (especially the brutal finish)… but that was all stuff between Dragon and Jericho, with Hager getting involved at the end. The issue here is mostly between Jericho and Kingston, and those two interacted very little. Between that and the fact that I couldn’t follow the majority of the match, this was a failure.

RUSH IS COMING IN TO JOIN ANDRADE- Boy, Tony Kahn is sure bad about managing his locker room.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS DAN LAMBERT & THE MEN OF THE YEAR- snore
Where is PVZ? Dante Martin showed up, so Scorpio Sky offered him a title shot. There is a lot of stuff happening on this show that feels like it should have happened on Dynamite, and that AEW is trying t artificially lengthen the PPV like WWE used to do.

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Jurassic Express(c) (w/Christian Cage) vs. Keith Lee & Shane “Swerve” Strickland vs. Team Taz (Will Hobbs & Ricky Starks)- 7.25/10
Action happened, but it was all fun and exciting.

AEW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Adam Page(c) vs. CM Punk- 7.5/10
Yes, this was sloppy and there were some botches by Punk at unfortunately large points in the match. But that has very little to do with why I have rated this match a lot lower than many others I’ve seen.
This was a match built around emotion, and it didn’t work for me because despite the FANTASTIC acting and facial expressions, the emotions felt empty because of the convoluted storyline where these strong emotions on Page’s part came completely out of nowhere, and Punk all of a sudden started acting like a troll in response. Then they didn’t help their case in this match with Punk still being a troll while Page went right up to the line of full-on heel by first shoving Punk’s face into the belt and shouting “YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THIS!” and then by almost using the belt on Punk. Then Page decided not to use the belt on Punk, but making this decision cost him too much time, and Punk hit a GTS for the win. Am I supposed to be happy about this? I don’t know!
The only story coming out of this makes any sense is if the idea is that Page has cracked under the pressure of being champion and has been descending into madness over the past few weeks without his unprovoked fury towards Punk and development of what felt like a messiah complex where he must save the AEW from this existential threat of CM Punk that we have seen no evidence of. And that won’t affect my rating in any way, because they chose to tell this story of ambiguousness of moral alignments going in, making both men unlikable. My experience during the match is my experience during the match.
Professional wrestling is live theater. It is an artistic medium meant to be experienced in the moment it is first watched. It is not a medium where we are meant to only be able to understand upon rewatching, unless a specific mystery is being planted. That wasn’t the case with the promos leading up to this match. There certainly are some matches where I think your experience is enhanced the second time you watch it, but what you are meant to notice upon rewatching a match like that is a little touch that will make you enjoy the match more by appreciating it more as art rather than something that will change your emotional experience, because pro wrestling is a storytelling art, and therefore is designed to bring out desired emotions in the audience, and emotions are never as strong the second time around.
To give an example of what I’m talking about here, let’s look at main event of WrestleMania X-Seven. If you somehow haven’t seen it yet, go watch it first.
Okay. You back? That was f*cking tremendous, wasn’t it?

Now, if you go back and watch the match a second time, but keeping the finish in mind, you’ll note that Steve Austin is a heel from the moment the bell rings. He’s the guy being a jerk a threatening the referee and so forth. If you had noticed Austin’s behavior the first time you watched it, it wouldn’t have made you any more surprised or angry that he made a deal with Vince, and it doesn’t make you any angrier at him the second time you watch it. It just makes you appreciate the match and Austin more. That’s not the case with Punk vs. Page (assuming storyline I speculated on above is even correct, which is certainly not a given).


On the whole, this was an okay show from AEW. Some of the major matches underdelivered big-time (the main event, both tournament finals, MJF vs. Wardlow… although in that case it was understandable, given the circumstances), and the show was WAY too long. Some of the matches (the TBS Title match, Darby vs. Sting, the mixed tag, and, quite frankly, both tournament finals) felt like they belonged on TV, not on the PPV, and the post-match stuff and interview in some of the matches also made this feel like an episode of Dynamite rather than the PPV. The House of Black vs. Death Triangle match also really burned me out. The last time AEW put something like that on PPV (Page vs. Cole) at least they had the good sense to put it on last. There were a lot of great matches on this show, but a lot of those were matches that felt like they should have been better than they were (Joe vs. Cole, Punk vs. Page), or matches with little to no build like Darby vs. O’Reilly and Bucks vs. Hardys. Just about the only match that felt like a big time PPV match (although they really didn’t hype it up well, either) and actually delivered like one was the women’s title match.

[XIV]

It'll be interesting to see the fallout of the MJF situation now from this and how Tony Khan handles it. If Tony caves and gives him a new contract, that shows all future talent to throw a tantrum when they want something and they'll get it. (Maladaptive goal orientated behaviour) but if Tony lets MJF go its a blow to one of his "four pillars" he was supposedly building the whole thing around.

Tricky. If I'm MJF, yeah, I probably want a better deal based on everything, but this was not the way to achieve this. But would I want to go to WWE and get renamed something horrible (Maxton Jackson Fleischman or something equally as terrible)? Also no.

For me, aside from pure financial greed. MJF doesn't win here.

[Thelone]

Depending on if this MJF issue is actually real and not some absurd work designed to create some buzz, this feels like a big turning point and should be a wake-up call.

You have :

• Your most over/successful homegrown guy/pillar threatening to leave because he feels like he's not valued as he should
• Your big early pet project in Page failing miserably and losing to Pepsi Phil
• Two more pillars losing to mediocre clowns and the last one being an afterthought in some tag clusterfuck (can't say I care too much about R*peface and Jumpin' Jungle Jack Perry, but you know)
• An overbloated PPV card with FIFTY different wrestlers (that's gotta be some kind of record for a non-Rumble card) because Khan just can't help himself and isn't willing to make some hard decisions
• Three of your top guys in another 10-man clusterfuck with no-name goofs like Burger Kingston/Blaniel Garcia/whatever 3.0 is called nowadays
• The endless push of Atom Cole and Britt Yankem because God forbid we're trying to push anyone else during this shitty tournament (even hardcore dubbalos are getting sick of them)
• Tiny looking as awkward as humanly possible with Martha Hart (that picture I saw sure is... something) and that post-show press conference

But hey, I'm sure I'm overreacting, right?

[Big Red Machine]

One speculated reason I heard for the PPV going so long with so much added at the last minute was that Tony wanted the main event to start after the end of the Heat-Celtcis game 7, so he filled the card up with matches thinking that people would finish watching game 7, then buy the PPV just to see the main event. If true (and the relentless "tell your friends they can still order the show!" crap from Schiavone that hasn't been these for other PPVs seems to support it), that's a bad sign because it's utterly delusional to think that people will pay $50 for one match instead of just buying a replay.

[Thelone]

One speculated reason I heard for the PPV going so long with so much added at the last minute was that Tony wanted the main event to start after the end of the Heat-Celtcis game 7, so he filled the card up with matches thinking that people would finish watching game 7, then buy the PPV just to see the main event. If true (and the relentless "tell your friends they can still order the show!" crap from Schiavone that hasn't been these for other PPVs seems to support it), that's a bad sign because it's utterly delusional to think that people will pay $50 for one match instead of just buying a replay.

Yeah, I've read about this theory and it's just... so stupid. No one goes to a theater/sports game/play/whatever when there's only ten minutes to go. Sure, sometimes you have a huge UFC/boxing match that might sell an event just by itself, but Punk vs. Page is... not that at all.

It's the same with the MJF situation. I've seen some dubbalos claim that this was a work "because people were talking about it during the weekend and might buy the show to see how it'll unfold", because clearly the perspective of losing the only match with any kind of decent build on this marathon PPV was going to be the deciding factor for people whe were still on the fence. Let's not even talk about the opposite effect, because I feel like this is why MJF vs. Wardlow was the opener.

[XIV]

One speculated reason I heard for the PPV going so long with so much added at the last minute was that Tony wanted the main event to start after the end of the Heat-Celtcis game 7, so he filled the card up with matches thinking that people would finish watching game 7, then buy the PPV just to see the main event. If true (and the relentless "tell your friends they can still order the show!" crap from Schiavone that hasn't been these for other PPVs seems to support it), that's a bad sign because it's utterly delusional to think that people will pay $50 for one match instead of just buying a replay.

If it was Rock v Austin in 2001 then people would have likely done this. Punk v Page in 2022 isn't going to illicit that response, replays or shady streams are more likely.