BRM Reviews AEW Deadly Draw Episode 2 (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

DASHA INTERVIEWS BIG SWOLE- terrible
Apparently Big Swole has a regular tag team partner? Since when? Swole made fun of Britt Baker’s injury, which was completely unnecessary and totally heelish. Swole picked the gray ship, and so the other person with the gray chip showed up. It was Nicole Savoy. I started to get excited, but then she started acting like a goof and I got annoyed instead.
By the way, I’m giving AEW the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they have all of the partners standing by so they can immediately jump on screen and interact with the person making the pick if their color is picked. That’s how I’m waving away the extreme coincidence that whatever color we see someone pick, the other person with that color just happens to be right there to interact with her. As for why that didn’t happen with Brandi and Allie, it’s entirely possible that they were the eight and nineth picks, so there were still two red chips left.

LEVA BATES & SOMEONE ELSE ACT LIKE GOOFS- So I guess this is just going to be a clown-show match, then? Why I am supposed to like any of these people, and thus why am I supposed to care who wins?

DEADLY DRAW TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Big Swole & Lil’ Swole vs. Raché Chanel & Leva Bates (w/Peter Avalon)- 3.25/10
Nicole Savoy is going by “Lil Swole” in AEW because G-d forbid she use the name that people actually know her by instead of the one that makes her come off like a comedy goof. The heels did not come off as credible threats to the babyfaces, which made the heat feel more like something that just had to be slogged through by the viewer rather than the dramatic struggle it’s supposed to be.

WHICH TEAM WILL IVELISSE BE ON- She’s teaming with Diamante. Okay. There could be something of a story to tell with those two.

MADUSA TELLS DASHA THAT SHE WILL BE IN THE TOURNAMENT- By “she,” I mean Dasha. Because the f*cking interviewer/announcer is someone fans are going to care about seeing wrestle. This is like WWE putting announcers in the Royal Rumble. They think it’s cute and cool, but really it’s just stupid and buries any actual wrestlers who aren’t used (like, for example, that Abadon woman they signed. Why isn’t she in this tournament? Or f*cking HIKARU SHIDA). Dasha will be teaming with Rachael Ellering.
This sucked, and Madusa ending it by saying “anything is possible at the Deadly Draw” made me want o shut the show off. How many f*cking times have we had to hear Michael Cole excuse some idiotic decision by saying “anything can happen here in WWE?” That’s what this was, and the fact that AEW thought this was a good idea does not say much for their judgment.

DEADLY DRAW TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Ivelisse & Diamante vs. Rachael Ellering & Dasha Gonzalez- 6/10
Apparently Dasha was able to find someone to make her some gear in a matter of hours in the middle of a pandemic. I was willing to excuse the coincidence of the tag partner being right there every time someone drew, but this has pushed me over the edge, and I will no longer be charitable.
Schiavone claimed that this was Dasha’s “first match since last October,” but both WrestlingData and CageMatch.net only have two results for Dasha: this match right here, and a six-woman tag at an NXT house show in 2015. If your going to bring up SHIMMER to put over Lil Swole, maybe you could tell us where the announcer wrestled (while she was under contract to AEW, no less)?
The announcers (Tony Schiavone and Veda Scott) keep hammering home the point that Dasha is a trained wrestler, but if that’s true, then doesn’t she ever wrestle?
The match was perfectly fine. Dasha getting shined up did annoy me if she’s not going to wrestle again (and I don’t think she is), but at least she was the one who got pinned.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS BIG SWOLE & LITTLE SWOLE- bad
More goofage.

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS DASHA GONZALEZ- bad
She says this is “something I really have been looking forward to for a really long time.” Oh really? Because the idea of the earlier segment was that this was a total surprise. And if you’ve been looking forward to wrestling for so long and you’re a trained wrestler, why haven’t you been doing it?
She also said that she “can’t thank AEW enough for trust me with that.” How the hell do you explain that one in kayfabe?

ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS IVELISSE & DIAMANTE- good

This was a pretty dull and infuriating show. I’m going to keep watching these simply because there are only (at most) three more of them, but all this is doing is showing that they can mismanage their women just as well as they can mismanage their men. Make them all goofs! The Dasha thing is exactly the sort of thing that shows the problem with the inmate running the asylum. I don’t care how nice of a moment this was for Dasha; it was bad for AEW.