Can we please not say things like “that was one of the greatest nights of my career because I had an amazing match?” The competitors should not care about star ratings!
Anyway, Jericho says that Kingston awoke something in him. He says that he didn’t live up to his word and shake Kingston’s hand, but he wants to rectify that now, so he calls Kingston out.
Kingston said that the match with Jericho was “the biggest match of my career.” So a random match with Jericho is bigger than an AEW World Title match?
Kingston then says that he almost didn’t show up, but then people told him that reading his article in the Players’ Tribune saved them from suicide, and he wanted to make those people proud. That got dark in a hurry.
Kingston says that the handshake was for Jericho, not for him. All he needed was to win (which makes sense because it was Jericho who insisted on that stipulation). Kingston says that Jericho needs to figure out what it is inside him that makes him not wanting to show Kingston respect.
Jericho says that he respects Kingston and offers a handshake. Kingston accepts it. Shockingly, Jericho did not attack him. Instead, 2.0 and Daniel Garcia came out because for some reason they started caring about their issues with Jericho and Kingston again after not caring for months (and, to AEW’s credit, there would be an actual reason).
They beat Jericho and Kingston down, although they mostly focus on Kingston because Jericho goes down right away, clutching his neck. LAX come out to make the save with a baseball bat. They get 2.0 out of the ring and Santana manages to restrain Garcia. Ortiz hands the bat to Jericho, who instead of hitting Garcia with it, hits Santana in the face. 2.0 rush in and they all start beating LAX and Kingston up.
You want to know what drives me nuts about this? It’s not the fact that Jericho has thrown away an alliance with two badasses in LAX in order to be friends with two clowns in 2.0. That I can explain away by saying that Jericho really just wants lackeys. It certainly makes him feel like a lesser deal now that his stable is pretty much all undercard guys, so it’s really not a good strategic move for AEW (or, in kayfabe, for Jericho), but it can be explained away because it fits his ego.
What drives me nuts about this segment is that I’m certain that everyone involved (and especially Tony Khan, who booked it) are so pleased with themselves right now because they created a segment where even though pretty much everyone went into this assuming Jericho was going to turn on Kingston, they got us all to think that he actually wouldn’t, and then pulled the rug out from under us. And they are so pleased with themselves for swerving us that they don’t realize that in order to do so, they relied on a ridiculous contrivance! After all, it sure is fortunate for Jericho’s plan that LAX, who weren’t in on it, decided to keep Garcia in the ring instead of just tossing him to the outside like they did to the other two. If that happens, where is Jericho’s opening? (I’ll be nice and assume that Jericho could have talked Ortiz into handing him the bat if he needed to, although that very clearly wasn’t what happened here). Fooling the fans doesn’t mean sh*t if in order to do so you have to strain plausibility.
Oh. And if you’re designing a segment to swerve everyone into thinking that you’re not going to turn, don’t take forever to hit the guy with the baseball bat. I think pretty much everyone knew what was going to happen the moment it took Jericho longer than three seconds to swing the bat at Garcia. And I’d be shocked if anyone other than Tony Schiavone was fooled by the Hager thing.
CM PUNK PROMO FROM AFTER REVOLUTION 2022 AND VIDEO PACKAGE- awesome
AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH: Adam Page(c) vs. Dante Martin- 5.5/10
What the hell has Dante Martin done to earn a world title shot? And does it not strike anyone in AEW management how ridiculous it looks to have someone come out to an unbuilt world title shot with a graphic labelling him as the #2-ranked contender?
Page won a meh match. He overpowered Dante’s high-flying. They came up with a wacky finishing sequence. Why does Page take his elbow pad of to do a lariat?
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Page puts Dante over… or at least he tried to. Unfortunately, if you look at what he actually said, it wound up amounting to “if you earn another title shot, I’d be glad to defend the title against you,” which is a sentiment I’d hope a babyface champion would have for any challenger.
Adam Cole came out and said that Page’s win was a fluke. He challenged Page to a six-man tag next week: Page and two partners of his choice against Cole and two partners of his choice. He says that he won’t stop until he is the new champion, and he will make Page’s life a living hell.
Cole’s delivery was great, but I just don’t see what a six-man tag will help him prove. Page said he was willing to fight Cole right now. Why wouldn’t Cole take that offer? Page has just wrestled, so he is not at 100%, and we no Cole has no problem taking advantage of something like that. The challenge to a six-man tag feels like plot device to create an issue between either the Bucks and reDRagon, Cole and reDRagon, or Cole and the Bucks more than it does something that Cole has any real motivation to make a challenge for. To be fair, if there some sort of trap here, which is step one in making Page’s life hell, then I will happily admit that I was wrong.
THE WORKHOSRSE-MEN vs. BRYAN DANIELSON & JON MOXLEY (w/William Regal)- 2/10
Whoa whoa whoa! Regel making them shake hands is one thing, but Moxley clearly didn’t want to team with Danielson after the PPV, so what changed his mind? That’s an important part of the story. You need to put it on TV!
They’ve spent a year or two turning J.D. Drake into a joke, but now we’re supposed to take him and his partner who we’ve never seen before as a threat to Dragon and Moxley?
Proving his ignorance, Tony Schiavone named ROH as a specific place that the Work-Horsemen had teamed up under that name. Neither of them have ever wrestled for ROH.
Dragon and Moxley won cleanly. When Dragon was doing the head-stomps, Ross made sure to tell us that this was legal because it was with the flat of the foot. Is there some part of the foot that it’s not legal to strike someone with?
Excalibur told us that because the world title match didn’t go sixty minutes, a standby match has been booked. The people who appreciate details like this are people like me… which is why it’s so frustrating that they managed to f*ck this up so badly by announcing that the standby match would be taking place NEXT. There are still a bunch of big matches coming up on this show, plus that stupid AHFO “emergency board meeting” segment that you don’t know how long it will go. How about if you put all of the other matches on first (all of which are clearly more important or else the standby match would have been on the original card in place of one of them), and if you still have time left after that, then you put the standby match on.
Once again, this is what frustrates me so much about AEW. WWE either doesn’t know how stupid they are, or they know and they just don’t care. AEW clearly wants to be smart, and so they do things like this where they think they’re solving some problem but it just opens up new ones.
TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS WILLIAM REGAL- AMAZING!
EVERYONE GO WATCH REGAL’S PROMO RIGHT NOW!
ALEX MARVEZ’S INTERVIEW WITH THE DARK ORDER IS INTERRUPTED BY ADAM PAGE- bad
Everyone in the Dark Order was there other than Tay Conti and Stu Grayson. Where were they?
Marvez was asking what their relationship was with Page. He apologizes for shoving whichever of them he shoved at the PPV. John Silver- who was not the one who was shoved- spoke up to accept the apology. How about you let the wronged party do that, asshole?
Silver then asks Page which of them he will pick to team with him next week. Page says that he already bumped into Jurassic Express and they said they wanted to be in the match, so he chose them. Silver acted like they were okay with this, giving stupid, phony excuses. If this isn’t leading to them turning on Page, it was just the Dork Order being needlessly put on TV just so they could act like geeks. If it is leading to them turning on him, then the end result of this will be the world champion feuding with a bunch of geeks.
WHEELER YUTA (w/Best Friends, Orange Cassidy, & Danhausen) vs. PAC (w/Penta Oscuro & Alex Abrahantes)- 4.5/10
Orange Cassidy injured his arm at the PPV, so it’s in a sling.
Jim Ross said “Let’s not ignore Danhausen,” then admitted that he didn’t actually know anything about Danhausen. Oh, J.R. If they told you what Danhausen’s gimmick was, you’d quit on the spot.
Pac won cleanly in a match that most certainly did not cover the difference between the world title matches’ time limit and how long the match actually went, so that’s yet another way this whole “standby match” thing makes no sense the way AEW presented it.
ADAM COLE, YOUNG BUCKS, & reDRagon PROMO- meh
The Bucks and reDRagon bicker. Cole tries to build up the six-man tag next week. The Bucks jump in and insist that they won’t fight Hangman Page. Cole says that he wasn’t going to pick them anyway. More bickering happened.
ALEX MARVEZ INTERVIEWS FTR & TULLY BLANCHARD-
He says that they have now been eliminate din two straight battle royales, and ask if their focus will be on trying to regain the tag titles or trying to gain revenge on the people who eliminated them from said battle royales. Almost the entire tag team division was eliminated in two straight battle royales. Is Marvez going around and asking all of them this same question?
Dax cut a great promo about how he couldn’t tell his daughter the she has to stand up for what she believes in if he and “Uncle Dan” don’t do the same thing first. Who is Dan? His partner is named Cash.
Anyway, what he and this mysterious Dan believe in is apparently that they need to get revenge on the Bucks and reDRagon for teaming causing distractions to get them eliminated from the battle royale. Tully jumps in and says that they need to listen to him and it’s supposed to be about championships. Dax insists that “this is about family!” Cash agrees, and Tully is fired. Well… that came out of nowhere.
1. This whole “I’ve stand up for what I believe in and be a role model for my daughter” thing comes completely out of nowhere.
2. Why is there such an argument? Doesn’t Tully realize that beating the Bucks and reDragon will help FTR move up in the rankings and thus move them closer to a tag title shot?
3. FTR’s desire for revenge here would be a lot more sympathetic if they themselves hadn’t done something illegal to try to eliminate John Silver (have Tully and the already-eliminated Cash interfere) in one of the very same battle royales that they are complaining about having been screwed in.
Also, of all of the manager/wrestler pairings in AEW to break up, they chose this one? The one that is arguably working the best?
AHFO “EMERGENCY BOARD MEETING”- dumb
The Bunny is not there for unexplained reasons. Also, Jack Evans and Angelico are missing. Are they still in AEW?
Matt got voted out, with Private Party giving us our second transparent and pointless swerve of the night, as they pointless made Mat think they were on his side and then gave the thumbs down when his back was turned… even though if they were going to attack him, they could have done so at any point, because THEY WERE STANDING BEHIND HIM THE ENTIRE TIME.
Jose got a chair. Darby Allin and Sting came out to save Matt… although they took their sweet time getting to the ring... even while they clearly saw the… AFO (I guess?)… stomping on Matt. Unfortunately, the numbers game was too much for them, and they got beaten down as well.
Then Jeff Hardy came out… and danced himself down to the ring while his brother getting his ass kicked. His mere presence made Andrade and Jose flee, and caused the others to attack him one at a time, like dumb AI.
The Blade was the heel who got left in the ring, so he got to take a Twist of Fate and a Swanton. Then Matt and Jeff hugged like they hadn’t seen other in forever. Are you telling me Jeff showed up backstage at Matt’s place of work and 1) didn’t tell Matt, and 2) no one else told Matt)?
Look.. there is something about Jeff that results in a much more loyal legion of fans than a lot of other wrestlers have, so I can’t blame Tony Khan for making the business move of bringing him in, and if he is going to be in, reforming the Hardy Boyz and using them to put over teams much more identified with AEW is the best use of him. But purely as a wrestling fan watching the show, I have very little interest in the Hardy Boyz (or in either of them as singles) here in 2022, so they will just be eating up time that could otherwise go to people I want to see a lot more of.
TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH SHANE STRICKLAND IS INTERRUPTED BY TONY NESE- overall… bad
Am I the only one who find it silly that Tony Schiavone will plug that Strickland will make his debut on Rampage, and then someone else will come along and say that Strickland doesn’t have an opponent yet? If Tony Khan has already decided that he wants Strickland to debut on Rampage, why didn’t he take the fifty seconds worth of extra thought to book an opponent for him?
Nese is upset that no one made a big deal about him when he debuted. He wants to be Strickland’s opponent because they "have a history of wrestling each other on Friday nights.” I watched more 205 Live than most people and sung the show’s praises during its great period louder than anyone… and even I don’t think that reminding people that they used to wrestle each other on some other promotion’s D-show was a good idea. Swerve was good, but Nese was not, and the overall content was not.
TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS WARDLOW- Plot-Hole City
Wardlow’s delivery was good, but oh my G-d was the logic and storytelling here terrible.
Anyway, now that Wardlow has turned, he reveals to us that he grew up poor and was only taking MJF’s money to help his previously-unmentioned mother, who can’t make money of her own for some reason or another that was not explained. THAT’S NOT HOW YOU TELL STORIES! This feels like an ass-pull! If he’s got this mother he needs to provide for, and MJF is going to threaten him to try to keep him in line, maybe have MJF actually f*cking MENTION THE MOTHER and her impending poverty without the money MJF pays Wardlow in one of the threats!
Wardlow explains that no matter what he needs from MJF, MJF shouldn’t disrespect him and slap him, and so he turned babyface on MJF because MJF slapped him the week before. Okay… that doesn’t explain why he was randomly reluctant to keep powerbombing CM Punk in the match where the tension between him and MJF first really blew up.
He says that he is still under contract to MJF, but he won’t be MJF’s bodyguard or take his orders. Okay… then why just fire him and consign his family to poverty like Wardlow was worried he would?
It gets better! Wardlow says that he wants MJF to release him from his contract, so that Wardlow can try to win the TNT Title and thus get a new contract, and in return, he won’t go after MJF anymore. Why? If he can be under contract to MJF and get paid without having to listen to MJF’s orders, why not just wait this contract out and then cash the title shot in when winning the title result in it being transferred directly to MJF?
I early await MJF’s response to this, when we see how many more plot-holes they can open up.
ALEX MARVEZ HOLDS A MICROPHONE WHILE Q.T. MARSHALL TRIES TO RECRUIT KEITH LEE TO TEAM WITH HIM IN A FEUD AGAINST TEAM TAZ- good
Keith Lee turns Marshall down. I thought framing things the way he did (they each have an issue with “Team Taz” instead of framing it as individual members of Team Taz) made Q.T. look clever.
AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Jurassic Express(c) (w/Christian Cage) vs. the Acclaimed- 6.75/10
What the hell have the Acclaimed done to deserve a title shot? Apparently they’re ranked #1 again.
Gunn Club were sitting in the crowd. There were one or two spots in here that looked a little hokey, but otherwise, this was quite good.
JADE CARGILL & MARK STERLING VIDEO PACKAGE & PROMO- good
She’s undefeated and wants to know who will step up next. She explained her kissing Tay Conti at the beginning of their match on the PPV as her “kiss of death,” which I guess she will now be giving all of her opponents.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ELIMINATOR: Thunder Rosa vs. Leyla Hirsch- 5.25/10
OH MY G-D, JUST SAY “#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH!”
Thunder Rosa won a relatively short match. Leyla had tried to cheat, but Red Velvet came out to stop her.
TONY SCHIAVONE ANNOUNCES THAT THUNDER ROSA WILL GET HER TITLE SHOT IN A STEEL CAGE NEXT WEEK IN HER HOME TOWN- Tony Khan just went full NXT and booked a PPV match specifically to build to a rematch with bigger stipulations on free TV.
BRITT BAKER PROMO- meh
This was decent confident heel stuff, but it wasn’t particularly interesting, and didn’t really even make me want to see Thunder Rosa beat Britt up and take her title next week.
AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Sammy Guevara(c) vs. Scorpio Sky (w/Dan Lambert & Ethan Page)- 5.75/10
I love how they are billing this match as “title vs. streak,” as if it’s a big deal, but this is the first televised match of Sky’s in this year-long streak where they have actually built the match around the idea of this streak.
Guevara, the babyface, was the first one who pulled out and tried to use a weapon (a table). Sammy, a moron with injured ribs, tried to go for a 630 through the table. Scorpio Sky moved, and Sammy went crashing through the table. And who should come out to check on Sammy when he suffered this major injury? His good friends LAX or Fuego del Sol? Nope. But Tay Conti came out for some reason.
This injury was so bad that a referee and a medical person (along with Conti) were helping walking Sammy to the back. You’d think that with this happening, the official assigned to the match would declare him unable to compete ad award Sky the title by forfeit, but apparently not.
Sammy recovered and headed back down to the ring, where he proceeded to get his ass kicked by Sky again. Sky through him to the floor, and Conti went down to check on him, revealing the real reason she came out here: because the booked needed her to have an argument with Paige VanZant, who was seated at ringside. And instead of setting up some completely plausible backstage interaction, Tony Khan thought the best way to do this was to have Tay rush out and show extreme concern for someone we have never previously seen her interact with.
Oh. Apparently they’re dating out of nowhere. I don’t know if that’s a shoot or not, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t just throw sh*t out there on TV. You have to establish it! Remember a few weeks ago when Sammy was so distraught about the Inner Circle having some infighting? How about giving a backstage segment where he talks about his feelings to Tay? Put them on our screens together in a low-stakes situation or three before you want this relationship to matter in a high-stakes one. Otherwise, it feels like an ass-pull, especially when you consider that just a few days ago we had a situation where if Tay had won her match, she and her boyfriend would both be the secondary champions, and it wasn’t mentioned at all.
More stuff happened. They created a situation where PVZ could attack Conti from behind. This distracted Sammy, allowing Scorpio Sky to hit his move and get the win (and putting the belt on a heel for Wardlow to beat).
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- not good
Ethan Page laid Sammy out, and VanZant knocked Conti out with a kick, and then signed her AEW contract on Tay’s butt. Are you telling me that VanZant was not under contract to the company but was allowed to jump the guardrail and attack a wrestler without any security coming out?
Speaking of people who didn’t come out to Tay and Sammy at any point when they needed help here were their supposed respective best friends, Anna Jay and Fuego del Sol.
This was arguably the most news-worthy show in AEW history, with the status quo being shaken up quite bit. We had a title change, multiple turns, a new faction forming, PVZ signing her contract, a relationship being revealed out of nowhere, and several mission-statement promos. But that does not mean it was a good show by any means. It was actually one of the worst Dynamites in the ring in quite a while… and, with all the news, that really wouldn’t have been an issue for me, if the storylines hadn’t mostly stunk. Is it really too much to as for things to make sense? Really?