The OtherArena

[Yakuza Rich]

I tried to watch AEW Dark. I like the concept, but I wasn't impressed by who they have on the show. Then I tried to watch it this week and they had Peter Avalon on the first match and I would rather watch NWA Powerrr instead.




YR

[corrado]

AEW Rating news:

https://www.f4wonline.com/aew-news/aew-nxt-ratings-both-down-again-aew-wins-third-straight-week-295131

Its decreasing but still a comfortable lead over NXT.

[dewelar]

I prefer Dark only because at least I get to watch whole matches instead of half of them having ad breaks in the middle. They don't do the picture-in-picture thing on Sling, apparently, so I get nothing there (although with my eyesight, I wouldn't be able to see anything anyway). Granted, I haven't watched televised wrestling for ten years or so, so maybe that's just how it is now? If so, I may take another ten year break :(, which is sad because both my wife and I do enjoy what we've gotten to see of the matches thus far -- certainly much better than our most recent experiences with WWE or Impact.

[Steve Yohe]

I've watched three times now, and I don't care about it. So I'm done with it. Don't like there style of flying around....without any wrestling. It will turn into WCW if it doesn't get cancelled. I don't want to lesson to Jerico talking. --- Yohe

[Yakuza Rich]

[Steve Yohe]

They seem to think Omega & the Young Bucks are their strong points and everyone in America knows them. You can't use them to get the other lesser guys over on TV. I know it seem like Maeda putting over Takada over in UWF, but none of the others are anything like Takada. You have to get yourself over before helping anyone else. Omega & Young Bucks may be the best workers in wrestling, but there are a huge number of WWE fans who don't know them from shit. They still need to get their base over. The guys who should be doing jobs are the ex-WWE guys. Jericho & the big guy who left the WWE, Moxley. They should be making stars out of others....if the others are any good. It's not the Jericho show. Chris is going to leave them real soon....it's what he does.

Doing a weekly TV show creates all kinds of problems booking wise. No one is history can do big shows every week. It will eat up your roster...and force you to do screw finishs, DQ's, count outs, run in's and bullshit stuff. Even if they had other ideas, Bookers get forced into doing stuff. They are not always in control.

The small guys make them look like a independent promotion. Introduce some wrestling into the mix. The guys in PWG always threw some wrestling into their matches. The flying shit gets old fast. It's easy to book guys who wrestle over. All the flying will kill them in a lot of ways. Slow it down.

They should have just done one major show a month, and maybe a hour show to get the talent over to fans & do interviews. They proved they can do major shows, but weekly TV is a whole different animal. Maybe you should limit the time the major guys are on TV. Every promotion has to have major ups & downs. You have to create storylines that makes things special. Doing "special" every week.. doesn't work. Go back to the early days of TV....network TV with main events worked great for 3 years....then it killed the sport...and then local TV show rebuild everything....by not giving things away.

They need to make these fans think Japanese wrestling is better. They need to make a deal with NJW. Do special shows & share talent once in a while. NJW is getting killed by this new promotion too. Their white guys suck, after having the best in the world. Your going to tell me they can't do that....then then they need to check all the other Japanese promotion for their independent talent. Use some of the old NJW, who aren't getting pushed. Whatever they did to NJW, fix it....NJW needs them too. Seems like NJW is going to lose their American TV show.

They are saying AEW believes in wins & losses. But they don't understand that means some guys need to be unbeatable in that system of thinking. To make lose's mean something....they have to be rare …. because they mean something. The best match up to have, is between two guy who are seen as unbeatable. Gotch vs Hack..... Stecher vs Lewis …. Londos vs Lewis ...Rogers vs Thesz. They don't understand what "wins & losses mean something" means. They are thinking it's about showing each wrestlers records on TV. It's not like baseball or major sports. It's boxing where guy can be undefeated. For course they can't do it. It's not like the 1930's.

They should throw money at Punk, and steal Cesaro, and Kevin Steen. They can create easy storylines for a booker. Cesaro could be a major wrestling.

But the booking system they set up will take control of their story lines away. When they realize the problems, I think they'll just go the WCW way. They've got TBS, Ross, and Tony.

I think I just hate American wrestling.... like John. I don't have the time to waste on it. ---Steve Yohe

[corrado]

Week 4 was fine. The Lucha Bros/Private Party tag match was great. The SCU/Dark order tag match wasn't. Dark order was probably the only bad part of tonight's show. That and some of JR's announcing.

At least they mentioned AEW Dark. unlike last week, though I hope they never mention that Nyla Rose/Leva Bates match. The worst AEW match so far. Anyway, they also mentioned Omega winning the AAA title. So he's going to work more dates there in addition to AEW.

The best part of the show was the Jericho/Cody segment. Very Nitro-esque in several manners. Including DDP appearing. The Inner Circle partying had an NWO vibe to it. The scarf bit was great too. Nice continuity with Jericho's former scarf persona. very wild brawl backstage too. Loved it. Loved it.

Young Bucks actually got some heel heat during their match with best friends. Attacking everyone's favorite Orange Cassidy. And mocking the Best Friends hug. Complete with the pan to wide as well.

Nice audition for Bea Priestley's Stardom ally. Since this isn't the WWE in regards to hometown losses, Britt Baker gets the victory. A random Brandi Rhodes appearance was strange.

Main event was fine. The end result was fine. Both have to be protected early on, and it sets up more important matches in the future.

So next week, I would go with Lucha Bros winning the AEW tag titles. Better feuds and programs than SCU winning them

[Yakuza Rich]

I enjoyed the show very much although they peaked with the Inner Circle vs. Cody and Co. segment and really couldn’t quite get back that momentum afterward. Overall, I would consider it a victory, but there’s still room for improvement.

Personally, I didn’t like Private Party vs. Lucha Bros. I thought outside of the athleticism and the crowd reaction it was a shitty match. The execution was very sloppy. Lots of missed spots, terrible looking strikes and over-choreographed nonsense that takes way too long to set up. That combined with the ‘tit-for-tat’ style of tag team wrestling that is in every tag match and the lack of tags that were just let go by the ref, this just didn’t do it for me and I was glad this was over.

I actually preferred The Dark Order vs. SCU much more. Kaz looked fantastic and Sky was his usual great self. My only issue with Grayson is that he tends to no-sell too much and he doesn’t have that ‘it factor.’ But as far as his work goes it’s generally fantastic. Evil Uno looks like shit, physically, but at least he’s a big guy on a small roster. I really thought this was the far superior match using some old school heel vs. face psychology and far better execution of spots.

That was by far the best Janela match I had ever seen. I think Janela wants to be known as the hardcore wrestler that can actually wrestle. Better to be the guy who can actually wrestle and then save a hardcore match for the end of a good feud. Only nitpick of the actual match was the dive from the top turnbuckle to the outside by Janela. Omega was outside the ring wandering around and then noticeably had to position himself so he could catch Janela. Janela was late on that spot. But other than that, I liked the match. Having said that, Janela is too short and pudgy and when wrestling a guy like Omega who is faster, stronger and has a far superior physique it’s difficult to really believe in Janela as a formidable opponent.

The Inner Circle vs. Cody and Co. segment was awesome. The Inner Circle did have a nWo type feel to them, but what separates this from Nitro is the execution (WCW was such a clusterfuck the glass window would not have broke and would have legit injured Cody) and if this was WCW somehow the Inner Circle would have gotten the better of Cody and Co. Man…did the crowd POP for DDP.

The YB vs. the Best Friends was my biggest issue with the booking of this episode. You just had a hot angle and you’re trying to follow it up with the Young Bucks coming after LAX…but you book them against these jerkoffs. And then with all of the comedy and silliness the YB win and try to cut a promo where they are coming after LAX. This fell flat.

Hopefully with all of the promo and hype about Baker they will finally stop reminding us that she is an actual dentist. It’s like watching Chris Hogan play football and the announcers having to remind us that he played lacrosse while at Penn State. This is the best Baker has looked and she still has a long way to go. Problem for AEW is that almost all of the best women’s talent is in WWE. I thought Hayter was really good. She looked like a good, quality veteran out there. But Brandi had to stick her nose into the segment. Yeah, Brandi is hot and has some promo skills, but she sucks in the ring. And why she isn’t doing jobs while Omega, the YB and Cody are is beyond me.

The topic on the internet is how Baker won in her hometown and how Vince always has wrestlers lose in their hometown. I wouldn’t know since I don’t watch WWE, but it sounds like something stupid that Vince would do and beat to death.

PAC vs. Moxley was good. For once I didn’t have a problem with a wrestler kicking out of a finisher. I think Moxley mistimed the finisher and PAC had to kick out, but it at least presented a different and plausible way to have a time limit draw.

The booking should ‘suspend’ Moxley for attacking the ref. Not only is that the plausible booking for the situation, but you’re not crazy and a rebel if you attack a referee with no recourse for your actions.

I’d still like to see more promos and done ‘right’ with a dark background and no background noise. But they’ve avoided the really awful stuff and the stuff that hurts the fans’ feelings because it insults their intelligence so much. I think they need to figure out how to have different style of tag matches and not following the same formulas because I really just want the tag tourney to be over with. The show is kinda reminding of watching a TV series with promise as the cast is starting to gel, but there’s just enough holes that need to filled to make this must watch TV.

I do consider this a great success for them as Pittsburgh is a notoriously terrible city for pro wrestling since Bruno retired. Even at the WWE's peak Pittsburgh was a problematic town as even if it sold-out, the crowd would always be dead. There appeared to be some seats available, but that was hottest Pittsburgh crowd I've ever heard in the past 30 years.




YR

[corrado]

Well a big part of the opening match succeeding, imo, was the white-hot crowd heat for both teams. They pretty much didnt care if the match went bad. They just got their money's worth.

They actually explained on their twitter account that Moxley was reprimanded for his attack on the ref last night (the 2nd time he attacked that ref since his debut). He's basically on a Randy Savageesque probation angle where another violation could result in a fine and/or suspension. I would assume if they ever go that route, that would be when he's booked for a New Japan tour.

BTW, rumor has it, he's finally going to have an in-ring promo next week. That should be very fun.

Should mention that the ratings were still a bit down. But they were steady enough to stay in the top 5 of the all too important young demographics, in which they handily beat NXT. And last night, was a World Series game, and another NBA doubleheader on ESPN. I was right in saying that commercials and promos during the NBA on TNT would help them keep their audience at a steady level.

[Yakuza Rich]

Teenage me would have loved Lucha Bros vs. Private Party. 20's me would have shat all over it. Current day me didn't like the match and sees the glaring holes, but also recognizes the crowd was really into it and now analyzes why they were into it versus what I didn't like about it.

The match was the first match of the event. They did a smart thing by going right to the introduction of the match instead of the same ole openers to a wrestling show.

The athleticism was there as well.

But I do question how the crowd would have received it if it was the main event or just later in the card with the similar type tag matches having already taken place that were better executed.

And I also wonder how the mainstream TV audience would have received a match that was incredibly contrived and sloppy. The double stomp to Quen's back was a cool move that the crowd could react to, but Quen having to stand bent over for so long to wait for the spot to set up was weak. The same with the countless strikes by both teams that missed by a mile. Sometimes you can't see that live, but can on TV and vice versa.









YR

[corrado]

Page got a good win in the opener. Seems as if "cowboy shit" is his new catchphrase.

I really thought that last night's women match was one of the best women's matches so far in AEW. Shida was great. Shanna was great. Crowd really was into it as well. And like last week, the crowd here was hot for most of the night. I guess because WV doesn't host much wrestling. Hopefully this means a full-time deal for Shanna. She worked better than some of the contracted female talent.

Lots of WCW homages throughout the night. None moreso than the contract signing. With the Tony/Cody limo scene, which I though someone was going to get attacked, and Dustin's forearm being attacked by Jake Hager. Shades of Barry wind ham being attacked. Also good job capitalizing on Jake Hager's last MMA match which was a no contest because of his dirty tactics. great great segment btw,

it seems the Rick and Morty 'crossover" is going to get a lot of negative feedback. I guess thats going to be the norm if they want to do more Warner Media crossovers, and eventually HBOMax. Best Friends/Cassidy were still very over though, and like last week, when the best friends hug was thwarted, tons of heel heat.

So they seemed to have teased a possible thing with Kenny Omega's longtime tag team partner during his Undertale intro. Maybe something is going to happen down the line after all.

Lax learned from their leader about how to attack their opponent from the crowd. Still on of my favorite wwe jericho bits.

They finally gave Moxley a live mic and it was glorious. He's clearly their Stone Cold now. Another great segment.

I was surprised that SCU went over, and became the new tag champs. I thought for sure Lucha Bros would get it. But I guess either they'll hot potato them back at Full Gear, or we get an SCU/Lax feud soon as well.

So another decent outing that will probably not fare as well in the ratings due to Game 7 of the World Series and NBA action.

[Yakuza Rich]

This episode was disjointed and felt like a bit like an old Nitro and a ‘good’ version of Raw. But, they had a good main event and got the crowd into it after the 10 o’clock hour.

Page vs. Guevara was good although Guevara (who I’m a mark for) wasn’t quite on his A Game. They needed to get Page over and I would have like to have seen somebody else get him over than Guevara, but I don’t know who that would be and who could do it effectively. Page looks really good here, but I can’t quite put my finger on what is missing with Page that I don’t quite care for. I think he really needs to be either in a great feud with a veteran or work some killer matches to get that credibility to ascend to super stardom.

The woman’s match wasn’t very good. Nothing is more overrated than Joshi wrestlers, IMO. Shanna sells really well, but the match was killed by them going to commercial and that’s when Shanna hit her big moves. I think Hikaru has potential, but that’s all she has at this point. They need to put her with veterans and limit her match time until she gets more seasoned. I was glad that they were at commercial break when they did the vignette of the RnR and Private Party. Vignettes suck…don’t do them.

Santana/Ortiz attacking RnR was very WWE-ish. Nobody is buying the breakaway tables anymore. Either use a ‘real’ table that is slightly gimmicked or don’t do it.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Rick and Morty match with Orange Cassidy got the crowd back into it. This isn’t my kind of wrestling, but I understand it’s hard to pass up that type of crossover appeal and they kept it short. If Taylor/Berretta/Cassidy never want to be taken seriously as top-tier guys…then that’s their own doing.

I liked the Jericho and Cody segment. It just goes to show that angles and the ga-ga isn’t really that hard…just do the opposite of what Vince would do. I actually liked the segment of Schiavone and Cody talking in the limo outside of the fact it was difficult to hear what they were saying. Hager needs to stop with the hair gimmick just for the sole reason he needs to remove as much of the WWE stench off him as ossible.

They need to get Omega contending for the belt. He’s just too over with the crowd and too good of worker. He’s also 36 years old. Get him going while the gettin’ is good. I would book him to beat Moxley because Moxley simply isn’t as over as Omega. When Omega is in the ring, there’s a feeling of something special with the crowd. He’s the guy that wrestled all of those incredible matches in New Japan and the fans really give off that vibe that they need to watch what he’s doing.

Moxley does the ECW gimmick with Peter Avalon. Hopefully this puts an end to the librarian gimmick.

I really enjoyed the main event. It was far better than Lucha Bros vs. Private Party that people were raving about last week. Although they did too many spots where they didn’t tag.. But SCU should be the champs. I think they are the best team in the division and they have the experience to help get tag teams and eventual solo wrestlers to learn the ropes.






YR

[corrado]

This was a great go-home show to Full Gear.

Pac/Trent was pretty good. Ending though was botched due to the ref thinking that Trent kicked out of Pac's Falcon arrow. Pac had a great ad-lib though making Trent tap.

Cody's announcement was a bit of a letdown. But this sets up Moxley/Omega etc as #1 contenders. Great promo though. He seemed to hint at perhaps another one of his father's trademark matches in the near future.


Jericho's promo was a classic too. A comedic classic. Hilarious spoof of Cody's training video. One of the funniest parts was how they countered DDP's appearance, by having one of the polar opposites of him.

Women's tag match was fine. I like how the women in the ring have now overtaken the more high-profile female wrestlers that were with AEW in the beginning. And they moved Britt/Bea Priestley to the buy-in show.

So its a triple-threat tag title match. And it should be good with Private Party added to it. I did think this was the best the Dark Order has been since their AEW debut.

I do have to say I'm concerned that Darby Allin seems to be forgotten now. He posted/retweeted about 50 pictures of fans with their faces painted like him for Halloween. I mean they really should have something for him to do, so that the fans don't forget about him. I mean they have big, continued roles for Orange Cassidy and Joey Janela. At least they haven't been forgotten.

Main event was fine. But the post-match schmozz was better and more exciting. All the participants from the 4 big matches this Saturday, got into a brawl. Fun way to end the show.

[corrado]

They have a countdown to Full Gear now up on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wykMoy6V8Fo

it's highly recommended.

[Yakuza Rich]

I didn't get to watch Dynamite until late as I foolishly thought that Jim Boeheim would bring forth an actually competent offense to basketball. Instead, I questioned if they were going to score more than 5 points in the first half and got to see the equivalent of an intramural offense.

I was pleased with the show overall. None of the matches bothered me too much other than some tweaks here and there. Private Party is extremely green and The Dark Order was making ridiculous amounts of tags for almost no reason.

That’s the best I’ve seen out of Riho so far, although I’m not sure why they are still pushing another Joshi wrestler. It’s hard enough to get women’s wrestling over, much less doing it with Joshi talent that don’t speak the language and are not relatable to female fans.

I don’t care for the Best Friends or Orange Cassidy, but at least Cassidy didn’t get over on PAC. The main event was pretty good. Guevara has the makings of a great heel. He has a very punchable face and attitude and has picked up the nuance of working modern day high flying spots and doing it as a heel. If he really learns how to talk and gets pushed smartly, he could be Hispanic Shawn Michaels.

The Cody promo was incredible. And I don’t care for a lot of millennials, but that is the way to cut a face promo to hype the match going into the PPV. I mean, this was better than most promos from The Rock. And of course, the Jericho video was excellent. This is how you do a funny heel promo by not making it too long, not over-doing it, not exposing your opponents’ true weaknesses and not doing the typical, DX type of way of doing comedy.

Going into the PPV, the strengths of the AEW so far are:
- Excellent TV production. They are beating the WWE in this area pretty badly.

- The announcing, even with the 3 man team, has been pretty good. I still think they could do better with JR and Excalibur. Schiavone has been good in his role though.

- Everything Jericho and Cody have done has been excellent. They’ve basically taken textbook wrestling angles and ideas, figured out how the WWE would do it and piss off all of the fans and then do the opposite.

- I think they are on the verge of creating stars in Darby Allin and Guevara. Allin as the Jeff Hardy will die for your sins type of face and Guevara as the Tully Blanchard punchable face type heel that can really go.

- They’ve avoided downright insulting our intelligence type of stuff. Often times you can get by just fine with that because wrestling fans are so dedicated as long as you don’t drive them away.

The weaknesses/missteps are:
- The tag division has been a disappointment. I think the Young Bucks thought that because the tag division is over on the indie scene that it would be over here and they thought it would just be easy to plop down ‘great’ matches, so they started off with a tag tourney. Instead, the tag tourney took away from character development and storyline creation. And almost every tag team wrestles the same style. A lot of ‘tit for tat’ type spots, but it’s making incredible moves seem rather unimportant. And it’s been exposed that the Young Bucks are limited and the Lucha Bros are even more limited.

- They made a big mistake by not elevating Omega to the top. He’s over, he’s mega-over. He’s the guy that you can just sense that the crowd recognizes him as something special. He’s the way I would feel if this was ’97 and Misawa was in the US about to wrestle. I don’t think he’s at the level of a Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada/Hashimoto, but he’s really great and the modern fan looks at him that way.

- I don’t think Moxley has really quite gotten to where he should be. This is a guy that was mega-over and shat upon by Vince. He threatened to leave and actually did leave. He just got even more over for doing so instead of taking the money to stay with Vince. It’s a tough juggling act because of who you have at the top, but I feel like they missed out some on him.

- The women’s division is weak.

- Too many wrestlers are in limbo. MJF, Spears, Havoc, Allin, etc. I think they are using too much time on guys like The Best Friends, Janela, Sonny Kiss, etc in AEW Dark and not enough on these guys that have more talent and are at least compelling.

While the ratings haven’t been great, I do think they should stay the course. It’s a TV program and any good TV program takes time to develop, tweak and weed out the bad stuff and emphasize the good stuff. I am afraid they paid some of these guys ridiculous amounts of money. They would probably be better off going the Japan route of 1-year deals for their wrestlers. I’m not going to buy the PPV, but I’ll be interested in the outcomes and if they progress their booking to the next PPV, then I will likely purchase that one.





YR