4 hours ago, El-P said:

In other news, Alan Angels has apparently not been re-signed. The guy sure has a little name to himself now, thanks to you know who.

In retrospect, I think him not re-signing shows that having a competitive match with Omega was not the best decision.

It would be one thing if he were to be showcased more often, but much like the rest of Dark Order, who were part of the most engaging storylines in the company's history, helping Page win the big one, he was basically forgotten. I have seen more of QT and Comoroto in the past months than Dark Order, and this doesn't seem right.

Even Anna Jay, who was maybe the one with the most on-screen presence, has been showing up less and less, and I think some of it has to do with the Tay heel turn.

It does feel like Dark Order is slowly being phased out with Grayson and Angels going, and Cabana being moved to RoH. I hope they do something with Silver & Reynolds as a team post DO, feels like they could have been featured a bit more in the tag mix. Anna Jay will be fine and Preston Vance can be easily repackaged, not sure where it would leave Uno though.

42 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

In retrospect, I think him not re-signing shows that having a competitive match with Omega was not the best decision.

Sorry but not this again, bubba ! 

He's a guy no one even heard about before and he only got a job for like 2 years in AEW, and now he's got a little bit of name to himself and some credentials. Did not hurt anyone in the slightest, only helped him make a better living and get a better profile in the business. So yes indeed, it was a great decision, and he's probably grateful for life toward Omega. Apparently they will still book him on a date to date schedule. He's like only 24 years old too. He sure can land on the indies which a much better profile now. But yeah, like I said, kinda sad about how the whole Dark Order deal kinda went south without riding the wave of being Hangman's friends longer.

Totally forgot about Preston Vance but honestly, I don't see anything special or even intriguing about this guy. He's really kinda there, especially now in this incredibly bloated roster of great talent. I would give JD Drake a push before I would #10.

42 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Even Anna Jay, who was maybe the one with the most on-screen presence, has been showing up less and less, and I think some of it has to do with the Tay heel turn.

Probably. The sad thing is that they really did not even do anything with Jay when it happened despite them being presented as BFF. Gotta be honest though, since she came back from her long layoff, Anna Jay has not looked good. She came back worse than she was before the injury, maybe she lost the confidence she was building, but she really needs some in-ring time it seems to even get back at where she was before she left. Sure, there was the terrific garbage match with Penelope & Bunny, but that really was the exception to the rule, and the gimmick sure helped. 

Also I know I like to pick on good bubba KawadaSmile's hatred for Britt, but by my understanding, she has now put over Toni Storm twice in a much stronger and more convincing way than anyone has in the past, what, 5 years? To the point everyone was thinking Storm would win the title. 

1 hour ago, El-P said:

Sorry but not this again, bubba ! 

He's a guy no one even heard about before and he only got a job for like 2 years in AEW, and now he's got a little bit of name to himself and some credentials. Did not hurt anyone in the slightest, only helped him make a better living and get a better profile in the business. So yes indeed, it was a great decision, and he's probably grateful for life toward Omega. Apparently they will still book him on a date to date schedule. He's like only 24 years old too. He sure can land on the indies which a much better profile now. But yeah, like I said, kinda sad about how the whole Dark Order deal kinda went south without riding the wave of being Hangman's friends longer.

Don't get me wrong, bubba, it's not that I found it a BAD decision - I 100% understand the reason behind it, and to a certain extent I think it made sense at the time. My complaint is that he and the rest of the DO vanished. You'd think such an important act for the establishment of the company would get more stuff to do, so to me that match ringed a bit hollow.

Maybe the DO is more of an Omega thing and TK doesn't like them that much, hence their absence since Kenny's injury?

 

2 minutes ago, MoS said:

Also I know I like to pick on good bubba KawadaSmile's hatred for Britt, but by my understanding, she has now put over Toni Storm twice in a much stronger and more convincing way than anyone has in the past, what, 5 years? To the point everyone was thinking Storm would win the title. 

She did put Toni over, thankfully. And she hasn't been featured as often, too! TK is listening!!! (Still, Ruby getting the pin over her, being laid out regardless and vanishing is fucking funny)

If she puts over Hayter in their feud (which is coming anytime!!), I will retract my comments momentarily :p

3 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

 

If she puts over Hayter in their feud (which is coming anytime!!), I will retract my comments momentarily :p

For now, I will just settle on you saying she is not as bad as Charlotte  

6 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

My complaint is that he and the rest of the DO vanished. You'd think such an important act for the establishment of the company would get more stuff to do, so to me that match ringed a bit hollow.

Sure. Like I said, I'm a bit sad about how the faction got put in the background. There could have been more to it with Hangman, and although they have done a little bit, me think it could have progressed into some bigger things for them for a while.

7 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Maybe the DO is more of an Omega thing and TK doesn't like them that much, hence their absence since Kenny's injury?

I don't think it changes anything, honestly. TK is the one making the decisions. I dunno why you wouldn't renew someone like Stu Grayson especially. Untapped potential there (Anna Jay bullying him on BTE was always really funny).

I'm pretty certain there's always going to be some version of the Dark Order for -1's sake, even just at the studio Dark tapings, and that Vance probably has a safe job for a good long while even if he might never get a huge push.

I never particularly cared for the DO but I do think it's a shame they let Grayson go. Him and Uno were one of the top tag teams in the AEW for me.

I also enjoy Johnny Hungee. The guy is massively over and should be featured more.

If I remember right, wear and tear may have been one of the reasons Grayson and Uno weren’t featured as much, too, so between that and how other tag teams ended up being featured, they just got shuffled out. 

Whether it “hurt” anyone or not, lower-card guys going long and competitive with upper-card guys only has oomph if it is done sparingly. I guess in Angels’ case it was a little different because he was un-signed, but if it doesn’t result in a decent run for the unexpectedly competitive guy afterward, it’s kind of a waste of a booking tactic.

The match wasn't even that competitive. Omega pinned the guy with a V-trigger for Pete's sake.

Unsurprisingly, Dynamite scored high. So, that gimmick is still a draw. *sigh* Maybe next try do it in 25-30 minutes and don't throw anyone from the top and keep it about guys beating the fuck out of each others and bleeding like pigs, which is enough on its own, really (speaking of which, book 2.0 again, they clearly were a highlight of the match). Probably won't happen and I'll probably be grumpy again after someone jumps on a pad outside again and they do the finish on top of the cage. Oh well. At least it's a good laugh at the face of the AEW doom&gloomers talking about how the company is dead everytime something bad happens.

Jericho is so bad at getting in place for spots. He's easily the worst part of all of these gimmick matches in AEW.

I’m psyched because I have Forbidden Door, Dynamite and Rampage to watch on Saturday and the response has been great to them. I watched the Forbidden Door buy-in last night and the crowd was molten for QT Marshall so that bodes well

re: Dark Order i'm glad to see a lot of yall agreeing with me.  Angels is only 24, and i had thought he could be the most valuable member of that group in the long run...kind of a mistake there imo.  i think Uno is pretty secure in AEW but only because of his job in their video game division - he does a lot of work there including Twitch streaming.  Anna & Silver are the only ones i see getting any real push as wrestlers in the foreseeable future, alas

On 7/1/2022 at 3:15 AM, strobogo said:

Jericho is so bad at getting in place for spots. He's easily the worst part of all of these gimmick matches in AEW.

He is also so terrible at blatantly calling spots and talking to others on camera. This match, he was loudly asking the ref if they were in a break (and no, they were not). I mean, this is one aspect of pro wrestling you would consider him to be excellent at, given he has been on national TV in prominent slots for like 25 years now. I will never forget, in the first Blood and Guts match, he had MJF in the Walls of Jericho, and in full view of the camera, when it was time for MJF to reverse it, he literally tapped MJF on the thigh, told him to reverse it, and started releasing his own hold. It's like he has forgotten how to work cameras? In a promotion full of indy guys who have never worked on TV before, he seems to stand out in the worst possible way. 

I feel like people were complaining about Jericho blatantly calling spots during his 2008 comeback, so this has been one of his problems for a long long time.

If you are Tony Khan, do you start throwing money at Io Shirai's direction right now?

Well, considering she wants to go back to Japan, not sure there's any money to be thrown. HOWEVER, I absolutely talk to Rossy Ogawa about bringing her (as I expect she would sign back with Stardom) and/or KAIRI to do shots in AEW.

I feel AEW needs a closer relationship with Stardom than with New Japan because they have a lot of young talent on the women's side that needs to work more and develop on all aspects of wrestling and trips to Japan would greatly benefit them. And of course, 4-6 month runs from awesome wrestlers like Io would help them as well.

How have there been no updates at all on the MJF situation 

2 hours ago, strobogo said:

How have there been no updates at all on the MJF situation 

The lack of reporting on stuff AEW doesn't want out there shows there probably aren't a lot of disgruntled people in positions of power/importance in the company, which s a great thing for the promotion.

But at the same time, it exposes how bad wrestling journalism is. As in, they either don't want to report what they know so they don't get on TK's bad side or they have no sources worth a damn that will talk to them about anything that isn't positive.

There probably isn't much  to report,  it seems clear at this point that MJF is taking time to cool off from how heated things got. He's under contract to 2023 so that's when the real drama's probably going to start.

 

HOLY SHIT the Daddy Magic promo that starts this off was an all timer.