Not much to sink my teeth into on this review, which isn’t to say it was a bad review, just that nothing came up in particular. Lanza told people not to argue with him about “funny doesn’t equal money” though so obviously I’m going to do that, but we’ll get there.
Joe talks about Ospreay/Darby as a “banger”, C2 needs to have best matches of the year, so far it’s been good but not great.
Agreed. I do have my reservations about Darby but not to any point that impacts the match, this is just a cheap plug for the review where I have a discussion about him.
Joe talks about Moné/Jay match being good, Jay wrestling better than she’s been, Moné showing more in her matches now.
Agreed. I think Moné’s character is a little bit much, even granted that she’s a heel, but a focus on more matches is a great move in my opinion.
Joe talks about the 3 tenets (matches, promos, lots of action) and how we only got 1 great match, so not a great Dynamite.
Death Riders are currently not cool, MJF/Cole is the antithesis of cool, Patriarchy/Hook isn’t cool… and if there aren’t cool acts, cool shit isn’t gonna happen.
Joe talks about the show opening angle with Cassidy and White, “can they co-exist”; AEW is just a silly little sports entertainment promotion, not “an alternative.”
Agreed. Working up an idea for an article along these lines (i.e. I’ve got some other stuff I’m doing first) but AEW is just trying to ride in WWE’s slipstream and that sucks. Probably is a good idea not to get worked up about it but it’s tough, speaking for myself. Maybe the angle of the piece will be what kind of arguments might move AEW to change their tack.
Joe talks about the opening trios match being a nothing match, much like the match last week (PAC/Mox vs. Cassidy/White).
Yeah, and it’s a shame because these really could be great ways to keep the heat of this feud high even if the out-of-ring stuff hasn’t been great. These should be good matches but they won’t just book heaters/bangers with finishes that we can follow up on next week, everything has to be overbooked to “tell a story” right now. Horseshit.
Joe talks about Copeland possibly being the mystery partner for FTR, FTR vs. Death Riders, cornball attack on FTR on Collision; Money in the Bank contract & Christian.
Probably a good call, Joe’s instincts on predictions are much better than mine. I agree that it sucks that we have to do MitB but see above with the silly little sports entertainment promotion stuff.
Joe talks about MJF/Cole feud not mattering, Kingdom probable turn; MJF & Cole not having anything to do because the Death Riders is going on at top of the card.
This has a lot to do with AEW not wanting to beat people, in my opinion. MJF and Cole should have run-ins with the Death Riders and get beat, and then we can do other shit, or we can have a Death Riders feud with lots of layers, or whatever. Or, and this might be a crazy suggestion, they can book better shit for the MJF/Cole feud. Callis isn’t in the Death Riders shit, couldn’t Cole move over to fuck with them? White, Page, and Cassidy are dealing with the Death Riders, so can’t MJF go back to work with Garcia? There has to be a way where we don’t have to have the literal worst shit imaginable continuing week after week.
Joe talks about the Hayter pre-tape.
Nothing to say.
Joe talks about the Patriarchy vs. Hook/Shibata.
Nothing to say.
Joe talks about the Jericho “King of New York” segment vs. Gilbert’s “King of Philadelphia” in ECW.
Jericho could have just remembered it? I really don’t have anything to add here, but I made a note of it so I’m just responding.
Joe talks about the May pre-tape, Toni Storm return, “this is what AEW is”, top 3 worst things in the company.
Yeah, 90% agreed. The other 10% is that I feel like I could come up with 3 worse things in company history but I’d have to really think, so that probably makes the point just as well.
Joe talks about Ricochet looking like a geek being punked out by Hurt Syndicate; Joe clipping the mic; Swerve’s interaction with Ricochet, not being able to draw money with Ricochet in the future because of this.
Yeah, this is one of the problems with trying to tell stories over going with rule of cool. If you go with rule of cool, you rarely ever hurt people’s drawing potential outside of match losses because you’re always interested in making people come across cool. With “storytelling”, you let Ricochet look like a shitstain because you think it’ll make a good story and maybe it does on paper, but in reality, you’re affecting how people see this guy. Ricochet has to live a life and have a career after this storyline and it’s not always easy to build somebody back up.
Joe talks about the idea that “funny don’t equal money”, “the Rock told jokes”.
While I agree that funny doesn’t equal money, I personally have always felt that it’s that “comedy doesn’t equal money”. The difference I’m drawing here is that people often use the line to say that a wrestler who is funny can’t be top guys, and I’m mainly thinking of Orange Cassidy and Colt Cabana here. I do think a person who came up as a comedy act can become a top act and without losing their comedic aspects. I’m not talking about the Rock here. Like I said, I’m talking about Cassidy and Cabana. Now, Cassidy’s promos have been criticized and there might be something there. I’m not saying necessarily that these two specifically would have worked, but they’re my examples because they have or had the shot. My point is that while trying to make the crowd laugh isn’t how you get the big bucks, comedy guys can become top guys as long as they can do the top guy thing. They have to be able to turn it on and have a serious program. You don’t have to totally remake yourself and stop loving laughter etc. to do that, in my opinion. I’ve always felt Cabana was robbed of a top run in ROH because of that, at least that’s how the story was told to me, even though I think Cabana showed that he could handle a serious program plenty of times. So that’s where I’d push back against the idea that “funny don’t equal money”.
Joe talks about the match where Shelton defeats Mortos, tournament predictions.
Nothing to add.
Joe talks about how Garcia & Briscoe fighting Hurt Syndicate, makes no sense, likely to set up a TNT title match, “babyface activity”.
Goes back to silly little sports entertainment company stuff. They had to try and kick off their little mini-feud with a brawl, they couldn’t just have an issue with one another and say that. Also, I hope that “babyface activity” does not catch on.
Joe talks about Ospreay’s nasty offense.
Agreed.
Joe talks about his criticism of the Ospreay/Allin match: count-out teases being used too much, Darby recovers super quickly after taking so much punishment.
Agreed.
Joe goes over upcoming events.
Nothing to add.