Performance Review
Overall Evaluation and Achieved Goals
Is that your coffee? Great, let’s talk.
Here’s the thing – you made Marty Scurll rich. Also, you’re rich! The Elite is all rich!
You have exceeded beyond your wildest imagination, corporate loves you, you’ve got a platform men would kill for.
I guess I just didn’t think #ChangeTheWorld meant glowing success for you guys, and scraps of mediocre pro wrestling for the rest of us.
Wait – that was dramatic.
I still bought a ticket to the Revolution show in Chicago. First show!!
AEW is a weird thing right now because after the initial buzz it is now pandering to this idea of its hardcore/lapsed/blah blah wrestling fan audience but also pulling out so many tropes that should conceivably annoy them, and its audience is also one that is online all the time (hello) so despite any fat TV contract the general word about this company ping pongs week to week from crushing despair to genuine hopefulness.
This particular week was fine. An OK contribution to the wrestling community. I’m not going to tell any friend of mine they should watch it, but it also didn’t suck.
Just be careful with that guy named Hangman Adam Page being a drunk.
Areas of Excellence Within Performance
Talent. Talent, talent, talent. Santana & Ortiz are back and rule. Darby Allin is just blatantly the dude. Spunky babyface Jon Moxley is on the rise. Sammy Guevera. MJF. All of this keeps things fun while The Elite figures their bullshit out.
The wild 4-Way Tag Match opener was a fine agenda setter, something to be encouraged.
Love a wrestling company that sends condolences to not just Rocky Johnson, but La Parka, Kendo Nagasaki, and Pampiro Firpo. Professional wrestling is a vast, vast land.
You commit to things that sometime bring great despair. You also… commit to them. I might appreciate that. There have been some pivots, but you’ve generally stuck to the script: Cody going all in on the variety show 80s gimmicks, The Nightmare Collective, The Dark Order, even poor capable QT Marshall as a recurring character – these things slow momentum down and can feel extra phony, but that they are embraced and here week after week both gives them time to figure out a tone and establishes them as legitimate.
They could just suck though too. I liked the gumption this week though.
Suggested Areas of Improvement
Of course, your King & Queen are definitely living the gimmick.
Why does this even have to be a conversation topic?
Why would you handicap your entire women’s division with The Dark Collective stuff? Best case scenario it ends with Brandi Rhodes eating shit but then they fawn over her putting somebody over like the greatest heel there ever was. In the meantime all I see is quiet matches and shitty angles. Take a step back.
Cody meanwhile has got that Dusty Rhodes thing where – speaking of committing – he’s gonna hard sell the only-in-wrestling fight stipulation being proposed and his dorky confidence in it makes it redeeming even if doesn’t seem to be popular and I’m not close to confident that this works with anyone but the most niche of professional wrestling fan. Guess that’s a type of fan though. This week was a miss for the guy though.
Also – Joey Janela vs. Fenix next week?
Additional Feedback
Top Plays of the Week
3. Trent and MJF’s Muscle Poses: Guy knocks a guy down, flexes his muscles. Still works.
2. Jon Moxley Drives In: Felt like Vince McMahon was calling shots a little this week with Moxley driving into the arena in a sports car then ending the show doing an over-the-top return from an eye injury, except then I remembered these made Moxley seem kind of cool.
1. DDP Does a Plancha: All of this is worth it.
Lowest Moments of the Week
3. When Joey Janela Said He Was Wrestling Fenix Next WeekHope I’m wrong and this rules.
2. Jericho Whips Mox with the Belt When Cody Has the Lashing Gimmick Going: Is this a rib?
1. Kris Statlander & Hikaru Shida vs. Brandi Rhodes & Melanie Cruise: Respect to the girls in the ring, but this was like a use case in poorly executed sports entertainment.
Confident Statements
3. Don’t care about a TV contract, if Darby vs. MJF isn’t a huge deal this whole thing was a failure. By Fall 2021 at the LATEST.
2. The Dark Order could still work. It’s tacky, but if they scale back and drop The Creepers we could be in store for a moment or two.
1. Good or bad, it’s still lacking. There’s a lot of impressive wrestling and the roster rules, but the first taste of a well-funded national American wrestling company since the WWF tossed it all away with THE INVASION having a feeling of “is this all just an elaborate slow burn?” like four months in is a bummer.
Solution Focus Areas
3. Continue Joey Janela as Dirty White Boy. The promo was silly, but a good silly. Wrestling could use more ex-girlfriend feuds. Just no more Tweeting.
2. More matches to start the show + marquee main events, please! Doesn’t have to be a 4-Way Tag, but all the competitors in the ring to start the show ready to fight and then Darby Allin vs. PAC was a great set of bookends. Bookends are nice. They hold together books.
1. Make them outlaws. We know who your EVPs are anyways, stop doing that WWE thing where everybody feels like an act just going along with the show to execute their promoter’s vision so they can be a well-paid midcard wrestling star. Make this thing ALIVE.
And The Wrestling
It all just keeps running together. Any wrestling company has its house style – I’m not sure AEW has one yet, or will have one, and at the same time there aren’t many memorable or effective TV matches.
Darby Allin vs. PAC was an exciting main event and fun match, but even that didn’t hit – less AEW, more 205 Live. Darby is the most intriguing guy in wrestling and him chucking his own body at PAC in a variety of ways was great. PAC rules too, slowing things to the pace of a man who truly does not care if you have any fun at the wrestling matches – I respect it. The Liger Bomb at the end was wild, and another Darby loss was deflating enough to convince me they’ve got something there.
The Young Bucks vs. Adam Page & Kenny Omega vs. The Best Friends vs. Santana & Ortiz is a heck of a line-up, a heck of a way to start your wrestling show. Bunch of neat spots, Santana & Ortiz freaked people out, Orange Cassidy made people laugh, Omega and The Bucks got a run, Hangman Page looked disappointed. A wild match, it just got bodied with counter-programming over on the USA Network by Riddle/Dunne vs. Andrews/Flash Webster.
Statlander, Shida, Brandi, Cruise… miscast, mis-delivered.
Jon Moxley vs. Sammy Guevera was one of the first real “fine TV matches” on Dynamite, ol’ Big Jon himself opposite this fresh youngin who’s got a gimmick and look and the ability to backflip. Mox controlled, but Guevera busted out some truly outrageous stuff.
Diamond Dallas Page wrestled on this show in a 6-man tag, and I feel like him on a team opposite MJF ended up a missed opportunity. Too many cooks in the kitchen here – Dustin Rhodes was trying his damndest and MJF is greatness, but The Butcher & The Blade & Bunny haven’t recovered from that debut and QT Marshall is trying but an unknown, acquired taste. DDP’s hot tag run and plancha were a good time, but there were also parts of this that got eerily quiet.
Official Star Rating
2.75 out of 5 Stars
