Cactus loving crackheads.

People doing a victory lap for AEW after signing Mercedes Mone, Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay are forgetting the excellent signings they've had before as well that ultimately do little for the company. Not because of their lack of star power or talent though. No, their signings are emblematic of the biggest problem AEW has currently: poor booking. I would assume the blame falls on Tony Khan for this.

I don't applaud anyone here except those that scored big paydays from a man with unlimited funds making sure the competition doesn't get the talent. Will Ospreay for me is the biggest get here. And a match with Danielson will obviously be incredible. But what was the story behind the Dynamite ending this week? What motivation is there for Danielson to come out and stare down Ospreay? It felt so forced. It was the "hey wrestling fans, how's THIS for a dream match?" and that was it.

Okada has the biggest storyline so far in his first appearance, aligning with the Bucks. Not a fan of them personally based only on my own perceptions, but I realize they make a lot of people look good in the ring. They are obviously assets to AEW.

I genuinely have no idea where Mercedes Mone goes in all this. The women's division has such a weird direction. They have this thing with Julia Hart (the MVP of 2023) and Skye Blue (the workhorse of 2023) which is kind of fun but I also don't know where it goes or what purpose it serves. Is Skye Blue in the House of Black? If not, why not? Timeless Toni Storm is fun, but one of the worst parts of AEW booking is the obvious outcomes. Obviously Mariah May is going to play a part in Storm losing the title, either to Mariah May or she'll cost her the title. Deonna Purrazzo had a solid buildup to her Revolution match. Now what? I feel like Mercedes will end up in the same boat after so long.

The biggest proof in 2023 that AEW has no idea what they're doing is having one of the biggest events in wrestling history in Wembley Stadium and having one of the best wrestlers in the world wrestle... Chris Jericho. Really can't wait until Okada falls right into the Vortex of Le Ocho!

I criticize because I do so desperately want AEW to be legit competition for WWE. But WWE is leagues ahead of them at this point, just on the basis of having a proper creative process in place.

Thoughts on Revolution:

Definitely their best show since Forbidden Door 2. High emotion + high octane action.

Everything about the Sting match was ridiculous yet also completely the right move to send him out.

Ospreay vs Takeshita made no sense for a story yet was a killer match. Will Ospreay is instantly their best guy.

The thousand midcard titles were actually put to good use. I don't like the Undisputed Empire or whatever they are called now, but Roddy had been in the company for years without a huge win and definitely needed one. It's just too bad Wardlow won too and we have to deal with Adam Cole back in the title picture. Also RIP Roddy's Killswitch Engage theme music. THIS DISTANCE

I didn't really care about the world title feud all that much. Interesting gimmick with Hangman and Swerve being so focused on each other that they couldn't win ... but since Joe just won the title recently there was little to no suspense.

Another new ppv? Really?

Kingston has gotten back to back wins on Moxley and Danielson from the last two ppvs. Surely that is worthy of a world title shot?




Yet despite all that and the Okada debut I don't really feel any need to watch Dynamite this week. X is right that the booking has given AEW a really tough problem to overcome - a mountain of apathy. The show is focused on building Dream Matches, which I love, but you don't need to follow week to week to appreciate them. You don't even need to read the results lol. Just let Danielson and Ospreay cook in a few weeks.

Prediction for AEW title: Samoa Joe beats Wardlow, MJF beats Samoa Joe, Swerve beats MJF. Samoa Joe's surprising title win at the time ends up being kind of unofficial version of Moxley's interim reign during CM Punk injury, with MJF injury needing a champion to fill some time. Swerve still ends up winning title if he's still over in 6 months, but rigid long term planner Khan wants to do it the way he had planned before MJF time off, hence not just making him win triple threat (or making it singles Swerve-Joe to begin with).

I think it would be cool if they pulled the trigger on Wardlow though, he has improved his promo to at least beliiiii that era Reigns level.

I worry they may have already missed their chance with Swerve. Okada and Ospreay will jump the line.

-Okada will be with the Bucks for a while and looks like he'll be wrestling for the Continental Championship next week. Which, I genuinely have no idea what that title is besides giving Kingston a genuine title. Why do we have four men's singles titles? And that's just the AEW titles.

I hate to get on that train of thought again but... maybe we have too many titles.

-What the long run has in store is beside the point right now, but AEW did make a big deal out of Mercedes Mone and that was pretty special. Great ability to sustain getting her over with the crowd with the C-E-O chants too.

Fun three hours of AEW last night (one of the two times per year where TSN will show Rampage)... but man. It's really sad to see Chris Jericho's career limping towards a whimper. I have so much respect for him for much of his career, but the last year or two are rough for him. It's almost as bad as Vince the last couple of years. Not knowing when enough is enough or when to do something different. No foresight to see what you're doing is no longer working. So many years of staying ahead of the curve, only to find yourself in the exact position you've been fighting for decades and not knowing it.

I'd compare scandals as well, but I sure hope Vince's scandals will always be worse than anything Jericho may or may not have done.

The most boring, stale act of the last 20 years that only comes out to nostalgia pops and has only succeeded through others (the promo with CM Punk, the feud with John Cena) has completely transformed into one of the best characters of the post-pandemic era. Where this version of The Rock has been hiding is a mystery, but so glad his career will be wrapping up with this version in its later days. Would be fun but also forgettable if we only got two or three appearances leading into Wrestlemania, but we're going to have roughly a dozen appearances since his return post-Rumble. Really glad he's putting in the work. Also completely reignited the Roman/Cody stuff, which I fear may have felt like a sequel with diminishing returns without The Rock (and Seth/Drew/Punk/etc.).

The Rock put on a masterclass and showed why he's th GOAT

Didn't watch it all yet but saw some of CM Punk on Ariel Helwani's show. One of the things he said about AEW articulated my biggest problem with AEW: they are not about building a business, they're about putting on great matches. That to me is the issue. They essentially put on each show and hope something on the show gets a cheap pop on the internet, which it usually does. There's not a well-built structure surrounding these great matches, so once the great match happens and you gush about it, you're not left with much else except what's the next great match going to be on Collision or Dynamite?

Also seems to confirm TK is not a good boss. A nice guy, but not a good boss. Knows how to handle things that are going well, but doesn't know what to do when an issue comes up. It's bad enough if you surround yourself with yes men, but being the boss and being the biggest Yes Man on top of that is a bad combination.

Tony just wants a show where he can mark out to 5 star matches and then hang out with the people who wrestled them after. I think he's given up trying to compete with WWE and just wants the best product for himself lol. Must be nice to be a billionaire.

It is good to have that alternative though. While I would have liked to see Ospreay have tons of fresh matches in wwe, letting him just put on 20 minute bangers on Dynamite every week is a better use for his talent than whatever HHH would be cooking up for him. Like maybe he'd get Rollins or Logan Paul this Mania, but what about Mania 41? Could easily just fall into the pack and be one of the ladder match guys.

Mania season has been very hype this year, but I'm not looking forward to the actual card as much as last year. Why? Cause neither of the biggest matches WWE has to offer is on them lol. We should be heading into a double main event of Rock v Cody and Punk v McIntyre, but instead we get neither. Gunther v Brock? Nope. Logan Paul v Bad Bunny? Nope. Rhea v Becky is the only real dream match on the card right now since they've never faced each other on equal terms (Rhea was just not on Becky's level until Judgment Day.) Of course, the booking of Cody v Roman 2 could end up being the saving grace. Imagine if the Bloodline takes out all of Cody's Avengers, Roman is about to line up the final spear and then ... Glass Shatters. Biggest pop of all time?

I'm absolutely happy AEW exists and offers what they do offer. I criticize a lot because I care and because I loved them a few years ago up until maybe a year ago. I just want them to actually want to be legit competition to WWE in more ways than "Hey Trips, check out Ospreay or Okada wipe the floor with your roster this week in a 20-minute main event against Kyle Fletcher"

Watched the whole Punk interview. I've listened to his entire Colt Cabana interview (from 2014), his entire Brawl Out appearance and now this interview. He's just fascinating to listen to. I'd imagine he can be shitty to be around but just watching him is something.

My takeaway from it is that he went to AEW to build the company and help out younger talent, he figured out that's not what AEW is about, certain guys didn't like his attitude (likely came across like he was going to be some savior for the company when he just wanted to give advice and work with everyone) and everything just went to absolute shit, especially thanks to his history with Colt Cabana. He's doing in WWE now exactly what he wanted to do in AEW. I would even say he's doing things with a guy like Drew (blurring the lines between reality and fiction) that he tried doing with someone like Hangman before he quit AEW.

Tony sending out almost-WWE lifer Adam Copeland to deliver a pro-AEW speech is wild. I did like his line about how even if we go online to criticize pro wrestling, we still love it. It's true. I love it all.

The rest? Eh... I'm sure he believes it because he's actually wrestling on a regular basis rather than waiting for the next match he is afforded in WWE. But when you talk about Okada, Ospreay and Mercedes choosing AEW and not mentioning the payday/limited schedule they have, it's a bit disingenuous.

They really should have just let the Punk comments go and put on a great wrestling show at this point. Copeland cutting a WWE-style promo wasn't the best way to say "Hey, we're doing things right here!"

Mercedes going to do commentary for 2 months just to feud for women's midcard belt? I'd have made her women's champion in her 2nd PPV.

Gunther v Sami over delivered. Whole segment from the entrance to celebration was fantastic. Rhea and Becky also deserves accolades for turning what could have been a disaster (Becky getting sick) into a solid match (though not a classic by any means.)

That main event though ... woof. Some decent Rock moments but felt like everyone else was performing scared. No one wanted to get hurt and mess up the real main events on night two. Rock had some good parts like bullying the referee. The match would have been fine if it was 20 minutes long. The whole segment took over an hour if you include the segments and video packages though. An hour! And it was the second longest Mania match ever only Bret v Shawn iron man. Really wish we could have just got Rock 1 v 1 with Cody.

The Rock's entrance alone was worth the over an hour long main event.

This how you overdo an entrance my gawd.

Much better on night two! Grats to Cody on becoming the new face of the wwe.

The true highlight of Wrestlemania weekend was the constant burial of Vince McMahon. By god, the dude might finally be gone!

Fantastic two nights overall. Sure the Night One main event was a bit bloated at over an hour including intros. And we knew the Night Two main event would be the most over produced match ever. Bit disappointing we didn't get Austin, but when the backup choice is Taker, can't really complain.

Speaking of, we all collectively saw The Shield's music hit and thought "... no way HE is here" right?

I do hope we are past the Bloodline headlining both nights. Obviously a match involving Rock, Cody, Roman and Seth would main event a PPV, but it would be nice to see someone else get that spot. Would have been fun if they had pushed the Bayley/Iyo Sky feud more and had them main event night one.

It's alarming how much of wrestling twitter legit thinks AEW is airing footage of CM Punk tonight.

That's what I thought until they actually did it...

Honestly kinda pathetic. Right when things were turning around for them they remind people of all the embarassing shitt hat happened in the past. Why? To promote the 4th match between Bucks and FTR? Something that no one cares about anymore? Yawn.

Yeah, I never felt so right being wrong. I'll have some thoughts later.

AEW? More like WTF? Anyway

The Sunday main event was godlike. Fucking made me stand up and clap when the gong went off.

I've felt a lot of emotions while watching AEW over the past four years. Mostly positive, a few negative. But last night just made me feel embarrassed. Not to say WWE hasn't been embarrassing on a weekly basis at times, especially in the later Vince-run era. This was different. This was really rough to watch, knowing it came from the company's boss and the EVPs as some sort of dunk on Punk and also trying to cash in on it. It did neither.

Let's be clear: Punk was always wrong to resort to a physical altercation to deal with the issue. But what he said in his interview two weeks ago pretty much stands up to what we watched. I see some people arguing minor details but it's fair to say living it eight months ago might leave some minute details hazy, but the general idea was there.

The video was only damning to people who already despise Punk. Seeing lots of "If you think you can threaten your boss and assault someone at work, YOU are the problem!" comments. OK sure, of course. It's fair to say professional wrestling locker rooms/backstage areas have these altercations. Also fair to say issues between talent would be and should be resolved by a competent boss. Again, does not justify Punk, but nothing Khan did from 2022-2023 was meant to help any outstanding issues.

So at the end of the day, the point was to pop a rating. As of this post, I haven't seen ratings, but I also haven't seen anything on Dynamite that will keep any added viewership next week. And what benefit did this have? You relied on another company's talent that you either let go or he quit eight months ago. You spent how much money on Ospreay, Mone, Okada, plus your own talent, but instead of relying on them, you relied on CM Punk. How does that translate to the locker room and the general idea that they should be the reason people tune in?

If your argument is this will help promote Dynasty, specifically the Bucks/FTR feud, objectively it doesn't. That didn't make me want to watch Swerve/Joe. I want to watch Swerve/Joe because of Swerve/Joe. Same for Danielson/Ospreay. And same for FTR/Bucks. It wasn't a clever way to help build their feud. Their feud has a ton of history already. And they're arguably the two best tag teams in the company. They didn't need this.

So yeah, I know there are a lot of smug opinions coming from both sides today, lots of bad takes (probably my own included). Seen the comparison to WCW announcing Mankind winning the title in '99. But honestly... it feels like this is another crossroads for AEW. If they continue this road, I don't see it ending well. I see a company with some of the best talent in the world, and instead of building these people properly, they're doing victory laps on someone that was gone eight months ago. Great job, AEW.

Didn't even comment on Ospreay's grinding jab. Totally justified to respond, but your best comeback is the same tired joke everyone's made for 25 years? I'm sure Jericho said this to H's face on WWE television at some point.

Just read a terribly accurate post on Twitter that basically said the worst thing to happen to AEW was Vince losing power in WWE. I would even add that the worst thing was when Vince wouldn't relinquish his power. It seemed destined for WWE to be run by Vince until his passing, and AEW became complacent in being the fun alternative. Now that WWE feels like it's being run by the proper people, AEW has stayed the same and hasn't grown. It still has some of the best wrestling matches and there are good feuds, but it's not the fun alternative anymore.