I think most of the complaints can be boiled down to the roster just being too damn big.
I used to watch every second of Dynamite and Rampage, but I’ve been skipping through a lot of segments lately. I guess I just don’t see the point of getting invested in wrestlers who are probably gonna disappear for months on end (other than the superstars).
A great example is Takeshita. He put on great matches w/Hangman, Claudio, Mox, etc. and I was excited to see where he’d go, but he’s been gone to another promotion for almost 2 months. Who knows if he’ll be back. I guess I don’t really see the point of bringing in these part-time wrestlers, when you already struggle getting TV time for your main roster.
Until Khan runs a tighter ship or gives up the booking reins, I don’t think the product is worth devoting more than maybe an hour a week + PPVs.
Speaking of ROH, why is it even still a thing? AFAICT, there have been no actual cards outside of the 1 PPV since it was purchased. All it did was add a ton of new titles that were completely unnecessary. Now it seems like every single faction is holding 2-3 belts, which is kinda lame. It should either be disbanded or run as a completely separate thing. I don’t want to hear about ROH titles on AEW. I guess the FTR collecting belts angle was kinda cool, but other than that, I don’t want to hear about other belts on AEW.
That’s fine, but if this happens they desperately need to separate the rosters. Maybe a cross-over once a year or something, but enough with the defending ROH belts on Dynamite.
I don’t think it’s good to have the same wrestlers on every week and run them into the ground. WWE did that and it felt miserable because you’d have repeat matchups and movesets would exposed as repetitive gmsi stuff. AEW booking style seems to prefer keeping wrestlers off TV rather than put them in 50-50 book.
Other than Miro, there’s no one who I haven’t seen in a while where there’s no explanation.
The roster may be a bit too big now, but I’d like it to be big enough that wrestlers can take time off to heal or do other projects.
Takeshita was on loan from DDT Pro as part of a partnership. AEW has interest in either acquiring his contract or signing him full-time when he becomes a free agent. He is supposed to be back in the US soon.
Khan seems to want a promotion that acknowledges the existence of the indies and foreign wrestling. Part of the roster bloat seems to be Khan feeling the need to sign guys to help keep the indie scene afloat during the pandemic.
neither are close to ready so I disagree there as you can still build them as monsters while keeping them out of the main until it’s smart, though I guess at this point you’d have to goldberg style both of them?
though we haven’t seen either much but that’s a different problem in aew, too many people
btw how are there still updates on the punk bucks incident, just this week apparently the dog got injured (though you’d think that would’ve came out awhile ago) and jericho told punk to his face he was a locker room cancer
I doubt Jade will ever be a good wrestler. She is what she is, incredible look, good charisma, but below average worker. Khan sucks at booking champs, but he’s actually done a good job with Jade. I don’t think she’ll ever put on an actual good match, but she could still work as the main title holder in the division. It’s not like the other women have been lighting it up either. About the only good women’s matches I can remember in the past 1.5 years were the Deeb-Shida series.
As for Wardlow, I’ve been begging for them to build a big man for him to feud with (Miro, Hobbs, Lee, etc.) and it looks like they’re finally gonna give him Hobbs. Hopefully it can elevate him b/c he’s cooled quite a bit during his title reign, but the booking hasn’t done him any favors either.
Rampage was entirely missable, but at least Jade had a solid promo and the storylines involving The Acclaimed and TNT belts weren’t bad. Dynamite card next Wednesday looks meh as well.
Mox v. MJF
Acclaimed v. Swerve
Storm v. Hayter
Wardlow v. Hobbs
is a decent start for Full Gear
Jade v. Nyla is a lock to be terrible, I don’t really care about old arse Jericho, and the trios division basically has 1 good team (Death Triangle) w/The Elite out.
Damn, what a horrible and cringeworthy episode of Dynamite, and lowest rated of the year. I watched the Darby opener then noped out of the rest of the actual wrestling b/c I knew it’d be terrible (and every match failed to reach the 7/10 rating plateau).
Jeff Jarrett coming back, lol. His promo made zero sense. Nya/Vickie squeeling during a match, so many nonsensical beatdowns by random jobber factions. Shibata coming out of nowhere to challenge for the Atlantic belt. He hails from a country that couldn’t be further from the Atlantic. The Saraya stuff is terrible. That’s only about half the stuff I was gonna comment on, but I forgot the other crap. Just a direction-less mess.
The positives:
Rick Ross killed it
Jade tweet shutting down Bow Wow
Julia/House of Black stuff looks interesting.
Toni/Hayter stuff was kinda interesting and I’m looking forward to that match.
Building towards Hobbs/Wardlow, which could be awesome.
So about 10 minutes of decent content.
Usually I love the Acclaimed, but I think they’re way better in small doses. Max rap, Anthony doing his line + Scissor Me Daddy Ass, that’s about all we need.
This was my main problem with that belt when they announced it.
The name makes no fucking sense. Ishii was supposed to fight in the match to determine the first champion.
There are about 5 too many championships in AEW, but one that travels around the world to different companies is a decent idea in theory. The actual name of it is tilting as hell.
