Crowd was going absolutely nuts for the Cody v Sammy and Nyla v Riho matches.
Thereâs a tag team coming in now called Private Party and Best Friends and their intro video is is them holding hands and smiling in an open field and silhouettes of them holding hands and running on a beach into the sunset.
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What the heck. That woulda been the most interesting match that wasnât Riho vs Nyla, to me.
Riho vs Nyla was real cool. There is no way I can regularly watch a wrestling show with commercials but it really did have a sorta modern WCW vibe, which is nice.
I donât think this is being broadcasted in TV but do you know who this guy is whoâs wearing a denim jacket and shades and jumps off top ropes with his hands in his pockets and always had a completely blank expression? Heâs like an internet joke manifest.
I like how the best friends take time out in the middle of running around to give each other hugs.
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Yeah, thatâs Orange Cassidy. He is very funny but he can also wrestle a âseriousâ match if called for. Which will probably happen someday in AEW.
When the Best Friends hug on TV they do the âRainmakerâ camera shot, which is where the camera does a rapid dramatic zoom out. It is very beautiful.
Chuck Taylor has one of the few good twitter accounts
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I forgot about both shows, tuned in during the first matches, nopeâd out and did something else with my evening.
CIMA vs Darby wouldâve been something Iâd have tuned in to see.
Orange Cassidy is swell.
I tuned back into AEW a few minutes before the end and saw Dustin and got excited as Dustin rules, then Swaggah showed up and I laughed and went back to what I was watching.
WALTER is on NXT next week so Iâll have to at least tune in for a bit.
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iâm still sore they booked nyla to lose. what the hell were they thinking.
Personal opinion time but while Nyla is a good story she is no where near ready to be champ. Hopefully AEW commits hard to womenâs wrestling and that will give her to opportunity to improve to that level.
At the risk of sounding like historyâs greatest rube I have to think theyâre with her for the long haul considering how the whole post match focused on her and she mixed it up with Kenny. Thatâs gotta be building to a mixed tag, right? And I canât imagine theyâd present that as a joke, even though Kenny can be super jokey. Itâs her + whoever vs. two world champions and thatâs probably a main event on some show that builds to a main event on another show.
Sheâs a lot of fun to watch but itâs very easy to imagine crowds turning on her cuz she is not as smooth as other workers (which is a large part of why sheâs fun to watch â graceful wrestling is so fucking overrated). Sheâs also the only reliable big lady they got. Aja is like 50 and who knows when Amazing Kong might fuck off to Hollywood or wherever. They also have one heel champ in Jericho and who knows whoâs gonna win the tag belts so I dunno, heel overload is a thing, even though theyâre clearly not as concerned about having clear baby/heel lines as most NA companies have in the past.
Never trust a wrestling promoter but I also think 20 years of awful WWE booking has caused almost anyone exposed to it to expect the worst* but so far this company (which Iâm not that into but seems fine enough) seems to be planning long term and I dunno anyone else whoâs young with Nylaâs skill set or aura soâŚhoping theyâll actually go places with her? She clearly had the match of the night and I have seen nothing but praise for her performance (from within my liâl bubble) but yâknow. Hoping.
*Including me on this. I am glad there are no recordings of me ranting about how Naito losing at Wrestle Kingdom 2018 was probably the end of New Japanâs resurgence.
I just remembered this show ended with Jack Swagger as a big surprise so forget everything I just said okay
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Considering they put Nyla on one of their production trucks, I am thinking they are going to stick with her awhile. Also booking her to lose at first is good because there is a big risk of her getting overly monster booked and people burning out on that (a pretty common WWE problem), so I am fine with it. She will be a lot of fun hunting down the title for awhile, and I would not be surprised if like the first or second PPV after the show launch puts her over, but they could play a long game on it as well.
Did you see that vid of him fist-bumping that kid in like Philly or wherever that was? Naito face turn is always so close, and yet permanently far.
Hahahahaha fuck what why. There are only two good things about Jack Swagger, and neither of them are Jack Swagger:
- The Jack Swagger of Mars Tumblr was pretty funny at the time.
- When they gave him an asshole racist tea party guy as a coach and made an accidental great heel gimmick. This was subsequently WWE-ruined because asshole fans liked chanting WE THE PEOPLE so much that they thought it meant he should be a face, and that killed that.
So yeah, him being AEWâs big SURPRISE isâŚsomething. Like I could bet that him and Cody are probably some kind of buds, given their WWE tenure overlap, but likeâŚnobody is excited for that. So in a way, pretty late WCW, which is pretty OK in the long run?
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They are maybe one of the best teams just for sheer fun, and I love them for it. Chuck and Trent? are both pretty hilarious on Twitter, though Chuck moreso.
So as someone who doesnât know anything about wrestling that was fun to go to once. The moves sell a lot better when youâre watching them from the back row than when youâre watching them on the screen, with quick cuts to create impacts.
I donât really remember the Darby Allin vs Cima match very well but I guess it was fine. I still getting used to things but the crowd seemed really into it.
I really liked the Sammy Guevara vs Cody Rhodes match. The setup they presented was that Sammy was trying to make his mark and Cody is the guy who runs the show, so I liked how clearly their playstyles represented that. Sammy had this very showy, active personality and moves that try to draw attention to himself while Cody was stoic, like heâs experienced and doesnât need to do extraneous movements. Itâs like those scenes from movies where a vet is testing a younger upstart. So it was a nice clash of personalities.
Iâm still not sure why Cody jumped on Brandi and Sammy at that one point, but the crowd started chanting âasshole!â afterwards and I couldnât tell who they saying it too because I feel like Cody should have been able to see them together. That one move where Brandi held Sammyâs leg or something while Cody came and did some move felt like it should have been the finisher to me, but it kept going, and thatâs something I felt for a lot of matches. They always felt like they went on a little longer than they needed, but ultimately they finished strong regardless, because the last several moves of this match was pretty nice. Crowd loved this match.
The next couple of matches are a blur because I missed who they were and I felt like they were over before I could figure out who was who. I think they ended strongly but I couldnât really follow them.
Nyla vs Riho was also really good, and the went crazy for this one too. This was a lot like the Cody vs Sammy match with a heavy fighter vs a light fighter, and I liked seeing that duality play out. I feel like this kind of setup is an easier match story for me to follow. But they were both really good and they both got a lot of chanting at different parts of the match. Seeing Nyla just withstand Rihoâs attacks before powering through here, and how Riho eventually overcame that, was fun. Riho has some more interesting moves that I wasnât expecting, like the several ones where she just stepped on Nyla. A little odd but it was different and set her apart from just being another fast, athletic type like Sammy.
I feel like there might have been another match here? The next one I remember is that big 6 person match that became a 7 person match and then an 8 person match? 9 person? I donât remember. I felt this started kind of slow but got really good as it went along. Lots of really great acrobatic and aerial maneuvers, great flips and throw onto the map, lots of nice multi-person moves (both 2v1 and 1v2). I donât know who anyone was but the way it just devolves at the end was pretty funny and cool.
After that was that match with that Private Party x Best Friends and I guess Orange Cassidy vs I think Lucha Bros? I feel like Lucha Bros had someone else on their team. I had some trouble following who was on what team but it felt a lot like the previous match but had a lot of nice areal acrobats and tag team moves. They all had some great personalities that helped them stand out, with the Best Friends hugging and Lucha Bros being really amped up and Orange Cassidy looking and acting like someoneâs create-a-character.
After that was a tag team between people whose names I couldnât read but it had kind of a dark, goth aesthetic, vs Something Britt D.M.D., who was a dentist themed wrestler. I donât know these wrestlersâ histories but it was a noticeably sloppy match, even for me. It had a slow pace, peopleâs holds on each other werenât convincing, and I just did not flow well. The entire room lost energy on this one. I donât know what happened with it.
The last match was Jungle Boy x Luchasauras and Jungle Party (I think?) vs SCU. This felt a lot like the other tag matches and was good overall. Crowd seemed really pumped for Luchasaurus but I remember this one being pretty fun.
At the end of it, SCU gave the ending speech thanking everyone for being there and I think that was really the only extending talking segment of the night. All the other attempts at talking were interrupted within a minute. But at the end they said letâs all say three letters, but this time say âAEWâ. And then when the crowd said âAEWâ the camera cut to a group of people who ended up just staring blankly at the stage.
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Some pictures.
Lots of shirts. The Little Bit of the Bubbly shirt is funny and Rihoâs stands out due to itâs style.
If you signed up for their newsletter theyâd add an AEW patch to a shirt youâd bought.
Lots of people, except for that one column on the left? I wonder what happened to that area.
The ref looks like heâs doing a cartwheel.
At some point the video banners got fixed to show the AEW and TNT logos. At the very end of of the of the 6+ man match the winners just spent a long while posing over the dead bodies of the losers so everyone could take pictures.
Motion off
What the venue looks like empty.
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Oh, and shout outs to that one ref who did the first match between Sammy and Cody. She had a ton of energy and looked like she was really putting in the work even though she wasnât one of the wrestlers. Lots of very animated and striking body motions and poses to communicate what she was probably supposed to be saying.
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Thanks for posting the thoughts. Awesome that you got to go.
The funny thing about her is that she is actually a dentist. Like that isnât a gimmick.
They didnât sell tickets there, probably because it leads to the backstage area and would have its view blocked by the jumbotron. Pretty common.
Thatâs (I am guessing, since I havenât watched it yet) Aubrey Edwards, who is a ref originally from the Northwest, I think. I know she is a trained dancer, and that informs a lot of her in ring movement. A lot of people have been kinda giving her crap for being overdramatic. They claim she is trying to draw attention to herself instead of the match, but yeah, I just donât see it. Refs, among other jobs, are there to enhance things and communicate stuff, and she does a really solid job on both.
While I didnât like the match, I did like the end where Brtitt ended the match by pinning her opponent down and holding her mouth open. Just sticking her whole hand in and pulling that jaw open. It caught me off guard. I didnât hear any count before the bell so I assume the loser tapped out and, I donât blame them once the dentist in her started coming out (it also didnât look like something that should be a considered legal move).
One other thing I remember is that Brandi was dressed like an anime character and I hope she wore something like that back when Cody was dressing like Alucard.
One of the things that makes me saddest about Cody leaving WWE was that I really loved him as Stardust, and his idea of having Stardust and Cody feud with each other would have been so much fun. Also, because his costume game for all of that (which thankfully now includes Brandi) would have continued to be amazing. I mean, he gave us a real life Mr. Sinister:
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everybody, and I do mean everybody (that does, in fact, include JAKE HAGER LOL) deserves a second chance post-WWE. the nice thing about AEW is they are actually paying attention to crowd reactions. so if Swagger doesnât get over I donât expect him to be shoved down our throats anyway (somethingsomething Adam Page)
I was really digging hearing Tony Schiavone calling a wrestling show on TV in 2019. it looked like a modern WCW.
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I saw more than a few WCW shirts in the audience.
Wait, are you saying he would be feuding with himself?