All Elite Wrestling Thread (It's Wednesday...you know what that means.)

[Bandit]

RIP Joey Janela.

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So I guess Jericho wins tonight.

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Wow a Nardwuar reference.

I hate Kylie Rae already.

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That was one of the best wrestling events ever. My only complaint is we have 4 months before the TV show starts. WWE should be worried.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Awesome Kong!

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[Dr. Zoidberg]

Stone Cold Jon Moxley bah gawd!

He got a monster pop.

Good show. Lots of great matches.

It's funny, in WWE, Cody vs Dustin would have been a pre-PPV match that nobody would have cared about. In AEW, there was legit emotion and feeling in the match. And it felt like results mattered on the show, which hasn't happened in WWE for a long while.

I enjoyed the Japanese 6 women's match. At the start I thought it was going to be meh but it really built up into something good.

MJF's promo was great.

[Bandit]

My thoughts

6 Man Tag: good opener but not really memorable due to the rest of the show.

Dr. Britt vs Nyla Rose vs Kylie Rae vs Awesome Kong: That was a great surprise, I've missed Awesome Kong. She could be great on BTE if she hangs out with Brandi at the house and intimidates everyone.

Best Friends vs Angelico & Evans: It was a spot fest Cornette would shit on, but it was fun. I'm glad they can do the Okada parody spot.

Joshi 6 Woman: Aja's knees look to be in bad shape. This was better than what WWE has their women do. I'm not familiar at all with the other five women, but they did a good match.

Dustin vs Cody: This was a MOTY candidate and stole the show with old school story telling. Dustin is still the shit after all these years, so since I've watched his whole career since I was a kid it made me happy that at 50 he had his best match since his Rick Rude feud 26 years ago. I loved everything about it, especially the crowd. I don't remember the last time when WWE had a crowd that hot, maybe Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania 30. This was one of those matches you'd show people who wonder why you like pro wrestling.

Bret and the AEW title: Another perfect moment. The belt is beautiful, Bret was the perfect guy to do this and MJF is just on another level as a character. He's the modern Gino Hernandez. I've watched him develop for years in CZW and he gets better every year, so I think he's going to be a huge star. And a Hangman feud is very smart since those are the two young guys they need to build.

Lucha Bros vs Young Bucks: Another match Cornette is going to shit on but fuck him, this is what people want to see. It wasn't as good as their classic PWG match, but it was close. The Bucks are going to kill themselves if they have to do this every week, though. That Canadian Destroyer on the ring apron was sick.

Jericho vs Omega: I thought this was much better than their New Japan match and a perfect way to end the show. Kenny is a trooper for still being great with a badly broken nose. And Jericho was as good as ever. It's crazy to think 20 years ago WCW didn't think he was worth much, but two decades later he's going to be the champion on their old network and is the talk of the industry.

Moxley: I wasn't expecting him, I thought he'd do a Luger on the first TNT show. But it was amazing. He's the perfect figurehead to have out there to show why fans need to stop watching WWE shit, because he went from a corny doctor skit and cheesey Bane impression to doing something awesome that let's him showcase his ability.

All in all it was fantastic. People say it was Barely Legal, but I thought it was more like the first Ultimate Fighter finale where word of mouth about how exciting it was is going to build and maybe bring in people who never expected to watch it.

Raw should be interesting to see how they respond. They've got that shitty Saudi Arabia show next.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

When was the last time there was that much blood on a major US show? Dustin bled like crazy.

Probably TNA years ago, but they never really had a show at this level.

Raw should be interesting to see how they respond.

Same old shit is my prediction.

They've got that shitty Saudi Arabia show next.

Care factor = zero

[Bandit]

The last big WWE blade job may have been in the HHH vs Batista matches in 2005 and I think Dreamer did a big blade job at the 2006 ECW One Night Stand in the match against Edge and Lita. They did fake blood on Roman last year.

ETA: I just remembered Orton and Lesnar with the hardway blood from the elbows.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Orton one as well.

[Bandit]

I still can't believe that logic. "Razor blades are barbaric so lets get our 300 pound shoot fighter to elbow a guy in the head until he bleeds and gives him a concussion too."

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[Ocelot]

It was with GREAT JOY in my heart that I happily devoted four hours of my life to watching AEW's first PPV and some things were better than others but that show from top to bottom was a million billion times better that WWE's piece of shit offerings with their sports entertainment shit. I *think* I probably would have made Cody/Dustin the main event just because to me that felt like the most emotional, visceral match of the night but that's just me. There were a few small snafus with some of the matches but for a first PPV from a new company they fucking knocked it out of the park. I got to see AJA GODDAMN KONG in a six man Joshi match that made me lose my voice screaming, Cody and Dustin have one of the most raw, emotionally-charged matches in forever with all the gore in the world, and that main event was quite ok apart from a couple of flubs and set up some great stuff going forward. They did five times as much memorable shit in five hours as Wrestlemania did in 150 hours.
That Cody/Dustin match. My god. So old school. My favorite match of the night. Joshi would be second, the main event third.
Call me an AEW fanboy from this point forward. Great job guys. Shove it up Vince's old pucker roided shaved anus-star.

[Ocelot]

Dustin worked like he was goddamn 25. Dude can fucking go when he's motivated. Goddamn what a match that was.

[Bandit]

[Skynet]

I didn't know who a bunch of the wrestlers were but man I did enjoy that PPV. I feel guilty I didn't pay to watch it, so I'm going to try to support them more in future with PPVs and such. That Cody v Dustin match was crazy.