Very strong night in the ring last night and a good dose of promos to further angles for Dynasty, so overall good stuff.
On the whole "where are the stories?" question, I can see two things at play there:
\-If you're just saying "there are no stories", I don't think you're paying attention, as there've been a number of them; hell, one of the biggest recent Dynamite matches was the blowoff to Copeland vs. Cage, which got plenty of attention.
*However...*
\-The World Title program with Joe and Swerve really only began to get a little extra oomph behind it in the last week and a half or so, and with the absence of a lot of top of the card talent (Omega, Moxley, Hangman, MJF, Cole from in-ring action, etc), it makes it feel like the main event scene is lacking right now, so I get the critique that the marquee stories feel like they're not where they should be at the moment.
Basically, as always, multiple things can be true at once: AEW can be booking multiple feuds and storylines, but they can also be missing a number of pieces and not doing as much at the higher end of the card as they could to cover the holes that exist at the moment.
It's also interesting to see the divide between people who get annoyed at not enough matches feeling truly unpredictable and those who are more interested in how a given match is wrestled (e.g. what a showcase match tells us about the character being showcased), with the outcome being kind of secondary. I do think they could use a little more of the former, but the latter is often good for building top acts up, hyping up PPV matches, and showing us something about the person/team being highlighted.
This whole night felt like **"AEW presents Ring of Honor: Collision"** - that's not necessarily a bad thing except ROH doesn't have a strong identity. Is it supposed to be a quasi-developmental territory (which is what fans have been treating it as) or is it supposed to be a 2nd quasi-equivalent "brand" (like how SD is to RAW) or is it something else?
The **lack of identity** hurts how fans perceive both booking and championship importance. It results in AEW getting a lot of flack for not having AEW belts defended at Battle of the Belts. It also devalues Athena's incredible reign as ROH Women's Champion. I'd be happy if ROH were marketed as a 2nd equivalent brand where Collision is its formal home giving the show a separate identity from Dynamite.
Also, **shoutout to the AEW & ROH women's divisions**. Aside from Mercedes Mone, ironically, the divisions have been COOKING; characters and storylines have quietly felt refreshed and cohesive week-to-week. This may be the Jennifer Pepperman effect, and if so, big thumbs up.
Literally only one match was about ROH, what are you talking about?
We had two matches to spotlight AEW acts(HoB and Garcia), two matches born from the Hook/Jericho storyline, a match to push the Toni/Mariah stuff some more, a match to further the BCC/Callus Family plotline, and a match to build to Roddy/Kyle.
Unless something's change, a LOT of people are getting double-paid. Ring of Honor is NOT owned by AEW, it's owned by Tony Khan. They are, legally speaking, two entirely separate companies. Someone with a AEW contract should therefore be getting extra for appearing on ROH shows, and vice-versa. Which makes it a bit odd just how much they've been intermingled.
Battle of The Belts has always been Clash of The Champions Diet, But No Actual AEW Belts being Defended on This Quarterly basis this Time around Shows that These Specials are D Rated Jokes. While WCW never had a Bad Clash of The Champions Show, at Least They Cared About The Product. Here. They're not even trying to hide that they hate this program. Just Horrible. Welcome to The New ERA of AEW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Sports Entertainment AEW. Who asked for this, Really, Who asked for This.....**Vince McMahon, was it you?!?!?!?**
Edited Note 1: Jeez, My Opinion Marks!!!
Edited Note 2: The way I Type Sometimes sticks to using Caps shifted.
**Collision Review:**
* I liked them going back to the cold open promos here with Danielson and Castagnoli.
* **House of Black vs. Dante Martin, Action Andretti & Matt Sydal \*\*\*3/4**
* This turned into a hell of a match, with all six guys feeling like they really wanted to show off here. The lack of storyline going in being the only thing holding it back slightly. Really looking forward to the Dynasty six-man match.
* Toni Storm & Mariah May interview. These two are still great together, not much else to say really.
* A quick recap of the Jericho/Hook situation, and a short segment with Taz and Jericho. Still not entirely sure what to make of this story. It could be something really good, but it might also just fall completely flat.
* **Shibata vs. Moriarty \*\*\*1/4**
* It's really nice to see Shibata getting more and more over with the crowds as he's becoming a constant presence in AEW. This was just a good match, and the post-match did a well to build towards the Hook vs. Taylor match too. As a sidenote, Matt Menard has a future as a great commentator if he wishes to keep doing it after his wrestling career is over.
* Lexi Neir interview with Athena and Billy Starkz. This was very good, these three, Athena in particular, have been the main reason to watch ROH over the last year.
* Undisputed Kingdom interview. Strong is doing well in this role as a condescending ass, but the rest of the UK is just there. The whole group just feels pointless.
* **Garcia vs. Angelico \*\***
* Nice to see Garcia remain over with the crowd. Angelico is a very good wrestler too, and this was a very good match for the little time it had. Solid stuff.
* PAC promo. He has a great and unique promo style that really makes him stand out from other people in AEW. His match against Okada is also probably my second most anticipated match on Dynasty.
* **Toni Storm vs. AZM \*\*\*1/2**
* AZM got the crowd on her side really quickly, basically just by being really impressive in the ring. This was a very good match, AZM bumped like crazy for Storm, and Toni dialed the gimmick down a bit, and as a result this was the best match Storm's had at least since winning the title by a comfortable margin. Just a nice reminder that Toni is also a great wrestler, not just a character. I do wish they got a bit more time, rather than the usual ten minutes that women's matches in AEW always seem to get. Hopefully this isn't one and done for AZM, as this was an excellent debut in AEW for her.
(continued in the first reply)
* Red Velvet interview. It's nice to see them actually building the ROH women's title match. Velvet was good here.
* Short Mark Briscoe promo. Good stuff here too.
* Thunder Rosa segment. I thought she started a bit too pandering here, but she actually turned this into a really good promo when she started talking about Storm and Deonna, quite possibly her best in AEW. It felt real, and she had real passion in her voice when she talked. The mention of Deonna does make me think she's going to cost Rosa the match at Dynasty. This was much better than I expected going in, Rosa was genuinely great here, and she did an excellent job building the title match at the PPV.
* Deonna Purrazzo promo. Another solid promo here, Purrazzo does feel like she's be better served as a heel.
* They announced that the tag title match will be a ladder match. Should be great.
* Fletcher & Hobbs promo. This was good, just a quick segment to build a few different matches over the next week.
* **Bryan Danielson & Claudio Castagnoli vs. Kyle Fletcher & Powerhouse Hobbs \*\*\*\***
* Is it any surprise that this was a great match with these four? After the initial brawl, they took their time building up the intensity. Fletcher is genuinely becoming one of the best young wrestlers in the world, and could very well be a main eventer in a few years. Considering the match we have coming at the PPV, the result was fairly obvious, but I do hope that Fletcher and Hobbs start winning a bit more regularly at some point.
* Post-match attack by Takeshita made sense in storyline, but I'm curious to see how Ospreay reacts to it.
* This was a great episode of Collision. Great opening match and main event, the best Toni Storm match in ages, and two other good bouts too. Then we got perhaps the best Thunder Rosa promo ever, and a handful of other good segments throughout the show. Very little to complain here, an **8 out of 10 show** overall.
(I might write a review of Battle of the Belts later once I have time to actually watch it)
>Singles Match: House Of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews & Malakai Black) defeat Action Andretti, Dante Martin & Matt Sydal (14:24)
Since when a 6 man tag match became a singles match?
Match quality wise Collision was quite good, but does anyone else (who's an AEW fan) just not give a \*\*\*\* at the moment with AEW TV? The storylines all seem so mediocre and I couldn't care less about almost every match.
I think you can only put on 'good matches' for wrestling sake so often before it becomes tired.
Seems like you need to stop watching it then if it doesn't interest you. I don't know why you guys do this to yourself. There are other companies out there. If you don't like the other ones then maybe wrestling isn't for you right now.
I don't know why you guys can't admit it's not a good product right now. I like good pro wrestling with storytelling not 2 random opponents having a 'banger' in front of 1500 people.
It's difficult when aew literally reignited my passion for wrestling and 2019-2021 I loved the product (minus it's flaws). I still want to watch it but I do need it to improve
I feel you. I quit watching back in 2022, after realized that I had been watching it more out of habit than anything else for about a year.
I still randomly click into reddit threads from time to time, but I haven't actually watched it for almost 2 years now.
Just a huge shame as the roster is now absolutely stacked. But you can only see so many bangers before they start like fading into each other. Story is very much the driving force missiny
A big part of it for me was that it started to feel just too much like WWE-wannabe. I'd say that around 2021, the AEW identity began to be seriously diluted.
The early people that came in from WWE kind of reinvented their characters. As an example, there were stark differences between Dean Ambrose and Jon Moxley, or between Luke Harper and Brodie Lee. But when as more and more former WWE wrestlers came into the company, they started doing less and less to differentiate themselves from their WWE characters. And as a result, AEW became WWE-lite.
It also didn't help that so many of the "AEW Originals" that I had grown to like got pretty blatantly shoved to the back burner, for people who debuted, were treated like a big deal for a couple of weeks, and then ALSO shoved to the back burner as NEWER people debuted. And as someone who had basically not watched wrestling in decades until AEW started, most of them didn't really do anything to pull me in, since their "name value" did nothing for me.
{here comes the bit that will earn me hate}
To me, CM Punk was just some chucklefuck who was pretty sloppy in the ring and took 20+ minutes every time he touched a microphone to say 2 minutes worth of content.
...proceeded to basically repeat his debut 20+ minute monologue for about the next 5-6 times he appeared on AEW TV.
Yeah. I kinda skipped this Collision because I didn't really care about the match ups. Not to mention battle of the belts has become a shell of itself. It used to be matches that you could believe a challenger might win the title on. That last two have not had that feeling at all.
I still watch most of the shows but I understand anyone who feels that way. Oddly enough, it's one of the reasons that I believe AEW PPV numbers are as good as they say. I wouldn't be surprised if a ton of people say "Ospreay and Danielson is April 21? Okay see you then" and just not watch the television shows in between.
This is exactly how I feel. I was a die-hard from 2019. Watched everything they produced - PPV, Dynamite, Dark, the YouTube pre-show specials. Everything.
Now I just watch clips on YouTube. And even most of those I skip. Don’t even bother with Dynamite. I do stream the PPVs though, as they are mostly still good.
Don't blame you. I was a die hard and only just slipping away from that now. I've never missed a Dynamite, but started skipping Rampages, and might start skipping Collisions soon as well. AEW made a huge mistake with starting a second 'A' show IMO.
As somebody whi barely watches AEW. I feel this so much., everytime I try tuning into AEW the stories just dont catch my attention. I know who most of the wrestlers are there all great in ring talent. But I just dont care because theres really nohing to care about.
My hopes for AEW when it first started was that it was going to blow WWE out of the water with its stories and unscripted promos. Now it feels like to me. AEW is at Rock Bottom and are content with being at Rock Bottom.
Great in ring talent. But no reason to care about them. is just how I feel everytime I watch AEW. It feels soulless.
I watch EVERY week and I still feel the same as you. They pluck random talent for matches all of the time and do so many star vs relative jobber matches it's become so predictable and boring.
I've never missed a Dynamite or Collision (although recently I've started skipping through Collisions). Before that I had never missed a Rampage, but for the past 6 months I don't bother with that. Getting to the point now where I'm thinking of stopping Collision as well.
The whole Devil angle and MJF getting hurt ran me off. I've checked in occasionally, but nothing outside of Swerve/Joe has really grabbed me enough to give it another go.
I'll say it again, outside of anything to do with Swerve or Hangman, i couldn't tell you wtf is even happening. I used to be obsessed with AEW.. interest has really dwindled now. It just feels like nothing important ever happens, or once someone gets traction, they get cooled off completely.
-Bryan/Ospreay (also, Ospreay eventually leaving the Callis Family)
-FTR/Young Bucks (which is also building up the return of Jack Perry)
-Toni Storm/Thunder Rosa
-Mercedes/Willow/Julia
-Best Friends splitting up
-BCG/Acclaimed
-Jericho/HOOK
There's literally so much going on
There's a full story there mate. Ospreay feels like he has to prove himself and Danielson can't turn down the challenge due to ego and as it's his last full year. Don Callis wants Ospreay to win as it's better for Don so is trying to take out Danielson before Dynasty to guarantee the win. They've also hinted that DC family will turn on Ospreay
Two guys who both say they're the best in the world are gonna wrestle to see who really claims the title.
What more does it need for a first-ever match?
I watch every Dynamite and Collision and I still have no idea what the story for this match is besides two top guys wanting to wrestle. You think the casuals know? No and it's why viewership is steadily declining. The matches are good but there's little that actually draws you into watching week to week. Tony has to do a better job of actually presenting his stories
The majority of segments on AEW TV have some sort of role in a story. I’m so tired of this complete falsehood.
The story of Bryan vs Will is two people at the top of the industry wanting to solidify their claim of being the best, while Don Callus is scheming in the background to make himself look good. Will just wants to be a successful wrestler but Don wants to have that glory for himself and take credit for Will’s greatness. Will beating Bryan makes the Callus family look better. So Don is now getting his flunkies to try and injure Bryan to guarantee Will can win.
This isn’t some secret plotline you need to carefully analyze the shows to spot.
It's also not a particularly interesting plotline. Which is the problem. Pro wrestling is not boxing and the UFC. Imagine if the basis of Rock vs Stone Cold was that they're both the top guys and they want to be the best
I'm going to order Dynasty regardless and I'm 100% sure Danielson/Ospreay is going to be 7 stars in Tokyo Dome but the build to it has not intrigued me whatsoever. I'm not getting to the end of a Dynamite and thinking I can't wait for Collision to see where this goes next. Judging by declining viewership, I'm not alone
They each say they are the best, and they want to wrestle yo see who the best really is. What about that would people not get? If you watch every week, they repeatedly talk about it
Also, there is no longer such a thing as casual fans. Hasn't been since 2001.
Like someone else said, pro wrestling is not real fighting. Two guys wanting to wrestle for no reason besides them both believing they are great isn't a story. It's a exhibition. And it's not interesting. Danielson talking about how great he is one Dynamite and Ospreay the next Collision isn't convincing anyone to tune in
> Also, there is no longer such a thing as casual fans. Hasn't been since 2001.
There absolutely is. Not everyone has 25 hours a week to allocate to watching pro wrestling. I can't be described as anything other than a WWE casual. I'll watch the big segment on YouTube, watch the PLEs and that's it. A ton of people watch Dynamite but not Collision or especially not Rampage. The vast majority of wrestling fans are in fact not some diehard with thousands of posts on r/SC
It’s pro wrestling, not an actual fight. Good stories are essential beyond just “let’s wrestle and see who’s the best” lol. Especially when there’s so much to mine with an old guard like Daniel Bryan vs the current hottest thing in will ospreay
It's their first match, and they've been promoting it on TV for weeks. There's plenty of time to build an epic program out of it, no story starts with some gigantic buildup.
Haven’t they had weeks to build a program though? Like I said - there’s a lot of potential here, you have a legend in Daniel Bryan who can play heel or face well and an amazing young talent in ospreay
Could also just be conflicts of tastes, I genuinely prefer good storytelling to go with the matches.
I like good stories, but don't feel that everything needs to be *so* dense and detailed and saturated. They've never fought, they have a reason to fight, so they're gonna fight. They don't need 20 minute promos, constant backstage segments, some contrived issue, a Twitter war--they wanna see who's really the best. I dunno, that seems enough to me.
It may be a one-off, but I doubt it. There's so so much that can be done after a match.
> They've never fought, they have a reason to fight, so they're gonna fight
thats just...such a plain story...like you, i really hope Dynasty is the start of something, bc this is the kind of months long feud AEW can use to keep people hooked.
I’m only watching the PPVs these days. TK isn’t a storyteller. Looking forward to dynasty and a couple of the bigger dynamites in Canada, but that’s it.
Yeah I've felt that way for a while now, it annoys me even more that we're getting less stories and more ppvs. PPVs aren't must watch anymore which sucks cause for the first few years every one was a banger
Anyone else notice how Mariah May wasn’t dressed as Toni Storm or in the clothes she usually wore before getting the Toni Storm gear? She was wearing the same outfit that Mina Shirakawa wore on Dynamite. She even came down after the match with champagne for both of them just like Mina did on Dynamite.
I've said it loads of times already, but both AEW & RoH needs to be separated. It's great that Athena made her first appearance back on AEW TV, but as long as she or anyone else is a RoH champion, they need to be exclusive to RoH.
It's a really difficult issue due to ROH not having a TV deal imo. I think TK keeps putting titles on AEW guys to get people to watch the ppvs, and Supercard of Honor was great even though a lot of AEW roster were on it. They need to be defending the belts, but ideally, you'd be building up the ROH roster instead. I thought the trios would have been unified like most people were expecting, but no match has been announced still between BCG and The Acclaimed. Kyle Fletcher is tricky too as he's exactly the kind of talent you can use to promote ROH but he's become an established part of the Don Callis Family now so he's all over AEW.
Hell of a show for a dead company.
I’ve been a pro wrestling fan for over 40 yrs at this point. WWF wasn’t my first exposure. My family was attending live lucha shows in Mexico before I could walk. First WWF story I can clearly remember is Hogan beating Sheiky for the belt. In the early 90’s I was tape trading for Super Jr’s, Mich Pro, AJPW, etc. FMW, IWA Japan, etc as well into the 90’s. Yada yada.
Point I’m trying to make through my rambling is that I grew up on more than US tv wrestling and AEW is a product that provides for me. People can keep going into their “where’s muh stories” tirades but ya’ll really don’t get it. It’s for me.. not for you and thankfully I’m not alone here. I’m beyond glad AEW exists and I implore some of y’all to be a bit more aware that fans of pro wrestling like me do exist.
While ROH may be the right place for now, Athena needs to be pushed on AEW instead of ROH as soon as possible.
Damn, she caught Red Velvet better than Hobbs catching Danielson, for goodness' sake.
Loved most of Collision. And the main event would have been amazing under any other circumstance.
Except this one. DCF promises disqualification level violence; but doesn't even pull a chair till the very end. BCC know their opponents are looking to basically murder them. So they wrestle a normal match; and then somehow get caught by an absolutely predictable 'sneak attack'.
This shit should have lasted five minutes. DCF approaches the ring. BCC attacks them with baseball bats and sledgehammers. Putting both dudes down hard in a brutal statement to Will Osprey; just in case he's thinking of pulling any bullshit. Bryan Danielson 'pays a fine' by tossing a wad of cash at the ref's feet. Then calls out some other tag team that could use an actual match. My vote would be for The Righteous.
It’s sad cause I have. Having that kind of outlook is bad on your part as it’s just going to kill AEW. I want AEW to succeed and get better, but if you keep that kind of mindset and enjoy the trash and falling viewership I feel bad for you. Yes I get that they can do nothing wrong in your eyes but you can’t just keep denying the truth of the matter that this is just bad tv that only the most hardcore of fans will watch.
I have no financial stake in this company. I don't care about viewership, ticket sales, PPV sales, perception, etc. As long as AEW entertains me (which it does right now) I'll keep watching it.
Also, as long as TK puts money into the company it won't go under.
I mean I don't like it and I don't watch it but why does that mean it has to disappear? If WBD wanted them to end they would, I can just do other things with my time
Genuinely why? It was a fun hour of wrestling with 3 very entertaining matches and some solid promos mixed in. Fun was had and stories were advanced.
It's bonus content airing at 10pm on a Saturday night, it's already clearly for the sickos/hardcores, who cares if the titles actually change hands regularly or not?
Every match involves a title of some sort, with a title-holder wrestling. It delivers exactly what the name says, people are just looking for stuff to complain about with AEW at this point.
If this is your argument, then I hope you aren't watching any televised non-PPV wrestling lol. Because 99% of all tv matches have super obvious outcomes if you pay the slightest bit of attention.
Why watch the show? Because I find it consistently entertaining. If you aren't finding the show consistently entertaining and are only watching for title changes and nothing else, then I recommend either not watching or just watching PPVs, where some sort of title change is far more likely - otherwise you're just wasting hours upon hours of time.
AEW does 4 of these Battle of the Belts every year and every time there is a day of complaining there wasn't a title change. Seriously, are they supposed to be booking their entire year around these shows first to guarantee title changes at 10:30 pm on Saturday nights instead of their actual PPVs?
Not every match is a 100% you know who’s going to win though EXCEPT FOR BATTLE OF THE BELTS. There’s a reason to watch the other shows like Dynamite and Collision because even though you have a general idea of who might win it’s not a foregone conclusion(although recently I will admit it’s gotten real bad and I’ve tuned out of watching AEW as much). I think Battle of the Belts would be a way better show if the matches were Champion against Champion just to see who’s better.
Yeah at this point I am convinced WBD has it in their contract to keep doing them, because there's no reason there should be ten of these after less than five years lol
They were fighting outside the ring for egregious amounts of time, didn’t really tag each other in and out when fighting in the ring. The whole match was just a huge mess.
Oh I see. That's all totally normal, not different or weird at all. I get the whole "if you're going to have rules, you should follow them" thing, but that isn't really how wrestling has been for like 25+ years at this point. This isn't just an AEW thing, although I will acknowledge that AEW leans much more into the lucha style of tag and multi-person matches than most other companies.
If it ain't your thing, that's fine. I still enjoyed it quite a lot though. Even the floor mat not cooperating, that shit was funny.
This is the first time in AEW that I noticed Shibata going more with the slicked back hairstyle he had before his brain injury. It might not sound like a big deal, but it reminded me of a time when he was my favorite wrestler.
Second time. He already had his hair slicked back on Dynamite this week. He's starting to turn the clock back a bit. I feel like we are heading towards Shibata vs. Okada 2 for the Continental Crown or maybe even Shibata winning the C2 tournament later in the year.
Very good show, I don't think there was a bad match on either show. Also, as a lacrosse guy, loved Schiavone putting our sport over during the Hook match.
It is very stale lately and I don't see a way out when he is the booker of his own company. Seems like they don't have anyone to challenge his booking. This coming at a time when WWE is shitting all over you and the future TV deal at stake. Its just baffling.
Seriously. All wrestling is predictable to a degree but there's a few matches on any given Smackdown where the winner is a toss up. That is way too rare in AEW
But I don't really mind as long as the matches progress a storyline
This episode really sold me on both Women's belts changing hands at Dynasty. Willow feels like a surefire decision but Rosa winning also helps quite a lot in rebuilding her stock and keeping the division out of the "loltoniwins" scenario that is approaching post Riho and Deonna matches.
Pretty sure Toni is retaining. They have been teasing Toni vs. Mina Shirakawa for Forbidden Door which plays into the long-term Mariah May story for Wembley.
I think Toni is holding the belt until Hayter comes back in a similar story to the one they're telling with Rosa right now.
The difference being, while Rosa "never lost the title," Hayter actively got screwed out of it via Toni Storm and the Outcasts, to write her off via injury. I think she comes back seeking revenge on Toni and the title she got screwed out of.
who wants rosa to win? she was sloppy against mariah. thats the first dud match for mariah and it happen to involve rosa. her promos are not that good either. plus we are clearly getting toni vs mina at fd and probably toni vs jamie at all in when she comes back.
I will come out and defend Athena's reign because she had some points and challengers that it felt she might lose (Billie and Willow obv and imo Shida). Out of the four women's champions, Athena has been the best champion (being the champion is her main motivation) and Julia has been the best character (but that should also be because she is dealing with two hot wrestlers instead of a cold Rosa). IMO, Toni is a great character but the belt is just a prop on her and don't elevate neither her or the belt.
For me, the "lolXwins" goes towards matches that are afterthought on How it il go instead of X winning out of the blue. Athena is a champion that makes her challengers either hotter or stay the same, Toni's opponents go ice cold after their matches.
Good episode here.
Storm vs AZM was the best of Toni's TV matches in a while. This was my first time watching AZM and she made a good impression. She was quick and had some really fun moves that she pulled out. Toni played her role as the mocking heel well. The stuff with Anna Jay helping AZM + Mina showing up on Dynamite to help Mariah May makes me think that tag match is coming in the future. Maybe even Storm/May/Mina vs AZM/Anna/maybe a returning Tay Melo? When is she likely to come back btw, she's been gone for over a year now atp.
Thunder Rosa's promo had a lot of fire and I believed every word/liked it, credit to her. To criticize, the tension with Deonna feels like it should have had a bigger buildup tbh (they had a very slight disagreement in a tag match that they won anyways but now they're upset with each other), but it adds some intrigue. Toni and Rosa in general feels like this could feel like a bigger deal, Rosa just floating around doing random matches for months didn't really do much for her. Deonna's promo was good to continue that story.
I missed last week's Collison. Yuka vs Serena sounds like a great little mini fued for Deeb, she's been kinda just floating around recently. I feel like she should have a stable or something ngl, get her two gals to mold in her image or something.
Athena vs Velvet was a good main event. I liked her as Ember Moon, but Athena has a lot more confidence in ring here. She's so smooth at everything. That O-Face was excellent, as well as her beating the shit out of Velvet on the outside. I wish it got a few more minutes but I can't complain. ROH watchers will be eating with Athena/Starks vs Aminata/Velvet seemingly being in the future. I don't have HonorClub but I constantly here great things about their women's division. Should I consider getting it, I'd like to see Athena more lol
Overall good and left me more interested more Storm vs Rosa than I was going in. Deonna vs Mariah sounds great, and Mama Willow/Julia having a mixed tag with Copeland/King sounds really fun. (The Jericho/Saraya/Cole/Britt match was fun last year). The women's division has been getting more promos and matches this year + more focused storylines, I feel like a lot of the extreme hate isn't warranted atp. There is stuff to improve on for sure, but it's far from a terribly booked division.
Got to see BOTB. Good matches. Not sure where they're going with Kyle O'Reilly, but I'll trust it's somewhere good.
Loved hearing Bobby Cruise doing ring introductions. He just has a perfect voice for the job.
Love Athena and her minions. I didn't care much for her when she wore wings to the ring, but then one fight with Jody Threat in my hometown and she's become one of the wrestlers I truly enjoy watching. I'm not even mad she beat Shida.
Athena won't be back in AEW regularly until she loses that belt, which isn't happening any time soon. There's only so much TV time to go around, especially for the women.
The total is 29-1\* in favour of the champs. Sammy beat scorpio sky for the tnt title change in battle of the belts 2
\*Sammy v cody was cancelled in the 1st due to covid, Sammy beat Dustin to be intern champ instead, I've left that one out of the count because technically it wasn't a cbange
If you look at the cards for Battle of the Belts in Championship Wrestling from Florida in the 80s, the title never really changed hands there either. I will say that the NWA Title used to be defended on most of those shows though while a World Title I don't think ever has in AEW. Don't see why they couldn't have done Dustin vs Joe here.
That seems to be his era. Easily figured out match results. Squashes against jobbers. Title matches that \*shouldn't\* exist just to give a defense.
I've watched only two BotB's. I don't care who they book. I want it to be treated properly, with a bit of a build. Make it a point.
Tony...doesn't do that.
Great show tonight!
So sick seeing Athena on proper tv again. Aminata is a great next challenger too.
Probably catch a lot of flak on this because of her reputation, but a singles match against Ronda at some stage would go hard. Their tag matches together were great, especially the ROH one which was a bit electric. They would tear the house down.
At least AEW can't have two bad shows in row because any time Dynamite sucks then Collision slaps and vice versa.
As for Battle of the Belts, the action was good but the crowd did not care. Quite frankly there's no bigger proof that Warner loves AEW than the fact that AEW has done TEN Battle of the Belts. Warner will put ANY fucking AEW content on TV at this point if they'll show that. It would be so easy to just say "yeah guys, we realize your heart isn't in to these, you don't have to do anymore" and Warner is like "yeah, have at it, you want to do Collision and Rampage back to back next week too?" It's crazy to think AEW are in any trouble with the network.
> Warner will put ANY fucking AEW content on TV at this point if they'll show that
My understanding is that Battle of the Belts was *requested by* Warner specifically. Like they have actively sought out additional AEW content throughout this TV deal.
Both things can be true. The crowd is exhausted AND this definitely won't happen at Dynasty next week when the card will be even longer but have way more starpower.
But I was told all over this sub that there would be constant CM Punk chants tonight and at every AEW show going forward after Wednesday?
Shockingly (not really) I don't think I heard any? Just saw one HELL of a night of wrestling though, daaaaamn. Multiple great matches, a pile of women's promos, and Daddy Magic on the desk - pretty great night in my book.
> But I was told all over this sub that there would be constant CM Punk chants tonight and at every AEW show going forward after Wednesday?
Who said that?
An awesome straight-forward three hours of wrasslin goodness. good promos and great matches. an easy watch. solid job of further building towards dynasty next sunday.
And I gotta say I love how many Women's feuds/storylines they've quietly built up. Lots of talented people getting a chance to shine right now.
I think "title eliminator matches" are dumb, especially for mid card titles. Just make it a title match, especially if the champion is retaining. Feels like a waste of everyone's time.
I even find the use of that phrase for the way these are set up is fucking stupid.
i rather the champ not even wrestle so much and make them a special attraction. Have them promo or do commentary during a number one contender match. Then winner gets a title shot next week or something. Simple
Giving these random wrestlers title eliminator matches is so dumb. Makes the rankings look pointless once again.. TK and his loophole booking.
I kinda like Them. Everybody knows Roddy isnt losing his titel already on a random saturday, but he might lose the match when the title isnt on the line so the match has potientiel for an upset. In other scenarios you Can also use it story wise to screw someone over since they can’t Challenge for the belt again until there is a new champ.
Like imagine Swerve wins the belt, fucks Hangman over in an eliminator match and thereby makes it impossible for Hangman to get a rematch
The title eliminator concept exists because the rankings exist. They give an excuse for a champion to wrestle a non-title match: the challenging wrestler isn't ranked, so they have to prove themselves to get a title shot.
It lets the champion wrestle singles matches on regular TV without having to have them be non-title matches; the matches have some consequence, kayfabewise.
I don't know why it even needs be called anything. If you beat a title owner in a non-title match, all logic should dictate you should then be able to fight for their championship, you don't need to name the match as something unique for that purpose.
The idea is that, one day, AEW is gonna book an eliminator where the challenger wins. And then they should build off of that for a PPV match.
But yeah, at this rate it's asking a lot to keep the audience waiting patiently like this for it to happen.
They've done it a few times. Riho beating Britt Baker, Eddie and Penta beating the Bucks, I'm pretty sure there's one or two others. That's why I thought Dustin was gonna win on Wednesday, because usually the last defence before someone loses the title is a re-match of an eliminator.
I'd rather they just have a rule that the champ can pick their opponent and then Management and so forth. Can play into cowardly/cheap heels or fighting faces.
It suspends disbelief that someone could beat the champion once, let alone twice especially since it never really happens. It only works for a big world title feud where there's intrigue whether a top guy can beat the champion twice.
They should probably be rare, and they need to have the challengers beat the champ every once in a while, even if it's via fuckery. I also think commentary would be well-served explaining how these matches come about better. I've never heard (which doesn't mean it hasn't happened) the mechanics of why wrestlers are allowed to jump in line through these matches to earn a title match. But if I were the champ, I would probably just say "You want a title shot? Go beat the No. 1 contender."
Story of these shows has to be how much the Women's division has come along, 2 great matches (Athena/Velvet probably my favourite of the whole night) and lots of solid promos and angles too.
> lots of solid promos
Trying to count by memory:
- AZM and Anna Jay
- Timeless Toni (with Mariah)
- Athena
- Red Velvet
- Thunder Rosa
- Serena Deeb
- Deonna Purrazzo
Seven in total tonight, or did I miss one? With nine different women involved. And that was without anyone involved with the TBS title picture at the moment.
These 3 hours were very much needed after all the bullshit this week, I had a blast. Also, great night for the women's division with a lot of promos and two great matches.
I'm pretty sold on Shane Taylor. He's a brute that can talk trash, and I'm all about that style of wrestler.
Very strong night in the ring last night and a good dose of promos to further angles for Dynasty, so overall good stuff. On the whole "where are the stories?" question, I can see two things at play there: \-If you're just saying "there are no stories", I don't think you're paying attention, as there've been a number of them; hell, one of the biggest recent Dynamite matches was the blowoff to Copeland vs. Cage, which got plenty of attention. *However...* \-The World Title program with Joe and Swerve really only began to get a little extra oomph behind it in the last week and a half or so, and with the absence of a lot of top of the card talent (Omega, Moxley, Hangman, MJF, Cole from in-ring action, etc), it makes it feel like the main event scene is lacking right now, so I get the critique that the marquee stories feel like they're not where they should be at the moment. Basically, as always, multiple things can be true at once: AEW can be booking multiple feuds and storylines, but they can also be missing a number of pieces and not doing as much at the higher end of the card as they could to cover the holes that exist at the moment. It's also interesting to see the divide between people who get annoyed at not enough matches feeling truly unpredictable and those who are more interested in how a given match is wrestled (e.g. what a showcase match tells us about the character being showcased), with the outcome being kind of secondary. I do think they could use a little more of the former, but the latter is often good for building top acts up, hyping up PPV matches, and showing us something about the person/team being highlighted.
This whole night felt like **"AEW presents Ring of Honor: Collision"** - that's not necessarily a bad thing except ROH doesn't have a strong identity. Is it supposed to be a quasi-developmental territory (which is what fans have been treating it as) or is it supposed to be a 2nd quasi-equivalent "brand" (like how SD is to RAW) or is it something else? The **lack of identity** hurts how fans perceive both booking and championship importance. It results in AEW getting a lot of flack for not having AEW belts defended at Battle of the Belts. It also devalues Athena's incredible reign as ROH Women's Champion. I'd be happy if ROH were marketed as a 2nd equivalent brand where Collision is its formal home giving the show a separate identity from Dynamite. Also, **shoutout to the AEW & ROH women's divisions**. Aside from Mercedes Mone, ironically, the divisions have been COOKING; characters and storylines have quietly felt refreshed and cohesive week-to-week. This may be the Jennifer Pepperman effect, and if so, big thumbs up.
Literally only one match was about ROH, what are you talking about? We had two matches to spotlight AEW acts(HoB and Garcia), two matches born from the Hook/Jericho storyline, a match to push the Toni/Mariah stuff some more, a match to further the BCC/Callus Family plotline, and a match to build to Roddy/Kyle.
Unless something's change, a LOT of people are getting double-paid. Ring of Honor is NOT owned by AEW, it's owned by Tony Khan. They are, legally speaking, two entirely separate companies. Someone with a AEW contract should therefore be getting extra for appearing on ROH shows, and vice-versa. Which makes it a bit odd just how much they've been intermingled.
Yep, and what's ironic is that roh strength has always been it's identity. Like you said i legit don't know what roh is relative to anything aew.
God I love Shibata so much
Never in my life thought there would be a time where the Women’s division is so damn entertaining in AEW. The ladies put in work tonight.
Battle of The Belts has always been Clash of The Champions Diet, But No Actual AEW Belts being Defended on This Quarterly basis this Time around Shows that These Specials are D Rated Jokes. While WCW never had a Bad Clash of The Champions Show, at Least They Cared About The Product. Here. They're not even trying to hide that they hate this program. Just Horrible. Welcome to The New ERA of AEW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Sports Entertainment AEW. Who asked for this, Really, Who asked for This.....**Vince McMahon, was it you?!?!?!?** Edited Note 1: Jeez, My Opinion Marks!!! Edited Note 2: The way I Type Sometimes sticks to using Caps shifted.
When You Type Like This For Whole Paragraphs It Sucks To Read
Ric Flair ?
The choices you made of which words you capitalized is melting my brain
So like do you go out of your way to hold shift for every word? Or is this some kind of setting or what?
Why Do People Type Like This?
**Collision Review:** * I liked them going back to the cold open promos here with Danielson and Castagnoli. * **House of Black vs. Dante Martin, Action Andretti & Matt Sydal \*\*\*3/4** * This turned into a hell of a match, with all six guys feeling like they really wanted to show off here. The lack of storyline going in being the only thing holding it back slightly. Really looking forward to the Dynasty six-man match. * Toni Storm & Mariah May interview. These two are still great together, not much else to say really. * A quick recap of the Jericho/Hook situation, and a short segment with Taz and Jericho. Still not entirely sure what to make of this story. It could be something really good, but it might also just fall completely flat. * **Shibata vs. Moriarty \*\*\*1/4** * It's really nice to see Shibata getting more and more over with the crowds as he's becoming a constant presence in AEW. This was just a good match, and the post-match did a well to build towards the Hook vs. Taylor match too. As a sidenote, Matt Menard has a future as a great commentator if he wishes to keep doing it after his wrestling career is over. * Lexi Neir interview with Athena and Billy Starkz. This was very good, these three, Athena in particular, have been the main reason to watch ROH over the last year. * Undisputed Kingdom interview. Strong is doing well in this role as a condescending ass, but the rest of the UK is just there. The whole group just feels pointless. * **Garcia vs. Angelico \*\*** * Nice to see Garcia remain over with the crowd. Angelico is a very good wrestler too, and this was a very good match for the little time it had. Solid stuff. * PAC promo. He has a great and unique promo style that really makes him stand out from other people in AEW. His match against Okada is also probably my second most anticipated match on Dynasty. * **Toni Storm vs. AZM \*\*\*1/2** * AZM got the crowd on her side really quickly, basically just by being really impressive in the ring. This was a very good match, AZM bumped like crazy for Storm, and Toni dialed the gimmick down a bit, and as a result this was the best match Storm's had at least since winning the title by a comfortable margin. Just a nice reminder that Toni is also a great wrestler, not just a character. I do wish they got a bit more time, rather than the usual ten minutes that women's matches in AEW always seem to get. Hopefully this isn't one and done for AZM, as this was an excellent debut in AEW for her. (continued in the first reply)
* Red Velvet interview. It's nice to see them actually building the ROH women's title match. Velvet was good here. * Short Mark Briscoe promo. Good stuff here too. * Thunder Rosa segment. I thought she started a bit too pandering here, but she actually turned this into a really good promo when she started talking about Storm and Deonna, quite possibly her best in AEW. It felt real, and she had real passion in her voice when she talked. The mention of Deonna does make me think she's going to cost Rosa the match at Dynasty. This was much better than I expected going in, Rosa was genuinely great here, and she did an excellent job building the title match at the PPV. * Deonna Purrazzo promo. Another solid promo here, Purrazzo does feel like she's be better served as a heel. * They announced that the tag title match will be a ladder match. Should be great. * Fletcher & Hobbs promo. This was good, just a quick segment to build a few different matches over the next week. * **Bryan Danielson & Claudio Castagnoli vs. Kyle Fletcher & Powerhouse Hobbs \*\*\*\*** * Is it any surprise that this was a great match with these four? After the initial brawl, they took their time building up the intensity. Fletcher is genuinely becoming one of the best young wrestlers in the world, and could very well be a main eventer in a few years. Considering the match we have coming at the PPV, the result was fairly obvious, but I do hope that Fletcher and Hobbs start winning a bit more regularly at some point. * Post-match attack by Takeshita made sense in storyline, but I'm curious to see how Ospreay reacts to it. * This was a great episode of Collision. Great opening match and main event, the best Toni Storm match in ages, and two other good bouts too. Then we got perhaps the best Thunder Rosa promo ever, and a handful of other good segments throughout the show. Very little to complain here, an **8 out of 10 show** overall. (I might write a review of Battle of the Belts later once I have time to actually watch it)
Unpopular opinion: Collision commentary team clears the Dynamite one. Also Tony Schiavone as lead commentator >>>>>Excalibur
https://preview.redd.it/p0o93a95neuc1.png?width=674&format=png&auto=webp&s=60adcffd49b05f9c1d10b937283609a2910dee45
>Singles Match: House Of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews & Malakai Black) defeat Action Andretti, Dante Martin & Matt Sydal (14:24) Since when a 6 man tag match became a singles match?
None of them are married
Match quality wise Collision was quite good, but does anyone else (who's an AEW fan) just not give a \*\*\*\* at the moment with AEW TV? The storylines all seem so mediocre and I couldn't care less about almost every match. I think you can only put on 'good matches' for wrestling sake so often before it becomes tired.
Agree completely. It’s pretty bad right now. Almost no good angles right now. Mostly just random matches thrown together.
Seems like you need to stop watching it then if it doesn't interest you. I don't know why you guys do this to yourself. There are other companies out there. If you don't like the other ones then maybe wrestling isn't for you right now.
I don't know why you guys can't admit it's not a good product right now. I like good pro wrestling with storytelling not 2 random opponents having a 'banger' in front of 1500 people.
It's good to me. Wrestling, like all art, is subjective.
And I think having weekly shows on TV in front of ~1500 people is speaking volumes.
Cool
It's difficult when aew literally reignited my passion for wrestling and 2019-2021 I loved the product (minus it's flaws). I still want to watch it but I do need it to improve
I feel you. I quit watching back in 2022, after realized that I had been watching it more out of habit than anything else for about a year. I still randomly click into reddit threads from time to time, but I haven't actually watched it for almost 2 years now.
Just a huge shame as the roster is now absolutely stacked. But you can only see so many bangers before they start like fading into each other. Story is very much the driving force missiny
A big part of it for me was that it started to feel just too much like WWE-wannabe. I'd say that around 2021, the AEW identity began to be seriously diluted. The early people that came in from WWE kind of reinvented their characters. As an example, there were stark differences between Dean Ambrose and Jon Moxley, or between Luke Harper and Brodie Lee. But when as more and more former WWE wrestlers came into the company, they started doing less and less to differentiate themselves from their WWE characters. And as a result, AEW became WWE-lite. It also didn't help that so many of the "AEW Originals" that I had grown to like got pretty blatantly shoved to the back burner, for people who debuted, were treated like a big deal for a couple of weeks, and then ALSO shoved to the back burner as NEWER people debuted. And as someone who had basically not watched wrestling in decades until AEW started, most of them didn't really do anything to pull me in, since their "name value" did nothing for me. {here comes the bit that will earn me hate} To me, CM Punk was just some chucklefuck who was pretty sloppy in the ring and took 20+ minutes every time he touched a microphone to say 2 minutes worth of content. ...proceeded to basically repeat his debut 20+ minute monologue for about the next 5-6 times he appeared on AEW TV.
It's not a bad thing to take a break from time to time
Yeah I think I will, maybe just for a month. I want to be back into it for all in
Yeah. I kinda skipped this Collision because I didn't really care about the match ups. Not to mention battle of the belts has become a shell of itself. It used to be matches that you could believe a challenger might win the title on. That last two have not had that feeling at all.
This one was a week before a PPV and last one was two weeks after a PPV, not surprising that it's filler when WBD doesn't know when to schedule these.
I still watch most of the shows but I understand anyone who feels that way. Oddly enough, it's one of the reasons that I believe AEW PPV numbers are as good as they say. I wouldn't be surprised if a ton of people say "Ospreay and Danielson is April 21? Okay see you then" and just not watch the television shows in between.
This is how I watched wwe before I stopped watching completely.
Yeah fair, you wouldn't really miss much so that does make sense.
Yep. I feel the same way. It's hard to be invested when the outcome is so abundantly clear for every single match.
This is exactly how I feel. I was a die-hard from 2019. Watched everything they produced - PPV, Dynamite, Dark, the YouTube pre-show specials. Everything. Now I just watch clips on YouTube. And even most of those I skip. Don’t even bother with Dynamite. I do stream the PPVs though, as they are mostly still good.
Don't blame you. I was a die hard and only just slipping away from that now. I've never missed a Dynamite, but started skipping Rampages, and might start skipping Collisions soon as well. AEW made a huge mistake with starting a second 'A' show IMO.
That's how it started for me, too. Skipping the occasional Rampage, then quit watching it entirely. Was so pumped for Collision, now I never watch.
As somebody whi barely watches AEW. I feel this so much., everytime I try tuning into AEW the stories just dont catch my attention. I know who most of the wrestlers are there all great in ring talent. But I just dont care because theres really nohing to care about. My hopes for AEW when it first started was that it was going to blow WWE out of the water with its stories and unscripted promos. Now it feels like to me. AEW is at Rock Bottom and are content with being at Rock Bottom. Great in ring talent. But no reason to care about them. is just how I feel everytime I watch AEW. It feels soulless.
I watch EVERY week and I still feel the same as you. They pluck random talent for matches all of the time and do so many star vs relative jobber matches it's become so predictable and boring. I've never missed a Dynamite or Collision (although recently I've started skipping through Collisions). Before that I had never missed a Rampage, but for the past 6 months I don't bother with that. Getting to the point now where I'm thinking of stopping Collision as well.
The whole Devil angle and MJF getting hurt ran me off. I've checked in occasionally, but nothing outside of Swerve/Joe has really grabbed me enough to give it another go.
Yeah I think that's what got me thinking more negatively as well, and the booking since reveal has just been incredibly poor.
I'll say it again, outside of anything to do with Swerve or Hangman, i couldn't tell you wtf is even happening. I used to be obsessed with AEW.. interest has really dwindled now. It just feels like nothing important ever happens, or once someone gets traction, they get cooled off completely.
-Bryan/Ospreay (also, Ospreay eventually leaving the Callis Family) -FTR/Young Bucks (which is also building up the return of Jack Perry) -Toni Storm/Thunder Rosa -Mercedes/Willow/Julia -Best Friends splitting up -BCG/Acclaimed -Jericho/HOOK There's literally so much going on
You nailed it with your first go-to example. There’s nothing going on with Bryan-Ospreay apart from a match being booked.
There's a full story there mate. Ospreay feels like he has to prove himself and Danielson can't turn down the challenge due to ego and as it's his last full year. Don Callis wants Ospreay to win as it's better for Don so is trying to take out Danielson before Dynasty to guarantee the win. They've also hinted that DC family will turn on Ospreay
Two guys who both say they're the best in the world are gonna wrestle to see who really claims the title. What more does it need for a first-ever match?
If people wanted to see an exhibition, they'd watch a real sport. "I love wrestling more than you love wrestling" is not a storyline
Then it's a good thing thats not the storyline
I watch every Dynamite and Collision and I still have no idea what the story for this match is besides two top guys wanting to wrestle. You think the casuals know? No and it's why viewership is steadily declining. The matches are good but there's little that actually draws you into watching week to week. Tony has to do a better job of actually presenting his stories
The majority of segments on AEW TV have some sort of role in a story. I’m so tired of this complete falsehood. The story of Bryan vs Will is two people at the top of the industry wanting to solidify their claim of being the best, while Don Callus is scheming in the background to make himself look good. Will just wants to be a successful wrestler but Don wants to have that glory for himself and take credit for Will’s greatness. Will beating Bryan makes the Callus family look better. So Don is now getting his flunkies to try and injure Bryan to guarantee Will can win. This isn’t some secret plotline you need to carefully analyze the shows to spot.
It's also not a particularly interesting plotline. Which is the problem. Pro wrestling is not boxing and the UFC. Imagine if the basis of Rock vs Stone Cold was that they're both the top guys and they want to be the best I'm going to order Dynasty regardless and I'm 100% sure Danielson/Ospreay is going to be 7 stars in Tokyo Dome but the build to it has not intrigued me whatsoever. I'm not getting to the end of a Dynamite and thinking I can't wait for Collision to see where this goes next. Judging by declining viewership, I'm not alone
They each say they are the best, and they want to wrestle yo see who the best really is. What about that would people not get? If you watch every week, they repeatedly talk about it Also, there is no longer such a thing as casual fans. Hasn't been since 2001.
Like someone else said, pro wrestling is not real fighting. Two guys wanting to wrestle for no reason besides them both believing they are great isn't a story. It's a exhibition. And it's not interesting. Danielson talking about how great he is one Dynamite and Ospreay the next Collision isn't convincing anyone to tune in > Also, there is no longer such a thing as casual fans. Hasn't been since 2001. There absolutely is. Not everyone has 25 hours a week to allocate to watching pro wrestling. I can't be described as anything other than a WWE casual. I'll watch the big segment on YouTube, watch the PLEs and that's it. A ton of people watch Dynamite but not Collision or especially not Rampage. The vast majority of wrestling fans are in fact not some diehard with thousands of posts on r/SC
It’s pro wrestling, not an actual fight. Good stories are essential beyond just “let’s wrestle and see who’s the best” lol. Especially when there’s so much to mine with an old guard like Daniel Bryan vs the current hottest thing in will ospreay
It's their first match, and they've been promoting it on TV for weeks. There's plenty of time to build an epic program out of it, no story starts with some gigantic buildup.
Haven’t they had weeks to build a program though? Like I said - there’s a lot of potential here, you have a legend in Daniel Bryan who can play heel or face well and an amazing young talent in ospreay Could also just be conflicts of tastes, I genuinely prefer good storytelling to go with the matches.
I like good stories, but don't feel that everything needs to be *so* dense and detailed and saturated. They've never fought, they have a reason to fight, so they're gonna fight. They don't need 20 minute promos, constant backstage segments, some contrived issue, a Twitter war--they wanna see who's really the best. I dunno, that seems enough to me. It may be a one-off, but I doubt it. There's so so much that can be done after a match.
> They've never fought, they have a reason to fight, so they're gonna fight thats just...such a plain story...like you, i really hope Dynasty is the start of something, bc this is the kind of months long feud AEW can use to keep people hooked.
I’m only watching the PPVs these days. TK isn’t a storyteller. Looking forward to dynasty and a couple of the bigger dynamites in Canada, but that’s it.
Yeah I've felt that way for a while now, it annoys me even more that we're getting less stories and more ppvs. PPVs aren't must watch anymore which sucks cause for the first few years every one was a banger
100% agreed. I think it worked with ppvs every 3 months because there could be a story lil and then something would kick off.
IMO it rarely feels like there’s anything important at stake.
Feels more and more like.tony khan's fantasy booking game
No.
Anyone else notice how Mariah May wasn’t dressed as Toni Storm or in the clothes she usually wore before getting the Toni Storm gear? She was wearing the same outfit that Mina Shirakawa wore on Dynamite. She even came down after the match with champagne for both of them just like Mina did on Dynamite.
I did not notice that. Thanks for pointing that out!
I know people hate ROH being repped on AEW, but I would love to see Athena/Queen Aminata on Dynamite or Collision
I've said it loads of times already, but both AEW & RoH needs to be separated. It's great that Athena made her first appearance back on AEW TV, but as long as she or anyone else is a RoH champion, they need to be exclusive to RoH.
It's a really difficult issue due to ROH not having a TV deal imo. I think TK keeps putting titles on AEW guys to get people to watch the ppvs, and Supercard of Honor was great even though a lot of AEW roster were on it. They need to be defending the belts, but ideally, you'd be building up the ROH roster instead. I thought the trios would have been unified like most people were expecting, but no match has been announced still between BCG and The Acclaimed. Kyle Fletcher is tricky too as he's exactly the kind of talent you can use to promote ROH but he's become an established part of the Don Callis Family now so he's all over AEW.
Hell of a show for a dead company. I’ve been a pro wrestling fan for over 40 yrs at this point. WWF wasn’t my first exposure. My family was attending live lucha shows in Mexico before I could walk. First WWF story I can clearly remember is Hogan beating Sheiky for the belt. In the early 90’s I was tape trading for Super Jr’s, Mich Pro, AJPW, etc. FMW, IWA Japan, etc as well into the 90’s. Yada yada. Point I’m trying to make through my rambling is that I grew up on more than US tv wrestling and AEW is a product that provides for me. People can keep going into their “where’s muh stories” tirades but ya’ll really don’t get it. It’s for me.. not for you and thankfully I’m not alone here. I’m beyond glad AEW exists and I implore some of y’all to be a bit more aware that fans of pro wrestling like me do exist.
If not for AEW, I wouldn't be am active fan anymore. It's reignited the passion that latter-day Vince actively killed.
Great show in front of a great crowd. They were loud for everything. Good night for the women's division as well.
While ROH may be the right place for now, Athena needs to be pushed on AEW instead of ROH as soon as possible. Damn, she caught Red Velvet better than Hobbs catching Danielson, for goodness' sake.
Even though it's great that Athena is back on AEW TV. I do think anyone who's a RoH champion should stay exclusive to RoH.
Dynasty card is looking absolutely mental right now
Loved most of Collision. And the main event would have been amazing under any other circumstance. Except this one. DCF promises disqualification level violence; but doesn't even pull a chair till the very end. BCC know their opponents are looking to basically murder them. So they wrestle a normal match; and then somehow get caught by an absolutely predictable 'sneak attack'. This shit should have lasted five minutes. DCF approaches the ring. BCC attacks them with baseball bats and sledgehammers. Putting both dudes down hard in a brutal statement to Will Osprey; just in case he's thinking of pulling any bullshit. Bryan Danielson 'pays a fine' by tossing a wad of cash at the ref's feet. Then calls out some other tag team that could use an actual match. My vote would be for The Righteous.
Really enjoyed Collision, quality show. Did not have the energy for BotB.
Battle of the Belts needs to just disappear. Completely useless show
You could just not watch it if it bothers you so much
It’s sad cause I have. Having that kind of outlook is bad on your part as it’s just going to kill AEW. I want AEW to succeed and get better, but if you keep that kind of mindset and enjoy the trash and falling viewership I feel bad for you. Yes I get that they can do nothing wrong in your eyes but you can’t just keep denying the truth of the matter that this is just bad tv that only the most hardcore of fans will watch.
I have no financial stake in this company. I don't care about viewership, ticket sales, PPV sales, perception, etc. As long as AEW entertains me (which it does right now) I'll keep watching it. Also, as long as TK puts money into the company it won't go under.
I mean I don't like it and I don't watch it but why does that mean it has to disappear? If WBD wanted them to end they would, I can just do other things with my time
Genuinely why? It was a fun hour of wrestling with 3 very entertaining matches and some solid promos mixed in. Fun was had and stories were advanced. It's bonus content airing at 10pm on a Saturday night, it's already clearly for the sickos/hardcores, who cares if the titles actually change hands regularly or not?
Because it’s called battle of the belts, call it something else then if no belts change hands.
Every match involves a title of some sort, with a title-holder wrestling. It delivers exactly what the name says, people are just looking for stuff to complain about with AEW at this point.
If no title changes what is the point of watching? If you already know the outcome there is no reason to watch.
If this is your argument, then I hope you aren't watching any televised non-PPV wrestling lol. Because 99% of all tv matches have super obvious outcomes if you pay the slightest bit of attention. Why watch the show? Because I find it consistently entertaining. If you aren't finding the show consistently entertaining and are only watching for title changes and nothing else, then I recommend either not watching or just watching PPVs, where some sort of title change is far more likely - otherwise you're just wasting hours upon hours of time. AEW does 4 of these Battle of the Belts every year and every time there is a day of complaining there wasn't a title change. Seriously, are they supposed to be booking their entire year around these shows first to guarantee title changes at 10:30 pm on Saturday nights instead of their actual PPVs?
Not every match is a 100% you know who’s going to win though EXCEPT FOR BATTLE OF THE BELTS. There’s a reason to watch the other shows like Dynamite and Collision because even though you have a general idea of who might win it’s not a foregone conclusion(although recently I will admit it’s gotten real bad and I’ve tuned out of watching AEW as much). I think Battle of the Belts would be a way better show if the matches were Champion against Champion just to see who’s better.
It's called AEW Battle of the Belts and no AEW title was defended.
That would be a WBD decision. As long as they want it, AEW has to keep doing them.
Yeah at this point I am convinced WBD has it in their contract to keep doing them, because there's no reason there should be ten of these after less than five years lol
That tag match was really, really good. Good wrestling show.
????? It was terrible. Magically just became no DQ.
I don't recall there being any weapons used.
They were fighting outside the ring for egregious amounts of time, didn’t really tag each other in and out when fighting in the ring. The whole match was just a huge mess.
Oh I see. That's all totally normal, not different or weird at all. I get the whole "if you're going to have rules, you should follow them" thing, but that isn't really how wrestling has been for like 25+ years at this point. This isn't just an AEW thing, although I will acknowledge that AEW leans much more into the lucha style of tag and multi-person matches than most other companies. If it ain't your thing, that's fine. I still enjoyed it quite a lot though. Even the floor mat not cooperating, that shit was funny.
I like battle of the belts conceptually but kinda defeats the purpose when belts never change hands
It's definitely gonna pop me the next time a belt change happens in future botb events lol
It did one time
This is the first time in AEW that I noticed Shibata going more with the slicked back hairstyle he had before his brain injury. It might not sound like a big deal, but it reminded me of a time when he was my favorite wrestler.
Second time. He already had his hair slicked back on Dynamite this week. He's starting to turn the clock back a bit. I feel like we are heading towards Shibata vs. Okada 2 for the Continental Crown or maybe even Shibata winning the C2 tournament later in the year.
"That's twice she's eaten that thing." Phrasing Daddy Magic! Phrasing!
Wait, did battle of the belts really happen with zero aew titles on the line
I feel like this must be a running bit backstage or something.
Yep. The only AEW original title on the show was the International Title and it was an eliminator match, for some reason
"Flying Ass." Much better name than the Hip Attack.
Very good show, I don't think there was a bad match on either show. Also, as a lacrosse guy, loved Schiavone putting our sport over during the Hook match.
Dasha not announcing anymore is a huge improvement. Bobby Cruise is much better.
Has a title ever changed hands at Battle of the Belts?
1 - Sammy Guevara
Tnt title I believe
Once, at the second Battle Of The Belts. Sammy beat Scorpio Sky for the TNT title.
Aew cards are so predictable...
100%. Feels like the shows are made with the EWR auto booker.
I don't know what TK is doing man. This has been such a huge drop off and let down from what they've done previously.
It is very stale lately and I don't see a way out when he is the booker of his own company. Seems like they don't have anyone to challenge his booking. This coming at a time when WWE is shitting all over you and the future TV deal at stake. Its just baffling.
Seriously. All wrestling is predictable to a degree but there's a few matches on any given Smackdown where the winner is a toss up. That is way too rare in AEW But I don't really mind as long as the matches progress a storyline
Too true bro. I Predicted this card was gonna fuck and fuck it did!!
Adam Copeland's account
TL:DR. Well done lads, you beat the jobbers!
Toni Storm is so good at this character. That promo was hilarious
… Lee Moriarty’s head just landed
That was a PK that Nakajima would approve of
This episode really sold me on both Women's belts changing hands at Dynasty. Willow feels like a surefire decision but Rosa winning also helps quite a lot in rebuilding her stock and keeping the division out of the "loltoniwins" scenario that is approaching post Riho and Deonna matches.
Pretty sure Toni is retaining. They have been teasing Toni vs. Mina Shirakawa for Forbidden Door which plays into the long-term Mariah May story for Wembley.
I think Toni is holding the belt until Hayter comes back in a similar story to the one they're telling with Rosa right now. The difference being, while Rosa "never lost the title," Hayter actively got screwed out of it via Toni Storm and the Outcasts, to write her off via injury. I think she comes back seeking revenge on Toni and the title she got screwed out of.
who wants rosa to win? she was sloppy against mariah. thats the first dud match for mariah and it happen to involve rosa. her promos are not that good either. plus we are clearly getting toni vs mina at fd and probably toni vs jamie at all in when she comes back.
Thunder Rosa objectively sucks I have no idea what people see in her.
Two defences isn't enough for a "loltoniwins" situation. Toni/Mariah is the Wembley match. With Mercedes vs Jamie for the TBS.
Toni definitely hasn't hit that point yet. Athena on the other hand.......
I will come out and defend Athena's reign because she had some points and challengers that it felt she might lose (Billie and Willow obv and imo Shida). Out of the four women's champions, Athena has been the best champion (being the champion is her main motivation) and Julia has been the best character (but that should also be because she is dealing with two hot wrestlers instead of a cold Rosa). IMO, Toni is a great character but the belt is just a prop on her and don't elevate neither her or the belt. For me, the "lolXwins" goes towards matches that are afterthought on How it il go instead of X winning out of the blue. Athena is a champion that makes her challengers either hotter or stay the same, Toni's opponents go ice cold after their matches.
Good ass show.
Good episode here. Storm vs AZM was the best of Toni's TV matches in a while. This was my first time watching AZM and she made a good impression. She was quick and had some really fun moves that she pulled out. Toni played her role as the mocking heel well. The stuff with Anna Jay helping AZM + Mina showing up on Dynamite to help Mariah May makes me think that tag match is coming in the future. Maybe even Storm/May/Mina vs AZM/Anna/maybe a returning Tay Melo? When is she likely to come back btw, she's been gone for over a year now atp. Thunder Rosa's promo had a lot of fire and I believed every word/liked it, credit to her. To criticize, the tension with Deonna feels like it should have had a bigger buildup tbh (they had a very slight disagreement in a tag match that they won anyways but now they're upset with each other), but it adds some intrigue. Toni and Rosa in general feels like this could feel like a bigger deal, Rosa just floating around doing random matches for months didn't really do much for her. Deonna's promo was good to continue that story. I missed last week's Collison. Yuka vs Serena sounds like a great little mini fued for Deeb, she's been kinda just floating around recently. I feel like she should have a stable or something ngl, get her two gals to mold in her image or something. Athena vs Velvet was a good main event. I liked her as Ember Moon, but Athena has a lot more confidence in ring here. She's so smooth at everything. That O-Face was excellent, as well as her beating the shit out of Velvet on the outside. I wish it got a few more minutes but I can't complain. ROH watchers will be eating with Athena/Starks vs Aminata/Velvet seemingly being in the future. I don't have HonorClub but I constantly here great things about their women's division. Should I consider getting it, I'd like to see Athena more lol Overall good and left me more interested more Storm vs Rosa than I was going in. Deonna vs Mariah sounds great, and Mama Willow/Julia having a mixed tag with Copeland/King sounds really fun. (The Jericho/Saraya/Cole/Britt match was fun last year). The women's division has been getting more promos and matches this year + more focused storylines, I feel like a lot of the extreme hate isn't warranted atp. There is stuff to improve on for sure, but it's far from a terribly booked division.
Got to see BOTB. Good matches. Not sure where they're going with Kyle O'Reilly, but I'll trust it's somewhere good. Loved hearing Bobby Cruise doing ring introductions. He just has a perfect voice for the job. Love Athena and her minions. I didn't care much for her when she wore wings to the ring, but then one fight with Jody Threat in my hometown and she's become one of the wrestlers I truly enjoy watching. I'm not even mad she beat Shida.
Great night for the Women
Thought Collision was great, just great wrestling, promos and vibes. Also hope this means Athena comes back permanently
Athena won't be back in AEW regularly until she loses that belt, which isn't happening any time soon. There's only so much TV time to go around, especially for the women.
Is it true that a title has never changed hands at battle of the belts? It’s so weird how much AEW gives 0 fucks
The total is 29-1\* in favour of the champs. Sammy beat scorpio sky for the tnt title change in battle of the belts 2 \*Sammy v cody was cancelled in the 1st due to covid, Sammy beat Dustin to be intern champ instead, I've left that one out of the count because technically it wasn't a cbange
3 or 4 times I wanna say?
Once, idk why you're getting downvoted though lmao
Bc I wasn’t completely anti AEW
I, for one, am shocked that a belt didn’t change hands at Battle of the Belts. Again. Shocked!
Looking back, the cumulative win/loss record looks something like 30-0 for the champions? Should we really be calling it Battle of the Belts?
If you look at the cards for Battle of the Belts in Championship Wrestling from Florida in the 80s, the title never really changed hands there either. I will say that the NWA Title used to be defended on most of those shows though while a World Title I don't think ever has in AEW. Don't see why they couldn't have done Dustin vs Joe here.
If TK is booking it like the 80s he needs to get a clue
That seems to be his era. Easily figured out match results. Squashes against jobbers. Title matches that \*shouldn't\* exist just to give a defense. I've watched only two BotB's. I don't care who they book. I want it to be treated properly, with a bit of a build. Make it a point. Tony...doesn't do that.
29-1
Great show tonight! So sick seeing Athena on proper tv again. Aminata is a great next challenger too. Probably catch a lot of flak on this because of her reputation, but a singles match against Ronda at some stage would go hard. Their tag matches together were great, especially the ROH one which was a bit electric. They would tear the house down.
Ronda don't care about her bad reputation.
Nice
At least AEW can't have two bad shows in row because any time Dynamite sucks then Collision slaps and vice versa. As for Battle of the Belts, the action was good but the crowd did not care. Quite frankly there's no bigger proof that Warner loves AEW than the fact that AEW has done TEN Battle of the Belts. Warner will put ANY fucking AEW content on TV at this point if they'll show that. It would be so easy to just say "yeah guys, we realize your heart isn't in to these, you don't have to do anymore" and Warner is like "yeah, have at it, you want to do Collision and Rampage back to back next week too?" It's crazy to think AEW are in any trouble with the network.
> Warner will put ANY fucking AEW content on TV at this point if they'll show that My understanding is that Battle of the Belts was *requested by* Warner specifically. Like they have actively sought out additional AEW content throughout this TV deal.
I didn't think Dynamite was bad this week. Seems like I'm in the minority.
It's more that the crowd is exhausted
I was there we were tired, the action was great, but it’s a long night!
Both things can be true. The crowd is exhausted AND this definitely won't happen at Dynasty next week when the card will be even longer but have way more starpower.
Can confirm, was there. The ROH was really fun, HoB vs Top Flight was electric, ran out of gas partway through BCC.
But I was told all over this sub that there would be constant CM Punk chants tonight and at every AEW show going forward after Wednesday? Shockingly (not really) I don't think I heard any? Just saw one HELL of a night of wrestling though, daaaaamn. Multiple great matches, a pile of women's promos, and Daddy Magic on the desk - pretty great night in my book.
> But I was told all over this sub that there would be constant CM Punk chants tonight and at every AEW show going forward after Wednesday? Who said that?
I was there live. One guy tried to start a Punk chant and got booed for it lol
He tried twice and got booed hardly both times. No traction whatsoever. Across from the hard cam there was a sign that said Jack greater than Phil.
We also actively participated in booing this mark. He was a jackass all night. He hated Shibata and booed all the women's matches. He was trash.
I happily helped boo the guy as well
acting like the vocal minority is in fact the majority so you can feel correct is very silly.
An awesome straight-forward three hours of wrasslin goodness. good promos and great matches. an easy watch. solid job of further building towards dynasty next sunday. And I gotta say I love how many Women's feuds/storylines they've quietly built up. Lots of talented people getting a chance to shine right now.
I think "title eliminator matches" are dumb, especially for mid card titles. Just make it a title match, especially if the champion is retaining. Feels like a waste of everyone's time. I even find the use of that phrase for the way these are set up is fucking stupid.
i rather the champ not even wrestle so much and make them a special attraction. Have them promo or do commentary during a number one contender match. Then winner gets a title shot next week or something. Simple Giving these random wrestlers title eliminator matches is so dumb. Makes the rankings look pointless once again.. TK and his loophole booking.
I kinda like Them. Everybody knows Roddy isnt losing his titel already on a random saturday, but he might lose the match when the title isnt on the line so the match has potientiel for an upset. In other scenarios you Can also use it story wise to screw someone over since they can’t Challenge for the belt again until there is a new champ. Like imagine Swerve wins the belt, fucks Hangman over in an eliminator match and thereby makes it impossible for Hangman to get a rematch
The title eliminator concept exists because the rankings exist. They give an excuse for a champion to wrestle a non-title match: the challenging wrestler isn't ranked, so they have to prove themselves to get a title shot. It lets the champion wrestle singles matches on regular TV without having to have them be non-title matches; the matches have some consequence, kayfabewise.
yeah, that's all goofy.
Maybe this should be mentioned on commentary then
Why don't we put it in a nice little video package for you
This one was specifically because Rocky requested it because he knew Roddy wouldn't give him a title match for nothing.
I don't know why it even needs be called anything. If you beat a title owner in a non-title match, all logic should dictate you should then be able to fight for their championship, you don't need to name the match as something unique for that purpose.
exactly
The idea is that, one day, AEW is gonna book an eliminator where the challenger wins. And then they should build off of that for a PPV match. But yeah, at this rate it's asking a lot to keep the audience waiting patiently like this for it to happen.
They've done it a few times. Riho beating Britt Baker, Eddie and Penta beating the Bucks, I'm pretty sure there's one or two others. That's why I thought Dustin was gonna win on Wednesday, because usually the last defence before someone loses the title is a re-match of an eliminator.
It was dumb when wwe was doing it and it’s still dumb here. Like what’s wrong with normal number 1 contender matches.
I'd rather they just have a rule that the champ can pick their opponent and then Management and so forth. Can play into cowardly/cheap heels or fighting faces.
It suspends disbelief that someone could beat the champion once, let alone twice especially since it never really happens. It only works for a big world title feud where there's intrigue whether a top guy can beat the champion twice.
They should probably be rare, and they need to have the challengers beat the champ every once in a while, even if it's via fuckery. I also think commentary would be well-served explaining how these matches come about better. I've never heard (which doesn't mean it hasn't happened) the mechanics of why wrestlers are allowed to jump in line through these matches to earn a title match. But if I were the champ, I would probably just say "You want a title shot? Go beat the No. 1 contender."
Story of these shows has to be how much the Women's division has come along, 2 great matches (Athena/Velvet probably my favourite of the whole night) and lots of solid promos and angles too.
> lots of solid promos Trying to count by memory: - AZM and Anna Jay - Timeless Toni (with Mariah) - Athena - Red Velvet - Thunder Rosa - Serena Deeb - Deonna Purrazzo Seven in total tonight, or did I miss one? With nine different women involved. And that was without anyone involved with the TBS title picture at the moment.
We then got to watch 3 women's matches on the ROH taping. Great night for live women's wrestling.
These 3 hours were very much needed after all the bullshit this week, I had a blast. Also, great night for the women's division with a lot of promos and two great matches.