JWeinCom said:
Errr... have you been... watching AEW?
Not wasting talent... Here are some of the people who won't be wrestling at All Out. Adam Page, Andrade, Brian Cage, Brian Pilman Junior, FTR, Joey Janela (for the best in that case), Lance Archer, Malakai Black (because why would you want to push these recent signings on PPVs), PAC (who honestly should have been fired for that match with Orange Cassidy), All of the Inner Circle guys besides Jericho, all of the Pinnacle besides MJF, Sonny Kiss (which I'm fine with, but apparently Cody was trying to make him a star), and so on.
And of course not everyone could be on a PPV, but some of these really stick out. Malakai Black was supposedly a big signing, but couldn't make it on the card. Andrade signed three months ago and is already lost in the shuffle. There are a ton of people who are not being used while QT Marshall gets a a spot (Big Show is a legend who could be useful in getting a young big guy over and Cody's little buddy is the one you're going to book him against? FFS), and they have guys coming in from New Japan (no offense to them, but get your build your own guys first. Aside from that, the people on the card are at least mostly decent (aside from Statlander who I initially she liked because hot, but she is going to hurt someone, Jericho who is getting sad to watch, and Orange Cassidy who is literally a joke), but most of those guys were treated as big deals when they came in, and now are doing nothing but being in the background in one of AEW's 15 different factions. Tony's daddy needs to tell him he won't buy him any new toys till he plays with the ones he has.
Speaking of Jericho, yeah someone should tell that. His match with Juventud was a reminder that time comes for us all. Almost as embarrassing as his epic fall onto a pile of pillows with cardboard on top of them. The Inner Circle looked like a way to get some young guys over, but it turns out it was actually a vehicle to prop up Jericho, which becomes a taller task each week as the Covid God is enjoying a little bit too much of the bubbly.
And, I'd have to ask who is really significantly more over in in AEW than when they came in? Darby Allin for sure, maybe Jungle Boy, Britt Baker, and that's probably about it. Omega and the Young Bucks are still over with the people who already liked them, the ex WWE guys are more or less at the same level they were (Moxley was doing well at first but has cooled down significantly), and so on.
For the great writing... you'll have to explain that one to me. I watch sporadically. In the time I have watched I've seen a feud start because one person broke another's arcade machine (which they were playing at ringside for some reason..?) which led to Miro being leg cuffed during a promo without noticing (wtf?), then a match where Kris Statlander coming out of a claw machine (cause it's a UFO catcher get it? Haha...), and Miro hitting someone with a clearly fake arcade cabinet (it didn't even have a screen or buttons).
The story with MJF and Jericho is that the Inner Circle were being total dicks, then MJF was added to the group, and then he was a bigger dick, and then while he was trying to take over that group he was secretly building another group (what was he going to do if he succeeded? Just be like "Hey Inner Circle, now that I'm your leader, here's the guys I was also forming a group with to kick your ass if this didn't work!"), and now I'm supposed to like Jericho because after he was being an asshole and jumping people and beating them down, the same thing happened to him? Didn't he just beat the fuck out of an old man a few weeks ago? Why the fuck am I supposed to be rooting for him?
Cody was beat up by some British guy. Then he cuts a promo about how great America is because he had a half black baby with Brandi so racism was over I guess? Although the guy he was fighting was mixed race? So... ummm... huh?
And then there was the story with Don Callis and Kenny Omega. According to them they spent months preparing their dastardly plan to help Kenny Omega overcome Jon Moxley. Their plan was that Callis distracted the ref and passed a microphone to Kenny. So he could hit Moxley with it, which would create an audible THUNK that the ref somehow didn't notice. As good of a plan as George's Twix set up (IYKYK).
If there are some really good stories, you'll have to explain which ones those were, because I must have just been really unlucky and only seen the bad one.
And I completely don't get Kenny Omega. Like, I don't mean I don't like him (I don't), I mean I don't get why I'm supposed to like him, or dislike him, or feel any particular way about him. He's like a create a wrestler in a video game and the game asked "What traits should this character have?" and the Player said "Yes". He's supposed to be a threat, but he's also goofy and making crayon drawings of Wile Coyote Plans, and he's sometimes tough but also sometimes gets knocked on his ass by a little person... I really don't know what he's supposed to be.
And the wrestling is... kind of bad. It's a sequence of spots with little rhyme or reason. I tuned in for Punk and tuned out when Luchasaurus helped perform a double team Canadian destroyer on his own partner, which in addition to breaking all suspension of disbelief and being stupid unsafe, did not even end the match. This is typical of an AEW match, I'll watch and start getting into it, and something will happen to completely ruin the illusion (like Riho doing a snap suplex on Nyla rose for instance).
As for building talent, idk. Pretty much everyone on the all out card got over elsewhere and are at the same level as they were at best. On the card, the only people who really got over in AEW are Darby, Britt Baker, and maybe Orange Cassidy. The rest of the people were about as over wherever they were as they were now.
AEW has what I will dub the Tem-tem effect. Where people are so upset with a franchise/company that they will completely ignore that the alternative sucks. 99% of the time when I hear praise about AEW, it's always in relation to WWE. I'll just grant for argument's sake that AEW is better than WWE. That doesn't mean it's any good, that just means there are two very sucky wrestling promotions. And as much as I love Daniel Bryan and CM Punk and think they'll do well there (I think they're smart enough to lay out their feuds and matches properly) I can't stomach 2 hours of Dynamite to see them, much less pay $50. AEW has foundational problems to work out that even signing guys like that won't help.
/rant
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