DON thoughts
Their production is straight up 2002-2003 WWE, it looks exactly like a show from that era, with a few flourishes from WWECW
It's their first PPV and they're already doing 5 hour shows
Pre show didn't fill me with much confidence, as it was full of production snafus and both matches seemed to last FOREVER. The third guy in the booth is straight up David Crockett/Bob Caudle tier. Not only was he awkward as hell and constantly stumbling over his lines (and also terrible at selling the PPV), he had zero chemistry with JR and Excalibur, who didn't have much chemistry between them to begin with. I think it's going to be a struggle for them to get used to who is supposed to be the main play by play guy and who is the color, because both seemed to be trying to take the reigns as the lead most of the show. JR wasn't very good as the color man the few times he's done it, but he's too old and shitty to be the lead play by play so we'll see how that works out. All three were consistently lost every time the cameras came to them, so I don't know who is running the actual production in the headsets, but they'll for sure need to work on that.
I'm stunned looking at the actual time of the matches that every match wasn't 20+ minutes. Even the pre-show match felt so fucking long. It was all pretty solid to good, although the women's four way was a terrible omen for the AEW women's division because it was easily the worst match on the show and was full of botches and generally came off very amateur hour for how much they've hyped themselves up.
Cody/Dustin was, by far, match of the night and easily the best thing Cody's ever been involved in. Which is funny because destroying HHH's throne with a sledgehammer was easily the corniest and
thing of his career and every bit as lame and self aggrandizing as HHH's WM entrances. It's not a coincidence that the other best match Cody was involved in also had Goldy in it (Rhodes vs Shield). Haven't seen a bladejob like that outside of deathmatch trash in many, many years. Dustin bleeding like it was 1992
They sealed the deal with a hug and a kith
at getting Bret to introduce the title a month after he went into the WWE HOF for the second time. Adam Page is the most forced "star" I can remember in a long time. Out of the blue one day he got attached to the Bullet Club and they kept pushing that he's secretly this amazing talent and such a star, and you have Cody doing interviews saying Page is the best wrestler in the entire group, etc etc, but man he's about as bland as can be. The best thing I could say about him is that he's "solid". Also
at Meltzer getting worked when he was told the PAC replacement was going to be an even better match for Page anyway and it ends up being Page as the 22nd entrant in a 21 man battle royale on the pre show
Lucha Bros/Young Bucks was a bit of a let down to me. I expected some real crazy shit, but really the Bucks have toned down/aged out of super crazy spot fest stuff over the past few years, and Lucha Bros work a million dates a year including the night before. I did like the Bucks doing tribute spots to some of their bigger rivals over the years. I'm a sucker for that kind of shit in wrestling, along with guys going back to moves/finishes from earlier gimmicks in big time matches like Austin doing the stun gun and million dollar dream at WM 17 and Summerslam 2001. I've seen the Lucha Bros have crazier and more exciting matches with both LAX and the Rascalz over the past year
Fenix as usual was the stand out of
moments
at JR saying Jericho was in the best shape he's been in in many years as they cut to a shot of him looking literally the fattest and flabbiest he's ever looked in his life. Match kind of sucked, Jericho is a mess. JR kept pointing out Dustin was 50 and this was his last ride, but he's in significantly better shape than Jericho at 48 who has taken a ton of time off in the past decade, and Goldy also had 10 years as a drug addict AND this is his first match back after knee surgery, yet never pointed out that Jericho is clearly a fat hobbled drunk who is now built like a full sized dwarf and is out of breath 5 minutes into any match. He really looks like garbage. His gear looks like shit, too. So is his fedora. At least he isn't doing the goth make up in the US
His NJ matches need lots of gimmicks and bullshit to hide how he can't go anymore, and this didn't have much in that regard besides the table. Why does he keep doing half hour matches
Also since he's busted open everyone he's worked with in NJ and now AEW, I'm positive he's going to kill someone with that elbow. He's so sloppy with his worked punches, there's no way he's going to be able to pull that elbow every time.
at Lex Ambrose lying to Vince for months, getting 4 months of praise and a long drawn out goodbye on TV because Vince believed that Dean really was just taking a break and would be back once he recharged so they wanted to keep it on good terms, only for Dean to post a twitter vid breaking out of prison literally 5 minutes after his contract expired and then immediately signing a multi year contract with AEW.
Can't wait to see how Dave Meltzer spins AEW's first show ending with a 50 year old fat out of shape drunk WWE star pinning Kenny Omega 100% clean, followed by a guy coming off a 5 year WWE stint that ended 3 weeks ago beating up Kenny to be the last shot of the show, the voice of the company being a 70 year old long tenured WWE announcer, the ring announcer being WWE's ex ring announcer, one of their lead refs being 70 year old former WWE senior official, their title being introduced by a WWE legend, and their show looking exactly like a WWE show from 15 years ago. From a production aspect, they didn't bring ANYTHING new to the table whatsoever, all of their "unique" features like the ranking and stats based systems will be "revealed later" even though they've had at least 6 months to plan this out. They've been using phrases like "change the world" "change the universe" and "revolution" but it's just a standard wrestling promotion that isn't WWE, even though it feels very, very much like the WWE of 15 years ago, moreso than it did WCW or even TNA.
