Pretty decent pre-show tag match there. Maki Itoh is obviously a great character, and some of the stuff she does ( the tornado ddt and the roll through into the Boston crab) look pretty great I just wish some of her stikes looked a bit more impacfull.

She is great in the role. She is a legit hilarious wrestler. I love calling Kingston a simp on twitter.

Don't understand the hype for Maki Itoh.

I also don't understand all the negative press/indifference towards the women's championship match.

First off, the hype package was great. I feel my perception of the match would have been lesser were it not for the history between Shida and Mizunami, and that Shida had a personal stake in winning this match. Great job by Excalibur too, he clearly prepares very deeply for his commentary to give the fans the context they need.

As for the match itself, I thought it was awesome. Both wrestlers are kinda hit and miss for me, but they gelled really well together and you can tell they have worked together before many times. Good psychology, great pacing, great false finishes. My only gripe is with the finish itself. The second running knee strike should have won the match. Instead Muzinami kicks out and Shida hits this pretty poor looking spinning knee strike to finally win.

Mar 9, 2021 0:47:34 GMT Emperor said:

Don't understand the hype for Maki Itoh.

I also don't understand all the negative press/indifference towards the women's championship match.

First off, the hype package was great. I feel my perception of the match would have been lesser were it not for the history between Shida and Mizunami, and that Shida had a personal stake in winning this match. Great job by Excalibur too, he clearly prepares very deeply for his commentary to give the fans the context they need.

As for the match itself, I thought it was awesome. Both wrestlers are kinda hit and miss for me, but they gelled really well together and you can tell they have worked together before many times. Good psychology, great pacing, great false finishes. My only gripe is with the finish itself. The second running knee strike should have won the match. Instead Muzinami kicks out and Shida hits this pretty poor looking spinning knee strike to finally win.

Well 3/4th of the tournament wasn't on tv and during the first round bracket Ryo was talked about one of the least. Shida has been in a boring reign for far to long. They had almost no build up. And they picked a poor interesting option. You got to give people a little more reason to care.

The hype for Maki Itoh is because she is a fantastic comedy style wrestler. She has a super fun persona and is legit hilarious on social media. She is also someone who does not need to win to be able to shine and excels in multi-man matches, which is a perfect fit for a bloated roster. Her idol gimmick brings a lot of fun stuff to AEW basically and is super easy to use. Hopefully she will start a idol group in AEW, as she excels in a group setting with people to hype her up and for her to berate.

Not sure why the title match did not get the respect it should have. It was a solid match with a good story. I think people just do not care about Shida really.

For people who missed the tag match, it was one of the best matches of the night and a good showcase of why people are excited for Maki Itoh.

So this is cool, but why is the first women's match to main event dynamite not for the title, and doesn't even involve the champ?

They clearly have no interest in working around Shida's limitations (English fluency) as a performer to give her an actual title reign with feuds and storylines.

This continued sidelining of the women's champion to the point where the biggest matches don't even involve her is weird. Just take the belt off her already.

Hottest feud in AEW right now. Light's out match so Britt will likely have Itoh and Rebel with her. Shida been aligning with Thunder so I expect her to make an appearance.

Maki vs Riho is going to be the main event of the first episode of Elevation so they're finally giving the women their dues. Tay Conti vs Ashley Vox also on the card for Monday - fun week ahead!

Riho slayed ratings in her return, makes sense to have the 1st ever AEW Women's champ main event Elevation's debut. Her crossbody was the first thing you saw before the AEW intro music sets off, clear Kahn has trust in her.

Stunned about the meteoric rise of Maki Itoh though.

Mar 8, 2021 1:00:26 GMT dex02 said:

Pretty decent pre-show tag match there. Maki Itoh is obviously a great character, and some of the stuff she does ( the tornado ddt and the roll through into the Boston crab) look pretty great I just wish some of her stikes looked a bit more impacfull.

It seems that they're just looking to make the most of Maki and her popularity while she's in the US, I assume that this is just a mini tour and she will be back to Japan soon? It's an interesting match to promote like this because Maki obviously isn't the world's greatest worker, and Riho is someone that really needs the right opponent.

I'm not sure why everyone remains surprised by Riho's strong booking/positioning. She was the first champion - this hasn't come out of nowhere.

Maki Itoh's shtick clearly works for a lot of people, but not for me.

I think it's the singing. First time I saw her she was singing awful J-Pop in her entrance for like 3 minutes, it made me just a little biased against her...

I did laugh the first time she did the crying-after-being-hit-by-a-forearm spot but that's a one and done gag for me. Doesn't work every single match.

Mar 12, 2021 9:26:02 GMT Emperor said:

I think it's the singing. First time I saw her she was singing awful J-Pop in her entrance for like 3 minutes, it made me just a little biased against her...

She's added life to the division regardless, got a lot of people talking. Something to be said about it. I think if she's eligible, Khan is going to sign her, seems like a potential AEW Heelz mainstay.

Sounded like everyone wants her back and a lot of the roster are fans of her. Hope they can get her back semi-regularly if she does not sign since it seems like she has an open invite to return.

Mar 12, 2021 9:26:02 GMT Emperor said:

Maki Itoh's shtick clearly works for a lot of people, but not for me.

I think it's the singing. First time I saw her she was singing awful J-Pop in her entrance for like 3 minutes, it made me just a little biased against her...

I did laugh the first time she did the crying-after-being-hit-by-a-forearm spot but that's a one and done gag for me. Doesn't work every single match.

Probably doesn't hurt a lot of AEW have common interest in video games and wrestling. And Maki's character is kind of close to Candy Cane from Rumble Roses which I am positive Omega has played.

Mar 13, 2021 17:28:07 GMT X-zero said:

Mar 12, 2021 9:26:02 GMT Emperor said:

Maki Itoh's shtick clearly works for a lot of people, but not for me.

I think it's the singing. First time I saw her she was singing awful J-Pop in her entrance for like 3 minutes, it made me just a little biased against her...

I did laugh the first time she did the crying-after-being-hit-by-a-forearm spot but that's a one and done gag for me. Doesn't work every single match.

Probably doesn't hurt a lot of AEW have common interest in video games and wrestling. And Maki's character is kind of close to Candy Cane from Rumble Roses which I am positive Omega has played.

She looks like she can be the replacement 3rd member of BABYMETAL honestly.

Mar 13, 2021 13:30:09 GMT c said:

Sounded like everyone wants her back and a lot of the roster are fans of her. Hope they can get her back semi-regularly if she does not sign since it seems like she has an open invite to return.

She has hidden power by the looks of it too.




How the hell do you even do this?

She already has a group.

The first episode of bAeW Dark Elevation was tonight.

Big Swolke vs Skylar Moore was kind of slow and boring.

I wish Tay vs Ashley got a couple more minutes as I really liked the intensity they brought to the match. Ashley seems better/more impressive than her sister.

Red Velvet vs Dani was pretty disappointing, to be honest, they both just seemed off.

Abandon vs Ray Lynn was a solid squash. I liked some of the spots that Abandon pulled off. I'd like to see Ray Lynn get another opportunity with a more competitive match. I thought she sold well, and remember thinking she did well in a squash match with Tessa on Imapct.

Diamante vs Leila was boring.

Riho vs Maki was decent but kind of highlights how limited Riho's move-set is if she isn't facing someonewho can base for her flippy moves.

Like I said in the RoW thread - it was disappointing that Elevation was just more Dark. I was expecting hoping to have one or two longer matches among the better "second tier" women to watch rather than countless glorified squash matches. As you say Dex, I would have traded all the others for Tay vs Ashley being double the length.

Mar 16, 2021 1:57:25 GMT @admin said:

Like I said in the RoW thread - it was disappointing that Elevation was just more Dark. I was expecting hoping to have one or two longer matches among the better "second tier" women to watch rather than countless glorified squash matches. As you say Dex, I would have traded all the others for Tay vs Ashley being double the length.

Absolutely I struggle to see the point of the show if it's just going to be dark 2.0. Also with Tay we already know she can look really good in these short extended squash matches, What she really needs now is to be given longer matches to keep on improving. Same with Red Velvet honestly. 

The show orginally sounded like a show were more of the enhancement talent would fight each other to see what they really have. A step between the Nightmare factory and Dark.

But sounds like Dark's length is getting out of hand so they just made a new show. Since some episodes were getting to be Raw length size.

Temp. stay. Itoh's impact was massive for her though, she gained a little more publicity stateside with this "rental". Still not sure why Khan gave her valuable TV/PPV time if this was the end result though.

Mar 16, 2021 14:04:38 GMT X-zero said:

The show orginally sounded like a show were more of the enhancement talent would fight each other to see what they really have. A step between the Nightmare factory and Dark.

But sounds like Dark's length is getting out of hand so they just made a new show. Since some episodes were getting to be Raw length size.

It seems very strange that there is no differentiation between the two shows - they are running another 15 matches on Dark tonight. I understand that they're doing a good thing by booking heaps of indy talent who can't perform elsewhere at the moment, but there needs to surely be a consideration about the quality of the product too.

One show for giving the rookies/unsigned talent experience, and one more streamlined show for the more established names with the odd storyline and short term feud seems like a much more logical setup. 

Mar 16, 2021 14:12:27 GMT Blindy said:

Temp. stay. Itoh's impact was massive for her though, she gained a little more publicity stateside with this "rental". Still not sure why Khan gave her valuable TV/PPV time if this was the end result though.

The company didn't see much in her at the beginning and she had a massive popularity spike due to social media then the company got behind her while they had a little time left. Kind of what happen to Zack Ryder when his popular skyrocketed for a while.

Mar 16, 2021 22:46:50 GMT @admin said:

Mar 16, 2021 14:04:38 GMT X-zero said:

The show orginally sounded like a show were more of the enhancement talent would fight each other to see what they really have. A step between the Nightmare factory and Dark.

But sounds like Dark's length is getting out of hand so they just made a new show. Since some episodes were getting to be Raw length size.

It seems very strange that there is no differentiation between the two shows - they are running another 15 matches on Dark tonight. I understand that they're doing a good thing by booking heaps of indy talent who can't perform elsewhere at the moment, but there needs to surely be a consideration about the quality of the product too.

One show for giving the rookies/unsigned talent experience, and one more streamlined show for the more established names with the odd storyline and short term feud seems like a much more logical setup. 

That would make the most sense making one of the shows follow the current dark format and the other one the original format of normal matches that just happen to not make it to tv due to time constraints. But they probably won't make any changes with so many people telling them they are doing everything right.

SO overall I rather liked the main event, and it had some really nice spots. But I honestly think I liked their other match a bit more.

That powerbomb into the tacks was crazy. As was Britt's cut. If that was the dusty blade she is a psychopath for going that deep.

Not their objectively best match, but we rarely get hardcore matches like that these days and for that alone they should be applauded.  That could have been on a ECW or CZW show.

Crazy how much Britt improved since AEW debutted.  Also feels criminal how little Thunder Rosa was used until NWA being as good as she is.

AEW has something in Cargill no doubt. I think they are doing right with her by having very short matches or in tag matches where she isn't just protected but can get away with a few power moves. Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall job well done, they have something in her.

And yeah Thunder Rosa is great but Baker has easily vaulted herself so high and she is so deserving of the AEW Title, I feel she would do more with the belt than Shida from a storyline standpoint. She's absolutely insane with some of the spots she's been apart of. Give her the belt.