Holy Mox blade job.

Be really nice if someone produced these matches a little. No story in Cody vs MJF and no story here outside of whatever the fuck Mox did to his face.

LMAO fucking Mox, flicking his eye to get it bleeding again.

Mar 1, 2020 4:22:10 GMT c said:

LMAO fucking Mox, flicking his eye to get it bleeding again.

Sick fuck, I tell ya.

And that sick fuck, just won the title.

And once they start to tell a story, they go right to finish...

What a letdown. Should have been an amazing match but too much fucking around at the start, then condensed what should have been the match into 5 minutes.

Mar 1, 2020 4:26:43 GMT c said:

And once they start to tell a story, they go right to finish...

What a letdown. Should have been an amazing match but too much fucking around at the start, then condensed what should have been the match into 5 minutes.

Must have been running out of the alotted PPV time.

Holy shit, that ugly ass thing was Cody's new tattoo...

Mar 1, 2020 4:28:11 GMT CM Punk'd said:

Mar 1, 2020 4:26:43 GMT c said:

And once they start to tell a story, they go right to finish...

What a letdown. Should have been an amazing match but too much fucking around at the start, then condensed what should have been the match into 5 minutes.

Must have been running out of the alotted PPV time.

Yeah.  Think they planned to go 40 and only had like 20.  Which is kind of why you do not fuck around for so long at the start of the match.  Seem to be the AEW ways of things though.  Do whatever for 10 then go to the story.

Cassidy and PAC got the cooldown spot and then they proceeded to be the only match that could get a stronger reaction than Bucks/Cowboy Weebs

What an incredible ppv. Besides the second half of the women’s match pretty solid all the way around with a tremendous tag match. Can’t help but think the strap was put on Moxley in part to further plant the seeds of a working agreement with New Japan, which would put AEW over the fucking top.

Mar 1, 2020 4:58:00 GMT KITN said:

Cassidy and PAC got the cooldown spot and then they proceeded to be the only match that could get a stronger reaction than Bucks/Cowboy Weebs

Not shocking to me as it was the classic super face vs ultra heel matchup.  I hate the Orange Cassidy gimmick (RIP Fire Ant), but it works so well with some people, and PAC definitely got it.  Also it makes simply storytelling that everyone can get behind easy if you do not try to over complicate it.  Cassidy when he is not doing the gimmick is one of the most rock solid guys in the business too, so when he does wrestle, he can go with the best of them.

I expect the fans to enjoy the show even if there isn't one match that really steals the show and puts itself among the all-time classics.

Well apparently the Bucks vs. Omega/Page is the greatest tag team match of all-time.

Better than...

Taue & Kawada/Kobashi & Misawa - 12/3/93, 5/21/94 and 6/9/95

Taue & Kawada/Akiyama & Misawa - 12/6/96

Kroffat & Furnas/Kobashi & Kikuchi - 5/25/92

Or even...

Revival vs. #DIY - TakeOver Toronto 2016

Jericho & Benoit vs. The Two Man Power Trip - Raw 5/21/01

Rey Mysterio & Edge vs. Benoit & Angle - No Mercy 2002

Eddie Guerrero & Art Barr vs. El Hijo Del Santo & Octagon - When Worlds Collide 1994

The Midnight Express vs. The Southern Boys - Great American Bash 1990

Must have been a hell of a match, it wouldn't be like Dave to resort to hyperbole.

Mar 1, 2020 14:31:48 GMT Big Pete said:

I expect the fans to enjoy the show even if there isn't one match that really steals the show and puts itself among the all-time classics.

Well apparently the Bucks vs. Omega/Page is the greatest tag team match of all-time.

Better than...

Taue & Kawada/Kobashi & Misawa - 12/3/93, 5/21/94 and 6/9/95

Taue & Kawada/Akiyama & Misawa - 12/6/96

Kroffat & Furnas/Kobashi & Kikuchi - 5/25/92

Or even...

Revival vs. #DIY - TakeOver Toronto 2016

Jericho & Benoit vs. The Two Man Power Trip - Raw 5/21/01

Rey Mysterio & Edge vs. Benoit & Angle - No Mercy 2002

Eddie Guerrero & Art Barr vs. El Hijo Del Santo & Octagon - When Worlds Collide 1994

The Midnight Express vs. The Southern Boys - Great American Bash 1990

Must have been a hell of a match, it wouldn't be like Dave to resort to hyperbole.

Eleven stars?

Mar 1, 2020 14:31:48 GMT Big Pete said:

I expect the fans to enjoy the show even if there isn't one match that really steals the show and puts itself among the all-time classics.

Well apparently the Bucks vs. Omega/Page is the greatest tag team match of all-time.

Better than...

Taue & Kawada/Kobashi & Misawa - 12/3/93, 5/21/94 and 6/9/95

Taue & Kawada/Akiyama & Misawa - 12/6/96

Kroffat & Furnas/Kobashi & Kikuchi - 5/25/92

Or even...

Revival vs. #DIY - TakeOver Toronto 2016

Jericho & Benoit vs. The Two Man Power Trip - Raw 5/21/01

Rey Mysterio & Edge vs. Benoit & Angle - No Mercy 2002

Eddie Guerrero & Art Barr vs. El Hijo Del Santo & Octagon - When Worlds Collide 1994

The Midnight Express vs. The Southern Boys - Great American Bash 1990

Must have been a hell of a match, it wouldn't be like Dave to resort to hyperbole.

Was is he up to like 8 stars now? I guess he would have to add stars if one of their matches had things like following tag team rules, selling, and etc.

Mar 1, 2020 14:31:48 GMT Big Pete said:

I expect the fans to enjoy the show even if there isn't one match that really steals the show and puts itself among the all-time classics.

Well apparently the Bucks vs. Omega/Page is the greatest tag team match of all-time.

Better than...

Taue & Kawada/Kobashi & Misawa - 12/3/93, 5/21/94 and 6/9/95

Taue & Kawada/Akiyama & Misawa - 12/6/96

Kroffat & Furnas/Kobashi & Kikuchi - 5/25/92

Or even...

Revival vs. #DIY - TakeOver Toronto 2016

Jericho & Benoit vs. The Two Man Power Trip - Raw 5/21/01

Rey Mysterio & Edge vs. Benoit & Angle - No Mercy 2002

Eddie Guerrero & Art Barr vs. El Hijo Del Santo & Octagon - When Worlds Collide 1994

The Midnight Express vs. The Southern Boys - Great American Bash 1990

Must have been a hell of a match, it wouldn't be like Dave to resort to hyperbole.

Please tell me that dickhead hasn't actually come out and said that. Jesus fucking Christ.

Mar 1, 2020 18:32:19 GMT Todd said:

Mar 1, 2020 14:31:48 GMT Big Pete said:

Well apparently the Bucks vs. Omega/Page is the greatest tag team match of all-time.

Better than...

Taue & Kawada/Kobashi & Misawa - 12/3/93, 5/21/94 and 6/9/95

Taue & Kawada/Akiyama & Misawa - 12/6/96

Kroffat & Furnas/Kobashi & Kikuchi - 5/25/92

Or even...

Revival vs. #DIY - TakeOver Toronto 2016

Jericho & Benoit vs. The Two Man Power Trip - Raw 5/21/01

Rey Mysterio & Edge vs. Benoit & Angle - No Mercy 2002

Eddie Guerrero & Art Barr vs. El Hijo Del Santo & Octagon - When Worlds Collide 1994

The Midnight Express vs. The Southern Boys - Great American Bash 1990

Must have been a hell of a match, it wouldn't be like Dave to resort to hyperbole.

Please tell me that dickhead hasn't actually come out and said that. Jesus fucking Christ.

I think the quote was misunderstood. Dave said it was his personal match of the year so far, and that he enjoyed it more than one of his favourite matches, the final Misawa/Kobashi match from 2003. Unless I missed something he didn’t say it was the greatest tag match ever, just that he enjoyed it a lot from both an action and storytelling standpoint.

They also ripped hard on Cody’s tattoo. It was pretty funny from what I read.

...

My thoughts:

-I liked the Christopher Daniels tease and Colt getting a nice pop during the Buy-In. That was nice. Too bad it was one of the highlights of the entire night though.

-the tag title match was a good match, but aside from Page thinking about hitting the Buckshot on Omega, the match was nothing more than The Elite doing all their usual moves and then the obvious team winning. It was a fun watch but also kinda circlejerky...

-Allin/Guevara was the MOTN for me. I thought it was excellent, and between the high spots and the crowd, I really liked it. Allin and Guevara could have a long, amazing feud if handled right. They’re polar opposites but compliment one another well in the ring.

-PAC/OC was about what I expected. I liked the crowd involvement, but I realized that OC’s gimmick really hinges on that. If he ever finds himself in front of a lazy/dead crowd, he’s fucked. I liked it though.

-I’m 100% #TeamMJF after last night. Cody is a fucking dork and if last night wasn’t some crazy genius meta attempt to turn the crowd on him, then I don’t know what it was. The tattoo, the live entrance music, the underwhelming blowoff match...holy fuck what a flop. Cody has his head so far up his own ass it isn’t funny. I’ve been saying this for like a year now and it’s finally at a point where it’s undebatable. He’s an idiot and needs to take a seat for a bit. Push MJF and leave Cody in the production truck for a couple months.

-Aubrey throwing out the Inner Circle got one of the biggest pops of the night and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Especially because it happened during the god damn main event. Don’t get me wrong, a good ref toss deserves a pop, but she got a bigger pop than Mox winning the title. That’s...not ideal. Main event was fine overall though. At least Jericho still knows how to make an entrance.

Cody swung and missed on all level last night. He can come back from almost everything, but that neck tattoo will not be so easy to get rid of.

MJF is going to be fucking huge. Dude is so young and working with the best already with a rock solid heel gimmick. If he survives the fame spike and does not derail his career with an ego and drugs, he will do super far.

Tag Match was great but was a total circle jerk match which I am totally fine with. Feel they should have one match like that on every show.

Title match was a total letdown. It got good in the last few minutes, but it was too little too late. Highlight still is Mox flicking the blade job to make it start to bleed again on camera. Be a shitty camera shot for anyone else, but works for Mox.

PAC / OC was fun but I lie PAC. OC will get old really fast. That is pretty much every match he does and IMO once you seen it once, you do seen the entire gimmick. This is why I always preferred him as Fire Ant.

Was great to see Colt in AEW given in a way Colt was the man who inspired the fed more than anyone else.

Will post full thoughts when I'm at a computer but I thought it was more miss than hit. Completely agree on Allin and Guevara. Good match and I really like both guys.

In hindsight my expectations were too great for the main event. Moxley isn't a great worker, Jericho is pushing 50. It did the job and now the company's best chance of a transcendent superstar has the title.

Allin vs Guevara was the hightlight of the night for sure, those two have so much upside and I look forward to their future so much.

I skipped the Hager match.

The tag team match was suprisingly good to me because I genuinely expected a typical Elite fuckinator fest, but they still managed to tell a story in it. Matt and Page going at each other and trying so hard to humiliate each other, Nick being caught up in Matt's fury along the way, while Kenny tries to maneuver through it all in a way where he and Page can actually compete against the Bucks without ruining their friendship. I know people's views on the Elite are hard set on this place but the match was certainly a high for me lol.

Rose vs Statlander was decent, suffered from coming off the tag match, but it worked out as well as I expected.

Cody is every bit his father's son, capable of great ideas as well "get you fired inmediately" level ideas, like that tattoo lmao. The match itself was good and did what it set out to do with MJF. It's very funny how Cody's position in the company definitely means there is no middle ground when it comes to thoughts on him, he is either a genius or an egomaniac, almost makes me want to look at HHH in a different light. 

PAC vs OC was fucking great, and I really hope AEW doesnt follow the generic idea that characters like Orange Cassidy are somehow "beneath" the more usual stuff we get and thus ruins it at some point to please people that will never care either way.

Moxley vs Jericho was....ok, but then again I'm a minority in that I care not for Old Man Jericho, so my expectations were never particularly high.

PS: Orange Cassidy has the better Superman Punch, don't @ me

PAC VS OC IS THE MATCH OF THE YEAR! FIGHT FOREVER!

I think the quote was misunderstood. Dave said it was his personal match of the year so far, and that he enjoyed it more than one of his favourite matches, the final Misawa/Kobashi match from 2003. Unless I missed something he didn’t say it was the greatest tag match ever, just that he enjoyed it a lot from both an action and storytelling standpoint.

They start the show off by saying it's been 17 years since Misawa/Kobashi and the tag team match was better than that. Dave then speculated it was the best match of the year but then he'd have to see Naito/Okada again which currently holds the record. He then said it was the greatest tag team match of all time...only to walk back his comment in typical Dave fashion and say in the US. Said directly it was way better than the When Worlds Collide 1994 match and his prior holder was some Midnight Express/Fantastics match he couldn't remember.

He's pushing this promotion way too hard.

Not to make this into a who else hates Meltzer thread but I find the guy insufferable. My fandom of AEW is full force with him muted. Fuck his silly hyperbole.

Mar 2, 2020 0:31:10 GMT Big Pete said:

I think the quote was misunderstood. Dave said it was his personal match of the year so far, and that he enjoyed it more than one of his favourite matches, the final Misawa/Kobashi match from 2003. Unless I missed something he didn’t say it was the greatest tag match ever, just that he enjoyed it a lot from both an action and storytelling standpoint.

They start the show off by saying it's been 17 years since Misawa/Kobashi and the tag team match was better than that. Dave then speculated it was the best match of the year but then he'd have to see Naito/Okada again which currently holds the record. He then said it was the greatest tag team match of all time...only to walk back his comment in typical Dave fashion and say in the US. Said directly it was way better than the When Worlds Collide 1994 match and his prior holder was some Midnight Express/Fantastics match he couldn't remember.

He's pushing this promotion way too hard.

Jesus. They must be paying him. That’s ridiculous.

It was a good match but like...come on. Hell, Broserweights vs UE two weeks ago was just as good. Maybe not on the same level of story telling but it was an excellent tag team match too.

Mar 2, 2020 3:02:19 GMT RT said:

Mar 2, 2020 0:31:10 GMT Big Pete said:

They start the show off by saying it's been 17 years since Misawa/Kobashi and the tag team match was better than that. Dave then speculated it was the best match of the year but then he'd have to see Naito/Okada again which currently holds the record. He then said it was the greatest tag team match of all time...only to walk back his comment in typical Dave fashion and say in the US. Said directly it was way better than the When Worlds Collide 1994 match and his prior holder was some Midnight Express/Fantastics match he couldn't remember.

He's pushing this promotion way too hard.

Jesus. They must be paying him. That’s ridiculous.

It was a good match but like...come on. Hell, Broserweights vs UE two weeks ago was just as good. Maybe not on the same level of story telling but it was an excellent tag team match too.

I mean, we couldn't just believe he really enjoyed the product.

Didn't catch the show until this morning. At per norm, overall it was a damn good show.

Low points for me was the womens title match and the dustin/hagar match. But even the low matches were enjoyable for me.

The title match was by no means a 5 star classic, but because I'm so invested in the storyline of the match I enjoyed it.

The darby/sammy and pac/Cassidy and tag title match were absolutely phenomenal to me. Just great stuff.

Mar 2, 2020 3:07:57 GMT nazzer said:

Mar 2, 2020 3:02:19 GMT RT said:

Jesus. They must be paying him. That’s ridiculous.

It was a good match but like...come on. Hell, Broserweights vs UE two weeks ago was just as good. Maybe not on the same level of story telling but it was an excellent tag team match too.

I mean, we couldn't just believe he really enjoyed the product.

There's enjoying a show and then there's trying to rewrite history to put over a match that wasn't even 24 hours old.

Dave could be right, but it's one of those things where you should really wait a couple of weeks before making such bold declarations and then re-evaluate over time.

Mar 2, 2020 3:14:52 GMT Big Pete said:

Mar 2, 2020 3:07:57 GMT nazzer said:

I mean, we couldn't just believe he really enjoyed the product.

There's enjoying a show and then there's trying to rewrite history to put over a match that wasn't even 24 hours old.

Dave could be right, but it's one of those things where you should really wait a couple of weeks before making such bold declarations and then re-evaluate over time.

Your not necessarily wrong. But meltzer has always stated that he rates matches based on at the moment evaluation, not retrospective analysis.

People hate on WWE for not allowing some wrestlers to get tattoos and making them get approval. But apparently that is an important job because if not you get a tattoo like Cody.

I really like the new stage setup and hope it become their standard setup just with a ramp instead. Omega's entrance looks a lot better when they don't show him looking depressed walking down the street.

Tag matches still need work they have 10 second after they tag which is a very long time and yet they still stay in the ring for more then that. Sometimes for multiple minutes without a tag and then ref does nothing to stop it. Then they will random tag for some reason. The ref hasn't seem to care for the first 2 minutes do they actually care after three minutes.

Didn't like Cody and MJF finish. The using the ring is fine but MJF should have been knocked out after two Crossrhodes back to back. They devalued his finisher so much in the last two match and it was one of the few protected finishers in AEW up until that cage match.

Mar 2, 2020 3:39:58 GMT nazzer said:

Mar 2, 2020 3:14:52 GMT Big Pete said:

There's enjoying a show and then there's trying to rewrite history to put over a match that wasn't even 24 hours old.

Dave could be right, but it's one of those things where you should really wait a couple of weeks before making such bold declarations and then re-evaluate over time.

Your not necessarily wrong. But meltzer has always stated that he rates matches based on at the moment evaluation, not retrospective analysis.

Which is flawed because Dave will use these opinions as facts when discussing the legacy of these promotions years after the fact.

I just find the whole concept silly and his evaluation of talent has no real basis. What I find really odd is how he tends to rate matches based on crowd reaction when for years he fought the ECW crowd on Rob Van Dam.

For all we know, Dave could be right and we were treated to history in the making. In a few years time when Page is the biggest star in the company we could look back on this like Austin/Bret at Wrestlemania XIII as a major turning point in the match. However it's a premature claim and it's a major turn off to have this guy pump up this company's tires at every point.

I was expecting good things from Hager and Dustin, but they underdelivered. They worked hard but something didn't click about that match. I chalk it down to Hager's ring rust, and the fact that he hasn't really got over.

Guevara vs Allen had a lot going for it. It started with a bang, and I love how they didn't ring the bell until they got in the ring after Guevara put him through the table. On the other hand, it was pretty spotty, and the finish looked tame considering everything that came before it. Guevara survived all that he did, only to be pinned by a glorified senton bomb?

Big Pete likes to drag Hangman Page down, but you can't deny the man was clearly the most over man in a match containing long time smark favourites The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega. The story was fantastic. I don't know if the goal was to make Page the star, or whether they changed it on the fly due to the somewhat surprising crowd response, but either way it was excellent. It was full of the self-indulgent excess I'd expect from these four men in a wrestling ring, but I felt it was mostly earned. The storyline, the history, it called for excess. And they were selling an awful lot of the the time, so it didn't feel as intelligence-insulting as the spotty Bucks matches we've seen on AEW TV. Good stuff.

You talk about wrestlers not being on the same page. Nyla Rose and Kris Statlander weren't even in the same book for the first few minutes. Fortunately they were able to recover with a nice sequence where Rose cunningly dodged a through-the-ropes spear, and then hit one of her own. The rest of the match was nothing to write home about, but at least it wasn't the trainwreck that was promised in the opening minutes.

Is that Eddie Kingston singing Cody's theme? Dude should stick to wrestling. And the rest of his band should stick to whatever other things they do, dear god.

Cody vs MJF was mostly very good, although I thought it took longer than it should have for me to feel the real personal hatred between these guys. Cody was going for regular covers in the first part of the match. The latter part of the match was a little on the overbooked side. There was no real need for the Brandi/Waldorf spot where Cody kicked Arn. I also thought the finish was overbooked. MJF spitting in Cody's face, followed by Cody hitting three Cross Rhodes in a row would have been a perfect culmination. Instead you have MJF popping up after being hit by two finishers. Yes, it was a cheap ring shot, but he should be dead after two finishers. MJF has already maxed his cheap heat quota, but they keep putting it on him for some reason. Don't know why this match wasn't the blowoff. MJF gains little by winning in that way, and Cody loses a lot.

PAC vs Cassidy was a lot better than it had any right to be. PAC had to be a bit of an idiot to make the match work, but that's a small price to pay, I guess. This was Cassidy's time to shine, and shine he did. He is an incredible babyface. His timing is impeccable: all his comebacks and explosive offense came at the perfect time to make the crowd explode. I wonder if the Cassidy match will work as well - or at all - when it stops being a novelty. Time will determine how good he truly is.

It's about time for bed. Very entertaining show so far. Mox vs Jericho to go.