Mar 8, 2021 17:34:26 GMT PB said:

Man, every time I think I’m going to give AEW a chance, they just alienate me so much with a show full of garbage.

It really is a bad look when the best match on your show was a tag team match that kicked it off and involved fat Chris Jericho.

Even the Buy In womens tag match was more entertaining than most of the main card. Not great!

I really liked the cinematic match. Way more than I thought I would. That was well done.

The rest...yikes. The death match was fun until the ending ruined it, Christian's debut was fine but felt underwhelming after all the hype (and rightfully so), the ladder match had a couple good spots but was mostly boring, the tag battle royale was ass until there were only 2 guys left in the ring, the womens title match was disappointing...they really have to do better. This show is going to haunt them until they start to impress people again.

TK being TK has stated

" I don’t know what people really wanted, unless you actually wanted us to explode the guys at the end, there’s only so much you can do.

So without blowing the ring and both guys up, I think the basic explanation is that Kenny’s ring set to explode, his plan, as a heel, to build this thing with a hammer and nails as we saw, the final bomb just didn’t go off.”

Yes, we're just not smart enough to get it


Dweeb.

Trying to justify ripping fans off with some shitty, transparent kayfabe explanation is insulting. Khan is weird, I don't get it. I wonder how long it'll take smart fans to get their head out of his ass. After years of being abused by Vince, I think it'll take a while yet.

What a bizarre turn of events.

Everyone was hyped for the Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match. What an amazing spectacle this will be, they thought. I said "I'll watch it, but it'll be shit". Now everyone's saying "it was shit but of course it was going to be shit, death matches are always shit, duh?" And I'm here rolling my eyes.

You know what the kicker is? I really liked the match. Loved the way they built up the tension, how long it took for the first wrestler to touch the barbed wire. They kept it suspenseful, slowly escalating. The explosions were shit (of course they are) but some of the barbed wire spots were gnarly. Especially when Moxley suplexed Kenny into the corner board. Didn't execute the move properly and I was worried Kenny's face landed in there. Sure the ref in the radioactive suit was kinda funny but I actually thought it sold the danger of the match really well. Not to mention he spent the entire match looking genuinely terrified. Moxley surviving the One Winged Angel was really clever. I also didn't mind the finish. Not great, but not bad either.

The aftermath was obviously horrible and will go down for eternity as one of, if not the, single greatest wrestlecrap moment. Didn't see the Moxley promo, will have to check that out. Did he cut that promo off the air?

The only other match I watched was Shida vs Muzinami. Looks like everyone hated that too, but I really enjoyed it. I'll go as far as to say it's Shida's best match in AEW.

Everyone was hyped for the Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match. What an amazing spectacle this will be, they thought. I said "I'll watch it, but it'll be shit". Now everyone's saying "it was shit but of course it was going to be shit, death matches are always shit, duh?" And I'm here rolling my eyes.

It sounds like you're only describing c :lol: . I was curious to see how they'd execute it in a major promotion even if they had done a poor job of selling the need for it. Also Toyoda/Kudo is a certified PW classic to the extent I forgot it was a Death Match. That's the type of match I thought Omega/Moxley could have, instead they chose to cosplay Funk/Onita but sacrificed the intensity of the match so they could execute modern flourishes. Then the EVIL style finished made a mockery of the match.

The only other match I watched was Shida vs Muzinami. Looks like everyone hated that too, but I really enjoyed it. I'll go as far as to say it's Shida's best match in AEW.

Like I said, it was arguably the best match of the night and I could also go along with it being Shida's best match of her career. However it also highlighted how limited she is and if it was her best match it wasn't by much because she wrestles the same style of match no matter the opponent.

I thought Moxley and Kenny could make it work, ala Kudo vs Toyoda and Shark vs Kudo. But Onita's matches were always on the shit side outside of Pogo's scythe and the fireballs, which it was clear AEW would not do.

And sure I was excited as either these matches are good or hilarious bad, so either way would be fun. I did not expect it to be this hilariously bad though.

Frankly, I had the general script for these matches.  The ones I think were the best were one where in the first minute someone hits the gimmick.  Cut out the 5 to 10 minute dance and give people what they paid to see.  The best deathmatches are short and violent throughout.  Mondo got this, but few others seem to.  No one wants a 30 minute death where 20 of it is avoiding the gimmicks.  

And yeah, the barbwire spots were really good and I thought Mox when he grabbed the wire from outside was calling audible after it was clear the landmines were shit too.  That is what I never really got about these matches, the wire itself is the most dangerous thing in the match, why add more?  Unless they are willing to use glass or razors, there is nothing more dangerous that the wire, so why not like actually use it well instead of adding more and more gimmicks that do not really add anything?


Shida vs Muzinami was a high point of the PPV for sure.  

The "exploding ring" in Moxley vs. Omega made Funk vs Cactus Jack from the IWA King of the Deathmatch Tournament look like Nagasaki. At least Moxley is self aware about it.😂

Kahn though, should really take lessons from this match to learn how to "blow up the ring".

That match was absolute insanity. You can see where there skin charred from the explosives. I think we all knew that there was no way Khan would do this shit for real.

Kingston and Moxley are fucking hilarious:

Mar 11, 2021 2:02:32 GMT c said:

That match was absolute insanity. You can see where there skin charred from the explosives. I think we all knew that there was no way Khan would do this shit for real.

I think the charring is more from the exploding barbed wire in place of the ropes. But still, if you're going to have an exploding ring match, at least make the he ring blowing look like it's going to hurt, instead of Gillberg's pyro.😂

Also, he could take a lesson ECW, where when they did something bad, they'd say "we're sorry that sucked, we messed up, we'll make it better the next time (in the case of the "body count" match, not do it again)."

Funk talked about that match in interviews. The explosives on the boards would burn the skin and make it turn gray. During that era they overused the explosive shit and the guys would get pretty burned up.