Jun 8, 2023 1:59:52 GMT CM Punk'd said:

The Gunns? What's with that?

Bullets with Gunns makes perfect sense to me

Jun 8, 2023 1:59:52 GMT CM Punk'd said:

The Gunns? What's with that?

Good fit

OC/SS was great but I'm bummed Shane lost.
The BBC destroys Charles Taylor. I love to see that.
Some slick verbal sparing by Adam Cole & MJF. AC won this round.

Orange Cassidy vs Swerve was quite the letdown. And I'm not just talking about the result. The match wasn't very good. Not much chemistry.

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CHAOS vs BCC. I say CHAOS very loosely, because this group of idiots are as much CHAOS as Bullet Club Gold are Bullet Club. A tangential connection. Furthermore, CHAOS is hardly this unbreakable band of brothers. The group is an excuse for Okada to have guys to team with in NJPW. Except Okada doesn't tag too much with CHAOS. He's a six man tag team champion. With Ishii (CHAOS, fair enough) and Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Okada's partner of choice who's never been in CHAOS. Ishii was reluctantly dragged along for the ride. That's not a joke, the NJPW storyline was that Ishii didn't want to team with Tanahashi but Okada strong-armed him into it.

My point is, I only watched this match because Danielson was on commentary, and he's great. The match wasn't very good, and I blame Chuck Taylor for that.

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I've long grown tired of these wrestling feuds where both guys throw a bunch of high school zingers at each other and call it a build. But I have something to say about the very long zinger exchange between MJF and his new challenger.

MJF attacks Adam Cole for spending a lot of time on his computer, then talks for five minutes about how he read this thing online and read that thing online. Nice.

Adam Cole picks up on this, calling MJF a toxic social media troll. Then he tosses out some zingers and makes the whole thing even more cringe by turning it into a shoot by saying that all the wrestlers respect Adam Cole as a human even though he played a bad guy wrestler. Ugghhh. This come to his big point that nobody respects MJF. I assume he's talking about MJF the human being and not MJF the wrestler. At this point I stopped watching even though, as it turns out, there was only about a minute left. I didn't go back to wtach it.

Conclusion: a segment that made me want to watch MJF vs Adam Cole even less than I did before they opened their mouths, which wasn't very much.

One more thing about MJF. He has never felt less relevant. The feud with the four pillars was cold as ice. The AEW Champion is getting overshadowed by everything around him. Okada vs Danielson. Omega vs Ospreay. Everything that BCC is doing. These things are exciting. Nothing MJF does is exciting, and that's because all of his segments are outdated by about 20 years, including that spat with Adam Cole.

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Skipped the next match. Has Hook lost yet? Or even come close to losing?

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Samoa Joe with Bullet Club Gold, eh? Is this a temporary alliance or is Joe a new member? Apart from that little tidbit, I'm not all that interested. I'll watch of course but I'm not salivating. The potential of Jay White vs CM Punk however, that is droolworthy.

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Takeshita coming out to no music and a video of Don Callis choking Kenny Omega. Heh. I like it.

Is that Shawn Spears?

No it isn't.

Normally a heel turn is a good way to freshen up a stale wrestler. The problem is, Takeshita wasn't stale. He got very over as a fiery babyface taking top guys to the limit. The second problem is, Takeshita is not a natural heel. Every single heel mannerism he does is super forced, so I can't buy Takeshita as a cold-blooded villain. Even the black trunks don't convince me. It's hard to buy Takeshita as a threat to Kenny when this angle overlaps with a far bigger threat in Will Ospreay right around the corner.

I get why they're doing it. The Don Callis heel turn is huge, and they're using that heat to get a young wrestler over in the process. I just don't think Takeshita is the right choice at all.

Takeshita could easily grow into his heel role, this is only week 1 after all, but I'm not filled with optimism right now.

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Kris Statlander vs Anna Jay was fine. Good match.

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Starks vs White started off. Great brawl. Loved White scrambling away, fighting for his life, while Starks just stayed on top and didn't walk into any tricks.

After a few minutes of brawling Starks started searching for something under the ring and not finding it. He then moved the steel steps, only for Jay White to move them back again later on. During all this they did a good job of keeping the snug brawl going, but Starks searched one more time for the mysterious object. He pulled out a chair, hit it very weakly against the corner post...and then Jay White took control. That took me out of the match. The fuck were they doing?

Jay White takes control, they work to a pretty good finishing stretch. Ref goes down, Gunn Club interfere, Jay White wins. I expected that type of finish, just not the specific people who would interfere. I have to appreciate Jay White's mastermind ability to anticipate that the referee would stand in such a way to get knocked down by Starks' finisher without either wrestler doing anything to force the ref out of position.

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A Dynamite with a lot of potential but mostly a let down. Too much formulaic sports entertainment stuff that was stale 20 years ago.

Really got a feeling Chuck Taylor is getting released when his contract is up. He has been a major, major letdown in AEW. He clearly lost his smile. This is nothing like the guy who used to team with Gargano as the more popular half of the team. If he was not in Best Friends with Trent he simply would not be used at all IMO.

If he is not released, at least move his ass to RoH.

Don gets heat! HE'S RIGHT BUT HE'S STILL A SCUM BAG. Now, taking out The YAWN Bucks might sway me to his corner but still!

Emperor on your point about MJF's relevancy.

In find it strange that not a single major player in AEW gives a shit about the AEW Championship.

Danielson is the proclaimed best in the world and after losing his shot, chooses instead to prove he's the best by wrestling someone from another company and not by winning a title that suggest he's actually the best.

Jay White was the man in NJPW but has completely ignored the Championship.

Joes distracted by a belt no one cares about.

Mox and Omega are too distracted with each other to care.

The pillars have given up after one attempt to dethrone MJF.

Christian and Wardlow are feuding over the secondary belt. Or maybe third tier.. as no one cares for it because...

The International Championship is showcased weekly and showcased well.

Then Punk's return will overshadowed all of it.

The irony is, MJF plays up all the perks he has because he is champion, but just not on AEW TV. Interviews, outside appearances and what not he plays it up that with the title he can do whatever he wants in AEW and Tony has to bend to his whim. Feels like he is channeling Punk with it. He also plugs he gets top pay to only wrestle on the largest shows.

This stuff does not really come through on TV.

But no one really sells what it means to be the champ like he does.

It still doesn't explain why no one of any significance gives a hoot about MJF or his title.

Jun 10, 2023 0:29:39 GMT NATH45 said:

Emperor on your point about MJF's relevancy.

In find it strange that not a single major player in AEW gives a shit about the AEW Championship.

Danielson is the proclaimed best in the world and after losing his shot, chooses instead to prove he's the best by wrestling someone from another company and not by winning a title that suggest he's actually the best.

Jay White was the man in NJPW but has completely ignored the Championship.

Joes distracted by a belt no one cares about.

Mox and Omega are too distracted with each other to care.

The pillars have given up after one attempt to dethrone MJF.

Christian and Wardlow are feuding over the secondary belt. Or maybe third tier.. as no one cares for it because...

The International Championship is showcased weekly and showcased well.

Then Punk's return will overshadowed all of it.

None of this speaks to the relevancy of the AEW Championship. It's what happens in every wrestling company. You get your shot at the champion, you lose, you go to the back of the line and move on to different rivalries. Someone new steps up to face the champion.

Danielson lost to MJF, he moved on. Darby, Jungle Boy and Sammy stepped up. They lost, they moved on. Adam Cole steps up. Law of the jungle.

But you're not completely wrong. The AEW Championship is not relevant at all. It's weird because MJF and Roman Reigns have some similarities in presentation. They are both the undisputed champions of their company. They are presented as special attractions. They appear infrequently on television and only wrestle on big shows.

Yet, Roman Reigns is undeniably the biggest star of WWE. Heads turn when he shows up, the show feels lesser when he isn't there. Is MJF undeniably the big star of AEW? Nope. Maybe he was in the CM Punk feud, or when he first won the belt. Now he feels like an afterthought.

The problem is not other wrestlers not acknowledging MJF and his belt, the problem is that all the other big angles in AEW are more exciting. Why is that? Because MJF's shtick is 20 years out of date, repetitive, and crude. Yeah he gets the cheap heat boos but on a deeper level, nobody really cares.

The thing about being presented as a special attraction is, you need to be a special attraction.

On the topic of MJF, I saw a reddit post revealing that MJF quoted an Adam Cole promo against him, a promo Cole cut in NXT against then NXT Champion Karrion Kross. That's a decent idea, except nobody picked up on it (probably not even Cole himself), so too subtle to actually matter.