[AEW vs NXT] Wednesday Night War Week 2

[Vic Boss 612]

Dynamite was awesome.

 

- Dat Private Party upset (thoughhhhh it's tricky too because the Bucks are kind of being built as the best tag team in the world but they're not winning)

- "SHIT" Jericho trying to get them thrown off the air

- Darby getting a title match really quickly

- The end felt like Nitro used to, fighting a gang and people running in. I'm even okay with the blackout for Cody (generally it doesn't make sense) because it's his company anyways

[MT 917]

So far I only really have two complaints against AEW. One is the refs don't seem to be calling a lot of stuff they should be with regards to interference and what not. I've seen people interfere in matches, the ref seeing it (or a hint of it) and doing nothing about it. Or in a lot of tag matches, I notice teams are able to double team a singular opponent inside the ring for far longer than they should be. The other is that so far their women's division is kind of...meh. It's still early, so there's definitely time to grow, but right now I can't think of a single woman on that roster i've seen wrestle yet that I can get behind.

 

Edit: Also, this may just be me, but whichever member of LAX does the "licking the lips" thing needs to take it back a notch. He looked like a moron during that promo.

[Vic Boss 612]

Pretty much agree with all of that. They're not explaining "referee's discretion" very well. Like that kind of stuff happens on the outside of the ring in Japanese wrestling, but there's a cultural reason for it (a directive to make sure every match has wins and losses after the UWFi got hot promoting that and New Japan and All Japan had to follow suit).

 

I feel like Kenny's sacrificing the western women to get over the Japanese, especially Riho (though apparently the teenage audience jumped when she came on, so maybe they know what they're doing). But yeah, Impact's got the best booked women's division outside of Joshi and WWE's got most of the best women's talent, it's a real weakness in AEW.

[Garlic Junior 136]

Riho is super fucking over in the key demographics, and they wanted to build around Britt Baker, so I can't wait for their feud. The rest are meh. Kylie Rey would have been amazing but she's hung up the tights for the time being (believe she suffers from mental health issues and reading between the lines the anxiety of TV pushed her over a little, but that's pure speculation).

 

There's a pretty in-depth feedback survey doing the rounds. I think @AEWonTNT on Twitter has it. Beware, one of the questions asks for a number between 1-3 but doesn't explain what they mean. 1 is the answer for you want more wrestling, 3 for more stories.

 

Overall, I'm excited for AEW and Dynamite is the most I've wanted to watch a weekly show since Nitro.

[Garlic Junior 136]

 

For the record, I was absolutely fine with "ref's discretion" and distinctly remember JR explaining it a few times on commentary but... I feel like whoever wrote the intro to this week's BTE browses the forums lol

[Vic Boss 612]

Well like, what happened with Kenny in the six-man-tag now makes so sense. If it's a real sport, you adjust tactics based on what you're allowed to do, and AEW just allowed a non-legal wrestler in a tag match to be attacked and knocked out of the match without penalty, or even an explanation for why the referee was using his discretion to allow it to continue.

 

So now, in every tag match, you should be able to get one of your friends to drag away the non-legal man and beat the shit out of him and then gang up on the legal man, and if they disqualify you, you can sue them or complain using the previous ruling as a precedent.

[Garlic Junior 136]

Well, not necessarily. They can handwave it in kayfabe as the ref's learning curve. Shit they let slide incorrectly in early weeks they're now tightening up on as they get used to what is expected of them.

[Vic Boss 612]

IIRC, that ref has been reffing Ring of Honor for a decade or so, unless we're ignoring everyone else's kayfabe, which is tricky because everyone else's kayfabe is why most people on the roster are considered stars in the first place

[MT 917]

I don't believe they are, I remember hearing PAC mention something about his record in Dragon Gate when he was on commentary last week. He may not have named the promotion directly, though.

[Garlic Junior 136]

7 hours ago, Death Rider Mox said:

IIRC, that ref has been reffing Ring of Honor for a decade or so, unless we're ignoring everyone else's kayfabe, which is tricky because everyone else's kayfabe is why most people on the roster are considered stars in the first place

 

Learning "the AEW way" is what I meant. Like how NXT is handwaved as "yeah, X doesn't need development per se but he needs to learn the WWE way".

 

PAC's record was mentioned a lot on commentary too I think last week.