Marko Stunt Officially Signs With AEW

[Big Red Machine]

nothing different from the Royal Rumble really

Just because WWE does something dumb doesn't mean others should get a pass for doing it as well.

I don't really think it's dumb, even for WWE, i think rumbles should have a comedy and nostalgia aspect to them. It can't all be tension and drama. If Hurricane wins a Rumble, i'll complain, but comedy acts coming in/spot/out are breaks that you give the fans throughout the match.

It's the type of comedy that matters. The comedy can't forget that the premise is that everyone is trying to win. Orange Cassidy makes amockery of that with his weak sh*t and not caring and not taking his hands out of his pockets.

[Thelone]

I like the multi-person matches. I get to watch more people at a time to familiarize with them at a decent, I don't, think we need to know every thing about every one on day 1. If there is something i learned from Lucha Underground, is that introduce wrestlers with multi man matches, put the spotlight with single matches. It's not over saturation to get a taste of everything first, and then get to know them one by one.

We'll have to agree to disagree it seems like. This is why I thought FF was a better show than DON : because they showcased their young talent a lot better than just stacking them in a couple of matches.

As for the vignettes, every road to show has done something along those lines. The latest one was about Rose. As people become relevant to the promotion, they'll get their spotlight.

Call me old-fashioned (NOOO!!!), but they should put those on the shows themselves and not just on Youtube or social media in general.

Jericho is, and will forever be a superstar, you just don't pop when you see him. It's the Vince McMahon problem, people are star-struck regardless of the opinion before the show.

Even if you remove Jericho from the equation, Page got a pretty weak pop when he came out to face Sabian. Just like Baker, he desperately needs some kind of character/gimmick besides "he's kinda a member of the Elite, but not really judging by the fans' reaction". The only time he had a compelling gimmick was when he was in the Decade with Whitmer as his manager/mentor, and that was five years ago at this point.

ROH has a lot more issues beyond what they sell. It's ok that you won't get all those fans to fly in, but you do want to make sure that the one that do, make a lot of noise and make the show seem like fun and a bigger deal so that the people watching on tv will want to go to the show next time they're close by. These pops are what made PWG and NXT be super popular for a while, fans were making the shows seem like the place to be and the wrestler just had to deliver. This is what every promotion should be smart about wrestling, as much as they may like an act, if the fans hate it, you either take it off, or use them for your benefit. These guys are already aware that the Librarians are not liked, so they make fun of the gimmick in BTE and i'm confident they'll use the gimmick to get some heat or end up taking it away.

I don't have any confidence in what the Bucks and Omega are doing frankly. Cody is also pretty self-indulgent and thinks he's a much better worker than he actually is, but he does seem to take this shit seriously and is willing to show ass to get people over (should do it for someone who isn't Shawn Spears though, but he's doing it at least).

What's the point you're asking? If the creative direction veers more towards Omega/Bucks, AEW will become a bigger budget PWG/indy show; if it veers more towards Cody, AEW will become a strong opponent to NXT.

Do they really claim that they're all about 'serious competition'? I think that's a claim that even Kaiji Big Battel may do. So what if it was the first match, how can people damn a whole promotion just because they started a pre-show with Non-Cornette Approved wrestling? They finished the show with 3 AMAZING matches, a hell of an angle, and people still hang on a dude with no legs because "they're killing the business" "how dare they do comedy!" "fuck Cody Rhodes!". Seriously, that's just trying to hate on the product for whatever reason.

Wasn't that one of their big selling points that "wins and losses would matter [unlike other promotions]"? Granted, I never bought it in the first place because just look at who's in charge (well, mostly the Bucks and Omega). Hell, they were already not enforcing their own new rule (the ten seconds after a tag thing) during THE FIRST TAG MATCH.

The main issue with the stupid battle royale, besides being the most indyriffic trash in the world, was that the serious stipulation exposed most of their "stars" as just a bunch of indy clowns doing indy shit to pop the crowd. Of course, it didn't help that the next thing they put on screen was that putrid librarian skit, then a generic cruiserweight match. That hardly screamed REVOLUTION and whatever grandiose claims they're spewing on a regular basis.

MLW doesn't have women's wrestling

Yes, and?

you're just saying the AEW roster is bad by default.

Their female roster isn't that bad, it's mostly horrendously booked. Again, you can do something with Baker as the babyface hero with Shida as #2 and Rae as #3 battling monster heel Rose and Priestley/Allie as #2 and #3 heels (or vice versa). But of course not, gotta have not-Stephanie with Meh Kong and two bland/mediocre joshi in the mix.

Yeah, small joshi may be dime a dozen, but when you pack a bunch together, you can make a hell of a roster like Stardom or Ice Ribbon or Sendai Girls have.

I probably should have added "mediocre" or "bleh" somewhere. Also, that kinda proves my point about those girls being exposed when they're facing bigger, better opponents. Not all of them are Kana/Hojo/Shirai/Iwatani/Watanabe/Shida.

And the ones that hopefully will start watching on TV. Baker is a good role model, for kids, teenagers, and adults. Hell, she should be a role model to every wrestler that won't have something to fall back to if they need to retire.

Or she could be an ass about it and rub it off everyone's face. This is the point I'm trying to make about her not having a gimmick/character : just being a dentist by itself means nothing if you don't use it in any particular way. Have her cut a promo about how she would like to become a role model and FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS or whatever, or be a pretentious jerk who thinks she's better than us because "I have a medical degree and can kick your ass, what do YOU have, loser?".

because so far, it's been three shows with good matches, far better than Su Yung and Rosemary have. None of them may be able to touch Tessa, Taya, Jordynne, or Gail, but they're not abysmal as you're trying to make them seem. No one is expecting for AEW to be a 5-star machine, that'd be just delusional.

*checks his reviews*

4-way at DON : buries own monster heel straight away with another bigger, more established (and older and barely mobile) one; Brandi is a focal point of attention for some ungodly reason and her role isn't clear at all (at that time); match should have just been Rae vs. Baker or the original 3-way - **
Joshi trios match at DON : good action, no one stood out though - ***
Bates vs. Allie at FF : eyes burn after seeing Allie come out all happy and smiley, then took sick pleasure hurting Bates' finger in the first spot of the match and taunting her afterwards with an evil face; Bates is still horrendous and can't lead a match as a heel without slowing everything down to a halt; match goes three times faster anytime Allie is in control; finish was dumb; turn them both so we can have the good, more useful version of those two - *
3-way at FF : Sakazaki should be the Bayley of AEW; first five minutes are great with Rose molesting those two kids, but then she has to sell the weakest offense imaginable; least interesting person in the match wins by pinning the big monster because that's how they built up Vader back in the day, right?; actually feel bad for Sakazaki and her sad face - *** (probably more **1/2 frankly, but eh)
Tag match at FftF : first viewing without knowing about the concussion -> Priestley looks tremendous and like she wants to murder her opponents (yeah...); they work it like a traditional tag match with Riho eating heat for a while and building up the hot tag to Baker, but then she cold tags in in the middle of nowhere and the match fell off a cliff with the four of them sloppily doing moves with no rhyme or reason until the finish; there's an embarrasing forearm exchange between the two joshi in the middle of this, but the crowd is hot for a future Baker vs. Priestley match at least - *
second viewing knowing about the concussion -> Priestley should probably tone it down a little and here's the kick to the head with Baker going to the wrong corner straight after; this is where the traditional tag segment kicks in because Baker is in her corner trying to shake it off and this part probably wasn't supposed to happen in the first place, even though it was the only redeeming part of the match and the crowd was into it (crazy how that works, but I digress); rest of the match is the same
Allie vs. Brandi at FftF : yeah, let's burn months of potential storyline in five minutes for a dumb swerve; Brandi sucks and Allie should be a heel; finish is beyond awful with Brandi YELLING at Allie to get into position for her spear; an embarrassment of epic proportion because, as Brandi said in her video package : "It's about ME" - DUD (should be negative)

[cero2k]

We'll have to agree to disagree it seems like. This is why I thought FF was a better show than DON : because they showcased their young talent a lot better than just stacking them in a couple of matches.

haha I actually agree with this, FF was more character building because we already knew the names. DON shouldn't be about character building, but more about presenting everyone possible, the look, just an explosion of content. Leave the character building afterwards.

Call me old-fashioned (NOOO!!!), but they should put those on the shows themselves and not just on Youtube or social media in general.

They don't really have a show yet though, if they took 10-15 minutes to cut vignettes at the pay-per-views, people would be screaming about taking time away from the matches. I'm 99% sure all the Road To stuff is going to be part of the TNT show.

Even if you remove Jericho from the equation, Page got a pretty weak pop when he came out to face Sabian. Just like Baker, he desperately needs some kind of character/gimmick besides "he's kinda a member of the Elite, but not really judging by the fans' reaction". The only time he had a compelling gimmick was when he was in the Decade with Whitmer as his manager/mentor, and that was five years ago at this point.

He has a character, he's the outlaw, at this point his character is about as defined as the bucks or omega, but I don't think they need 'gimmicks' beyond them, their name is who they are. I'm not gonna disagree that he could use more vignettes and stuff to showcase him, both him and Jericho should be getting their own Road To episode by now. I get the feeling that they trust that match to build itself more than some of the others.

I don't have any confidence in what the Bucks and Omega are doing frankly. Cody is also pretty self-indulgent and thinks he's a much better worker than he actually is, but he does seem to take this shit seriously and is willing to show ass to get people over (should do it for someone who isn't Shawn Spears though, but he's doing it at least).

What's the point you're asking? If the creative direction veers more towards Omega/Bucks, AEW will become a bigger budget PWG/indy show; if it veers more towards Cody, AEW will become a strong opponent to NXT.

I trust wholeheartedly that they're not stupid and know what they're doing and are learning one day at a time, so I guess we cancel each other out. They're all risking A LOT with AEW and highly doubt that they just do things for shits and giggles when things come to matter. If they hire someone like Orange Cassidy is not because 'cheat pops and movezzz', it's because he's still a great wrestler and performer that goes beyond a gimmick. They see those things, us fans on the internet, we don't. They're a combination of some of the best minds and talent in wrestling right now.

Wasn't that one of their big selling points that "wins and losses would matter [unlike other promotions]"? Granted, I never bought it in the first place because just look at who's in charge (well, mostly the Bucks and Omega). Hell, they were already not enforcing their own new rule (the ten seconds after a tag thing) during THE FIRST TAG MATCH.

The main issue with the stupid battle royale, besides being the most indyriffic trash in the world, was that the serious stipulation exposed most of their "stars" as just a bunch of indy clowns doing indy shit to pop the crowd. Of course, it didn't help that the next thing they put on screen was that putrid librarian skit, then a generic cruiserweight match. That hardly screamed REVOLUTION and whatever grandiose claims they're spewing on a regular basis.

'Wins and Losses matter' doesn't mean 'serious competition' or that we keep statistics or that there can't be any comedy stuff. I don't know where people are getting that, like does Khan need to specifically sit down and explain things point by point? 'Wins and Losses matter' just means that they're not gonna 50/50 book and pretend like people didn't win or straight up not care that they lost. Just yesterday, Omega cut his promo saying how it affected him that he lost to Jericho, THAT is making a loss matter. Best Friends's promo the day before talked about how winning the match with the Dark Order matters.

MLW doesn't have women's wrestling

Yes, and?

you're just saying the AEW roster is bad by default.

Their female roster isn't that bad, it's mostly horrendously booked. Again, you can do something with Baker as the babyface hero with Shida as #2 and Rae as #3 battling monster heel Rose and Priestley/Allie as #2 and #3 heels (or vice versa). But of course not, gotta have not-Stephanie with Meh Kong and two bland/mediocre joshi in the mix.

If you're telling me that their women are mediocre, health hazards, dime a dozen, etc, then I assume you're comparing it against anything. All that stuff that you're saying they 'can do', let me remind you, we're only THREE shows in! we're barely getting introduced to these people, we don't even know half of who they are, how is that already horrendous booking?

I probably should have added "mediocre" or "bleh" somewhere. Also, that kinda proves my point about those girls being exposed when they're facing bigger, better opponents. Not all of them are Kana/Hojo/Shirai/Iwatani/Watanabe/Shida.

so what? They don't need to be them. I want to tell me that you personally don't find them exciting, that's fine, I couldn't give a fuck about The New Day and the Undisputed Era, but that doesn't make them bad, their roster's bad, their promotions bad, their booking bad. I'll take Riho and Sakazaki any day over the Kabuki Warriors.

Or she could be an ass about it and rub it off everyone's face. This is the point I'm trying to make about her not having a gimmick/character : just being a dentist by itself means nothing if you don't use it in any particular way. Have her cut a promo about how she would like to become a role model and FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS or whatever, or be a pretentious jerk who thinks she's better than us because "I have a medical degree and can kick your ass, what do YOU have, loser?".

Both would be awesome. Maybe we should wait for the actual show to premier before we cast judgement.

*checks his reviews*

4-way at DON : buries own monster heel straight away with another bigger, more established (and older and barely mobile) one; Brandi is a focal point of attention for some ungodly reason and her role isn't clear at all (at that time); match should have just been Rae vs. Baker or the original 3-way - **
Joshi trios match at DON : good action, no one stood out though - ***
Bates vs. Allie at FF : eyes burn after seeing Allie come out all happy and smiley, then took sick pleasure hurting Bates' finger in the first spot of the match and taunting her afterwards with an evil face; Bates is still horrendous and can't lead a match as a heel without slowing everything down to a halt; match goes three times faster anytime Allie is in control; finish was dumb; turn them both so we can have the good, more useful version of those two - *
3-way at FF : Sakazaki should be the Bayley of AEW; first five minutes are great with Rose molesting those two kids, but then she has to sell the weakest offense imaginable; least interesting person in the match wins by pinning the big monster because that's how they built up Vader back in the day, right?; actually feel bad for Sakazaki and her sad face - *** (probably more **1/2 frankly, but eh)
Tag match at FftF : first viewing without knowing about the concussion -> Priestley looks tremendous and like she wants to murder her opponents (yeah...); they work it like a traditional tag match with Riho eating heat for a while and building up the hot tag to Baker, but then she cold tags in in the middle of nowhere and the match fell off a cliff with the four of them sloppily doing moves with no rhyme or reason until the finish; there's an embarrasing forearm exchange between the two joshi in the middle of this, but the crowd is hot for a future Baker vs. Priestley match at least - *
second viewing knowing about the concussion -> Priestley should probably tone it down a little and here's the kick to the head with Baker going to the wrong corner straight after; this is where the traditional tag segment kicks in because Baker is in her corner trying to shake it off and this part probably wasn't supposed to happen in the first place, even though it was the only redeeming part of the match and the crowd was into it (crazy how that works, but I digress); rest of the match is the same
Allie vs. Brandi at FftF : yeah, let's burn months of potential storyline in five minutes for a dumb swerve; Brandi sucks and Allie should be a heel; finish is beyond awful with Brandi YELLING at Allie to get into position for her spear; an embarrassment of epic proportion because, as Brandi said in her video package : "It's about ME" - DUD (should be negative)

this just shows that you personally didn't like it, not the actual consensus of the fanbase. A lot of things here I'd completely disagree just based on who you're calling face/heel, who you think is 'interesting', and so on. Neither of our opinions would likely represent the consensus of the overall fanbase, especially of the paying one anyway.

[Big Red Machine]

Page is "the outlaw" like Seth Rollins is "the architect." It's a meaningless nickname that someone came up with. At no point has he ever felt like "outlaw" or any kind of rebel. He's just another member of the group, off doing his goofy thing in their comedy world. I fully echo the sentiments that Page hasn't been interesting since the Decade.

[cero2k]

Page is "the outlaw" like Seth Rollins is "the architect." It's a meaningless nickname that someone came up with. At no point has he ever felt like "outlaw" or any kind of rebel. He's just another member of the group, off doing his goofy thing in their comedy world. I fully echo the sentiments that Page hasn't been interesting since the Decade.

and I don't even know how you guys thought Page in the Decade was interesting at all, he's always just been a dude, and that's ok

[Big Red Machine]

Page is "the outlaw" like Seth Rollins is "the architect." It's a meaningless nickname that someone came up with. At no point has he ever felt like "outlaw" or any kind of rebel. He's just another member of the group, off doing his goofy thing in their comedy world. I fully echo the sentiments that Page hasn't been interesting since the Decade.

and I don't even know how you guys thought Page in the Decade was interesting at all, he's always just been a dude, and that's ok

Because you were always waiting to see when he was going to get fed up with the abuse and fight back like Tadarius Thomas eventually did. You knew he knew it was BS from a moral point of view, but it was a question iof how much crap was he willing to put up with to be able to learn from BJ, Jimmy, and Roddy and earn their approval. And then, when he never did, you had to kind of question yourself because BJ did accept him as a full member of the Decade, and he started abusing Colby just like BJ abused him. There was some depth to the character in the Decade.

[XIV]

Page is "the outlaw" like Seth Rollins is "the architect." It's a meaningless nickname that someone came up with. At no point has he ever felt like "outlaw" or any kind of rebel. He's just another member of the group, off doing his goofy thing in their comedy world. I fully echo the sentiments that Page hasn't been interesting since the Decade.

Page is also "The Hangman".... I'm fairly sure The Undertaker has hung more people than him.

[Thelone]

haha I actually agree with this, FF was more character building because we already knew the names. DON shouldn't be about character building, but more about presenting everyone possible, the look, just an explosion of content. Leave the character building afterwards.

There's a big difference between presenting and just showing (and character building, but they did that for almost no one so far). Like, they showed Private Party in that abomination of a "match" at DON, but they presented them at FF. Actually, the only guy that somehow got presented and some character building is Sabian of all people, because you learned a bit about who he was in that little promo in the pre-show of FftF.

They don't really have a show yet though, if they took 10-15 minutes to cut vignettes at the pay-per-views, people would be screaming about taking time away from the matches. I'm 99% sure all the Road To stuff is going to be part of the TNT show.

I get that they don't have anything to show those videos right now, but they could have aired that Allin video before his match at FF for example. Frankly, if their fans can't muster a few vignettes on shows they claim "weren't important", that's pretty concerning for TV because they won't get two straight hours of wrestling there either.

He has a character, he's the outlaw, at this point his character is about as defined as the bucks or omega, but I don't think they need 'gimmicks' beyond them, their name is who they are. I'm not gonna disagree that he could use more vignettes and stuff to showcase him, both him and Jericho should be getting their own Road To episode by now. I get the feeling that they trust that match to build itself more than some of the others.

Did they even call him that once in AEW so far? He's just a guy they thought was much more over than he actually is on his own. I do agree that he's pretty bland as a face, but sometimes you just need THAT storyline or angle for the pieces to click together, and I always thought that the Decade storyline was exactly that for him. Of course ROH had to fuck it up to such a ridiculous degree for the endless Corino/Whitmer drama no one asked for.

I trust wholeheartedly that they're not stupid and know what they're doing and are learning one day at a time, so I guess we cancel each other out. They're all risking A LOT with AEW and highly doubt that they just do things for shits and giggles when things come to matter. If they hire someone like Orange Cassidy is not because 'cheat pops and movezzz', it's because he's still a great wrestler and performer that goes beyond a gimmick. They see those things, us fans on the internet, we don't. They're a combination of some of the best minds and talent in wrestling right now.

Omega just booked his wet dream match, so I'm still going with "I don't trust him (and the Bucks) at all". Also weren't the Bucks not supposed to be in the tag tournament, and yet are anyway since they're facing Private Party in the first round at one TV show?

'Wins and Losses matter' doesn't mean 'serious competition' or that we keep statistics or that there can't be any comedy stuff. I don't know where people are getting that, like does Khan need to specifically sit down and explain things point by point? 'Wins and Losses matter' just means that they're not gonna 50/50 book and pretend like people didn't win or straight up not care that they lost. Just yesterday, Omega cut his promo saying how it affected him that he lost to Jericho, THAT is making a loss matter. Best Friends's promo the day before talked about how winning the match with the Dark Order matters.

phpBB [video]

In case you don't wanna listen to Cornette ranting for almost twenty minutes, he says (among a billion other things) that Khan loves statistics and claimed he wanted to bring back wrestling as a serious sport on TNT, which is something I did remember being talked about in PR blurbs before DON. Being happy or sad after matches is all fine and good, but that also means that people on losing streaks don't get title shots just because they pinned a champion in some random 10-man tag or came out first during a promo (things NJPW does all the time). No, I was never expecting a dead serious ranking system with pie charts and shit to scientifically explain who's the #1 contender for a title, but I'm not holding my hopes up from what I've seen so far.

If you're telling me that their women are mediocre, health hazards, dime a dozen, etc, then I assume you're comparing it against anything. All that stuff that you're saying they 'can do', let me remind you, we're only THREE shows in! we're barely getting introduced to these people, we don't even know half of who they are, how is that already horrendous booking?

so what? They don't need to be them. I want to tell me that you personally don't find them exciting, that's fine, I couldn't give a fuck about The New Day and the Undisputed Era, but that doesn't make them bad, their roster's bad, their promotions bad, their booking bad. I'll take Riho and Sakazaki any day over the Kabuki Warriors.

Both would be awesome. Maybe we should wait for the actual show to premier before we cast judgement.

this just shows that you personally didn't like it, not the actual consensus of the fanbase. A lot of things here I'd completely disagree just based on who you're calling face/heel, who you think is 'interesting', and so on. Neither of our opinions would likely represent the consensus of the overall fanbase, especially of the paying one anyway.

I have seen and reviewed dozens of women's wrestling shows over the years. I do admit that I'm not up to date with the current scene, but I know what I'm talking about. Yes, it's just my opinion and never claimed it was the absolute truth, but it's not exactly like I'm lost on my little island while everyone is raving about AEW's women's division.