BRM Reviews AEW Full Gear 2022 (fell off a cliff)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews AEW Full Gear 2022 (fell off a cliff)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 20th, '22, 21:24

AEW Full Gear 2022 (11/19/2022)- Newark, NJ


STEEL CAGE MATCH: Jungle Boy vs. Luchasaurus (w/Christian Cage)- 8.5/10
This was a hell of an opener. Just a tremendous grudge match in a cage. The match was laid out wonderfully, with excellent pacing, some really great spots (Jungle Boy’s sit-up, Luchasaurus kicking out of the Canadian Destroyer at one, only for JB to come right back with the chair to the face for a great false finish), and an excellent sense of escalation.
The camera randomly cutting to Christian to show us him stealing the key from the outside referee was a little hokey. His stealing of the key itself was also a little hokey, so I was glad when they had the referee notice almost right away and eject him from ringside. Luchasaurus going through the door to attack the security guards then created a reason for them to get to the outside and be able to brawl there and grab weapons. Good, logical stuff. (Yes, if you’re not using rules where you can escape the cage to win, escaping the cage has historically been ruled a forfeit, but AEW hasn’t used that rule in the past, so it not applying here didn’t bother me.)

I was not at this show. The guy in the fourth row with a sign insulting Martin Brodeur was not me.

AEW WORLD TRIOS TITLE MATCH: Death Triangle(c) vs. the Elite (w/Don Callis, Michael Nakazawa, & Brandon Cutler)- 9/10
I did not like the champions entering first just so we could save the bigger pop for the second entrance. That was one of those things that people hated about WWE, and it’s such a simple thing for AEW to not repeat, and yet they are. And what’s worse is that I don’t see any benefit to it. This is a freakin’ PPV. You don’t need to impress anyone by trying to highlight what big stars the Elite are or protect the image of Death Triangle by not having them come out and get a smaller pop than the one we just heard. The only people seeing this are people who are already heavily invested in your product.
Alex Abrahantes was absent from ringside because he was taking a moral stand against Pac’s “win by any means necessary” mentality. This might have worked if they didn’t have Death Triangle (including Pac) defend their titles completely cleanly with Abrahantes at ringside, just a few days ago on Dynamite. What happened between now and then to make him feel that his was necessary? And if the reality is that he had some family emergency and couldn’t be there, JUST SAY THAT. People will understand. Don’t say something that makes the storyline feel inconsistent.
Don Callis was on commentary for this match, and got Jim Ross to endorse the idea that someone should “win however you can win, and make the money.” That’s a babyface announcer endorsing cheating.
The Bucks and Omega came out to Carry On Wayward Son. I’m glad their old music is gone.
This was exactly what you’d expect, with lots of flips and kicks, not much selling. The fact that they weren’t working limbs made that work a lot better for me than usual, as did the fact that this was the first match of this nature we have seen on this show. I really enjoyed the sequence Matt Jackson and Rey Fenix had early on, but when Matt and Penta came in as well, everything they did got WAY too cute, and it killed it for me.
Nick’s big super-rana to Penta onto everyone on the floor was WAY too cooperative. The triple-Tombstone spot was equally offensive, with Penta and Fenix holding the Jacksons for Tombstone Piledrivers and the waiting for Pac to reverse the one Kenny Omega was holding him for before all hitting the move together. If this were real (and we’re supposed to pretend that it is), there would be no reason not to hit the move as soon as possible, and that applies to Kenny as well. Once you see the Lucha Bros. breaking up the potential Meltzer Driver by grabbing the Bucks, don’t just stand thee holding Pac upside; hit the Tombstone Piledriver and go help your partners!
They set up a spot where Pac tossed the ring-bell hammer to Fenix, who agonized over using it, then threw it back at Pac, allowing Omega to recover and hit the V-Trigger for a nearfall. Pac later attempted to use the hammer (Penta was purposely distracting the referee both times), but was foiled. Amazingly, despite being superkicked and then dived on, Pac get his grip on the hammer. He gave it to Fenix, who found himself brought up for a One-Winged Angel, and used the hammer, hitting Kenny in the head with it and rolling him up for the pin. The crowd cheered for this finish, which shocked me. Two minutes ago they had been chanting “FIGHT FOREVER!” but now they were happy that they match ended. It’s almost like that chant is really f*cking stupid.
But even while not on my crowd-policing high horse, this surprised me. This crowd was so into the Elite at the beginning of this match, and now that they have been screwed out of the titles that they really never lost, the fans are cheering?
Anyway, we now have heel Lucha Bros. You’d think that people would have learned by now that turning those guys (and particularly Fenix) heel just doesn’t work, but apparently not. If they are going the route that Kenny and Bucks are bitter and upset with AEW, this finish will help that along, so that’s good. Excalibur pushed that Fenix was “upset with himself,” which Fenix did sell a bit, but Excalibur’s claim that “that is not how Fenix and Penta want to win” was contradicted in Penta’s case by the fact that Penta was quite purposely distracting the referee for the first two hammer-shots.
For those wondering, no mention was made of why Kenny and the Bucks had been “out of action for two months.” The crowd chanted “F*CK CM PUNK!” at one point.

AEW TBS TITLE MATCH: Jade Cargill(c) (w/the Baddies) vs. Nyla Rose (w/Vickie Guerrero & Marina Shafir)- 4/10
Nyla and Vickie showed up in a low-rider, like Eddie Guerrero used to do, because this week was the anniversary of Eddie’s death. YOU’RE THE HEELS! DON’T DO THINGS THAT YOU KNOW WILL GET YOU CHEERED!
They brawled and tried to do each other’s finishers. Jade won clean and got her belt back, ending this dreadful storyline. The match was very sloppy.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Chris Jericho(c) vs. Bryan Danielson vs. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Sammy Guevara- 8.25/10
Yes, the match was exciting and they did some cool stuff, but the match felt mostly inconsequential to me because so much of the emotional tension felt fake. Why would Dragon and Claudio have anything but an “every man for himself” mentality, considering the BCC’s values? The idea that Claudio would have been upset at Dragon if Dragon had pinned him after that big Busaiku Knee after the big Gorilla Press on Sammy would feel out of character.
And for Sammy and Jericho, it was even worse. As I said in my reviews leading up to the show, Sammy’s spot feels like it was meant for Daniel Garcia in some earlier draft of his storyline with Danielson and Jericho, and Tony just forgot that he had this spot penciled in until it was too late, so he shoe-horned Sammy into the spot rather than do a singles match and leave either Dragon or Claudio off the PPV, thus resulting in this completely out-of-nowhere storyline that Sammy might turn on Jericho.
If Sammy had turned on Jericho and won the title, so what? We have no reason to think that he’ll suddenly be a babyface or treat the ROH Title and legacy any differently that Jericho has. And, of course, we have no reason to believe that anything will come of Sammy breaking up Jericho’s pin here, or his later turning a hug into a GTH. How many times did the MJF-Wardlow story disappear for months? How long have we been waiting for something to happen with Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter? Why should this be any different?
I also hated the fact that they basically killed the MMA Elbows in this match. Pretty much every time someone did it, the person taking the move no-sold it. What the f*ck?
Anyway, Jericho pinned Claudio by hitting a leaping Judas Effect while Claudio was wasting time doing that stupid Big Swing to Sammy. If you’ve got Sammy by the legs like that, why would you make him dizzy (and yourself, too) instead of locking him in the Sharpshooter and trying to win the match?

BRITT BAKER vs. SARAYA- 6.5/10
Dr. Baker worked over Saraya’s neck, but Saraya fought through it and won cleanly. If I were booking/agenting/whatever, I wouldn’t have had them have the Ram-Paige get kicked out here in Saraya’s first match back, and have to have her use it twice in a row to get the win. If you want to ditch the move, then having it get kicked out of for a false finish is fine, but if you’re going to keep using it as a finisher, what they did here made it look relatively weak. After the match, the hugged, which really annoyed me considering all of the stuff they have said about each other recently.

AEW TNT TITLE MATCH: Wardlow(c) vs. Samoa Joe vs. Will Hobbs- 6.75/10
They had a good mean-guy match. Wardlow was a dumbass and went for extra powerbombs instead of pinning Hobbs, so Joe clobbered him from behind with a title belt, then quickly choked Hobbs out with the Coquina Clutch.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS CHRIS JERICHO & JAKE HAGER- infuriating
Jericho says he has no hard feelings towards Sammy Guevara. In fact, he expected Sammy to try to betray him. So why did you want him in the match, then, when you could have put the much more loyal Jake Hager or one of the 2.0 guys in that spot?
Orange Cassidy interrupted Jericho. Danhausen was with him, seemingly for no other reason than to annoy me. OC said that he has a friend who is a former champion in ROH and thus wants a shot at Jericho’s ROH World Title. Said friend is former ROH TV Champion Tomohiro Ishii. If you don’t remember him being the ROH TV Champion, I don’t blame you, because he didn’t do sh*t with the belt. Basically, he got it because Delirious was an idiot and thought that “someone from another company won one of our titles! Isn’t that cool?” was a good way to book wrestling in 2016. Anyway, Delirious’ bad booking from six and a half years ago is now enabling Tony Khan’s lazy booking to create a match that for Dynamite that I have no interest in seeing (though I guess it will be a little amusing to watch the guy whose entire stupid gimmick is no-selling shots to the head go down for the count to Jericho’s lame-looking elbow strike).
Jericho left, at which point Orange Cassidy offered to put his All-Atlantic Championship up against Jake Hager, and they did dumb comedy about Hager’s hat. For those of you who aren’t keeping track, Hager hasn’t won a singles in almost eighteen months… and the match he did win was an “MMA rules” match, so he hasn’t won an actual pro wrestling singles match since FEBRUARY 18, 2021! And that was against Brandon Cutler. The last time he beat someone with credibility in a singles match was at Revolution 2020, ALMOST THREE YEARS AGO!

NO COUNT-OUTS, NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Darby Allin & Sting vs. Jay Lethal & Jeff Jarret (w/Sonjay Dutt & minions dressed as Sting)- 5.5/10
Yeah. Jeff Jarrett has minions dressed as Sting. Tony Schiavone claimed this was “mind games.” I suppose when you’re as smart as Tony Schiavone, pretty much anything seems like “mind games,” but the rest of us hear that and wonder how that can possibly be mind games. Then again, I suppose it’s probably lucky that Tony’s brain didn’t just short-circuit because he thought Sting was in four places as at once, like that announcer in the “Unabomb is inside the ring and Unabomb is outside of the ring” clip from the end of the Al Snow vs Ricky Morton cage match in Smoky Mountain. Well… lucky for Tony, I mean. Unlucky for us that we had to sit through more of Tony Schiavone on commentary.
Instead of coming out like normal people, the babyfaces hatched a ridiculous plan. They had a bodybag appear on the stage. Instead of just standing in the ring and waiting for either the babyfaces to show up or the referee to award them the match via forfeit, the heels went to investigate. When Lethal got close, the stage sprayed him with smoke… so the f*cking production people are in on this, and are doing things to screw Jay Lethal over. That’s fair.
Darby Allin used this smokescreen to charge out of the entranceway and hit Lethal with his skateboard. Darby beat up the fake Stings as well. Jarrett had stayed in the ring, which just so happened to work out well for the babyfaces, because if he had gone with Lethal and the Jeff Farmer Brigade to investigate the bodybag, Sting would have looked pretty stupid when he came out to the crowd and had no one to ambush. This is the sort of sh*t I really wish AEW would stop doing.
Jeff finally turned around to see Sting, and began to beg off. The referee rang the bell, even though this is a tag match but neither partner was on the apron (and Darby hadn’t even been to the ring yet).
For no explained reason, Satnam Singh didn’t come out with the heels… but he did randomly show up later in just the right spot to catch Darby when Darby tried a crazy dive off a ladder that was on the stage, down onto Jeff Jarrett on the floor. And once he caught Darby, Satnam decided to carry him over to the ramp and throw him down there instead of just throwing him onto the concrete floor right where he caught him. Or just pulling Jarrett out of the way and letting Darby splat instead of catching him at all.
Things finally got back to the ring. With the no DQs rules, you’d think that the heels would just assault the babyfaces with their four-on-two advantage (really an eight-on-two advantage, but those fake Stings seem to have been felled by one skateboard shot to the stomach each. I don’t think I two-year-old would be down after a skateboard to the stomach for as long as these grown adults were), but they didn’t. Satnam interfered once, and that was it.
This was a brawl with some weapon use and a big dive or two, then a match a big spot or two. It did nothing for anyone… other than get Jeff Jarrett an extra paycheck for wrestling, which I’m sure was Jeff’s intention when he pitched whatever he pitched to Tony Khan. They couldn’t even let Darby pin Jeff Jarrett so they could claim he pinned a “legend” (although Jeff really stretches the definition of that term anywhere outside of a purely TNA context). It had to be Lethal who got hit with the Scorpion Death Drop and the Coffin Drop and pinned by Darby.

AEW INTERIM WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Toni Storm(c) vs. Jamie Hayter- 6.75/10
They hit each other hard a lot. Rebel came down and hit Toni in the back of the head with the title belt but Toni kicked out. Hayter was not happy with Rebel’s presence. Nor was referee Paul Turner, who rightly ejected her from ringside. This set up the belt being in place for Britt Baker to later come flying out of the crowd and Curb Stomp Toni’s head into it. Britt rolled Storm back into the ring, where Hayter hit a Strong Zero, and Toni kicked out. About ten seconds later, Toni was up and hitting her own Strong Zero for a nearfall.
Britt hopped up onto the apron to distract Storm, and it worked, leading to a nearfall for Hayter. You’d think Turner would have ejected her from ringside like he did to Rebel, but if we had the referee act in an intelligent, logical, and consistent manner, then we wouldn’t have been able to do the finish where Britt pulling a turnbuckle pad off winds up leading to Hayter winning. Because G-d forbit we just don’t do that first distraction spot. I just don’t understand how wrestlers can put a match together and not see that there is a problem like that.
Anyway, Hayter cheated to win… and the crowd went nuts, due to their inexplicable love of her. Seriously. What has she done to get so over? She has good matches? Fine. So do Serene Deeb and Hikaru Shida and Mercedes Martinez and Ruby Soho. Why do the fans lover Hayter so much?
So Hayter is now the champion due to help from Britt Baker. I’m sure that their break will involve Britt pointing this out and saying “if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be champion,” and if Hayter is going to be the babyface, that’s really not a good thing.
They hit each other hard and Hayter worked the head, but the sequence with the Curb Stomp onto the belt and the Strong Zero and then Toni getting a nearfall within ten seconds of kicking out hurt it for me. It had the feel of an overkill spot getting kicked out of that you’ll see in (mostly American) indy matches just to geta big pop for a nearfall, combining with the Puro/Joshi/crappy indy “we hit each other really hard and growl a lot, then get up and just call it fighting spirit” style that I find grating, mixing in just the right way to make a negative that was more than the sum of its parts.

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Acclaimed(c) vs. Swerve In Our Glory- 6.75/10
Caster’s pre-match rap attacking Strickland for “cheating” when he still hasn’t acknowledged that Billy Gunn cheated to help them win the titles really bothered me. I was also really bothered by the referee calling for the bell when all four guys were in the ring. You’d never see a referee in a basketball game let a play start if one team had six guys on the court, and no umpire would ever allow a pitch to be thrown if there was an extra fielder on the field. This is supposed to be a sport. That’s a simple thing that it should not be hard to get right.
Billy didn’t come out with the Acclaimed for no explained reason… but of course he was watching from the back, and was able to run out to stop Shane Strickland from breaking Max Caster’s fingers with the pliers that just happened to be on the floor by the timekeeper’s table. I absolutely hate it when they have someone not be at ringside for no reason, and then it becomes painfully obvious that the only reason they didn’t come out to ringside during the entrance like they do in every other match was just so they could set up a spot where them running in would get a pop (the same thing happened with Satnam Singh earlier).
Referees came out to get Billy to the back, and the despite the presence of four referees doing that, the one in the ring apparently decided that he should go help them. Strickland took this opening to grab a second pair of pliers from somewhere… and despite knowing that Keith Lee doesn’t approve of cheating, Strickland gave them to Lee and insisted that Lee use them on Anthoy Bowens. What a f*cking moron.
Lee threw the pliers away and said “I can’t win that way.” Strickland slapped Lee, so Lee walked out on him. Then the Acclaimed beat Strickland up two on one. Of all of the ways they could have done the story where the one team loses because one partner wants to cheat and the other refuses, this was the worst possible one. In fact, it almost seems designed to protect the team you’re now breaking up, which is even worse in this case because it means that neither of the Acclaimed’s big wins over Swerve I Our Glory have involved decisively proving that they are the better team (when they won the belts they did so as a result of interference from Billy Gunn, and now they were losing fair and square and only one because Lee walked out on Strickland and they got to beat Strickland up two on one). TERRIBLE booking. Yeah, there was a little story in the match about Bowens’ shoulder being injured, but that was a minor point throughout most of the match.

Earlier tonight, Death Triangle cheated to retain the trios titles against the Elite by using a foreign object. As a result, Tony Khan has booked a rematch for Dynamite, but this time it will be no DQs! Just kidding. He booked a rematch, but this time there will be five referees at ringside to make sure that any potential cheating is caught. Just kidding again! Those are things a smart person who cares about fair play would do. What Tony Khan did was say “OMG THAT MATCH WAS SO COOL!” and book a best-of-seven series, of which that match we saw earlier has retroactively become the first match. So does that mean that match we saw earlier retroactively isn’t a title match? Or does it mean that all of the matches in this series are title matches, so that even if the Elite squash Death Triangle like bugs in the next three matches, Death Triangle will still wind up with a title shot?


AEW WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) (w/William Regal) vs. MJF- 7.25/10
MJF worked Moxley’s head while Moxley worked MJF’s head and knee. Eventually MJF pulled the referee into the way of the on-coming Moxley for a ref bump, then he pulled the Dynamite Diamond Ring out of his tights. Didn’t the referee check him before the match? He put the ring on, but Regal yelled at him, so he threw it away instead. This is so dumb. I don’t understand why Regal’s respect is so important to MJF. Because MJF wants to prove that Regal was wrong about him? How will winning this one match without using the ring do that when MJF has cheated in basically every major match to get himself to this point?
We rarely get a second referee coming out after a bump in AEW, but we did this time. Paul Turner got there just in time to count Moxley’s shoulders down when MJF referred a sleeper via the Bret-Piper spot. Moxley kicked out… and then Turner got bumped moments later. The first ref briefly got up but was still selling. Moxley locked in the Bulldog Choke and MJF tapped, but the ref hadn’t recovered enough yet. In fact, once Moxley let the hold go, the ref collapsed again, which made him getting up feel like it was just part of a planned spot to tease us with a nearfall. Meanwhile, despite us having seen several other referees tonight, none have come out to take over for the downed second ref, even though we just established that we are doing that this match.
Regal told Moxley to go help the ref recover… and when Moxley turned away, Regal passed MJF his brass knuckles. And the fans all cheered. Moxley punched Regal with the brass knuckles, pinned him and won the title.
This was so stupid. If these two were in cahoots all along, why did Regal stop MJF from using the Dynamite Diamond Ring earlier? And Regal decided to turn on Moxley during this match… WHY? The best I can come up with is that MJF showed a sufficient level of toughness, but if that’s all it takes, why didn’t Regal turn on Moxley against, say Jericho? What is it about MJF that makes Regal willing to turn on Moxley? So that Regal can be proven right when he said many years ago that MJF was a truly special talent? Why leave Moxley for MJF when MJF hadn’t (and possibly wouldn’t have) been able to beat Moxley cleanly? Doesn’t that mean that Moxley is at least as special of a talent as MJF, if not more?
It's a turn for the sake of a turn, in an attempt to shock people, but the only people who seem to have been shocked were the announcers, as pretty much everyone else had at least considered this a possibility (even though there were no real hints of any sort in that direction… and no, merely interacting is not a hint that two people might become aligned), if not believed it to be the most likely outcome.


This show started off great, but was dragged down by bad finishes, and a crowd that couldn’t help but cheer when heels cheated to screw babyfaces out of titles. I didn’t have a problem with the length of the show. That being said, I didn’t watch the pre-show, but if this show still went four hours and you had replaced the Sting & Darby vs. Jarrett & Lethal tag (shouldn’t have been on a PPV) and the TBS Title match (the storyline should never have extended long enough to make it to the PPV) with Kingston vs. Akiyama and gave that match the combined twenty that the aforementioned matches got, I would have been more than fine. I have always been frustrated with AEW’s poor storylines and terrible attention to detail, but this is the first time that I felt it really dragged down a PPV.





STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Excalibur tried to tell me that the ROH World Title being up for grabs in a four-way was “common” because it had happened “fourteen four-way matches in the last twenty years” (plus the inaugural match at Crowning A Champion making fifteen).
Something that happens less than once a year is not a “common” occurrence!
(And, because I am a crazy person, I feel the need to brag that I was able to name thirteen of the fifteen four-ways off the top of my head.)

2.Excalibur once again claims that Danielson’s detached retina “kept him out of action for months.”
He headlined a PPV three weeks later! He wrestled for YOUR company, six weeks later! In the main event, defending the world title! With all of the love and respect Tony Khan supposedly has for ROH and its history, you’d think he would have corrected Excalibur at some point over the past few weeks, but apparently not. I know this might seem like a nit-pick to some people, but the whole point of this angle is that we’re supposed to want to see Danielson or Claudio take the ROH World Title from Jericho so that Jericho can’t “desecrate” it’s legacy and “destroy ROH” or whatever… and the same person impressing this point upon me is himself getting ROH history horribly wrong!
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
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ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Re: BRM Reviews AEW Full Gear 2022 (fell off a cliff)

Post by Thelone » Nov 22nd, '22, 08:54

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 20th, '22, 21:24Anyway, Hayter cheated to win… and the crowd went nuts, due to their inexplicable love of her. Seriously. What has she done to get so over? She has good matches? Fine. So do Serene Deeb and Hikaru Shida and Mercedes Martinez and Ruby Soho. Why do the fans lover Hayter so much?
She's thicc and has the attitude/demeanor to highlight it down to a tee, that's about it really. Look no further than her opponent here who's also very popular (and quite frankly overrated) because she used to have a big ass and thick thighs.

I don't think it's fair to single out Hayter here when you see the other champions who, besides the Dentist, were pretty much all "she can wrestle fine and looks cute/attractive/hot" with almost nothing else to show for. Now as usual, we'll see if that support lasts or if in a month, dubbalos will be starting to bitch about her because "she's overpushed/not that good anyway" (see also Liv Morgan, Bianca Belair and Thunder Rosa to a lesser extent) and move on to the next fad like the fickle fans they are.

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Re: BRM Reviews AEW Full Gear 2022 (fell off a cliff)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 22nd, '22, 12:59

Thelone wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 08:54
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 20th, '22, 21:24Anyway, Hayter cheated to win… and the crowd went nuts, due to their inexplicable love of her. Seriously. What has she done to get so over? She has good matches? Fine. So do Serene Deeb and Hikaru Shida and Mercedes Martinez and Ruby Soho. Why do the fans lover Hayter so much?
She's thicc and has the attitude/demeanor to highlight it down to a tee, that's about it really. Look no further than her opponent here who's also very popular (and quite frankly overrated) because she used to have a big ass and thick thighs.

I don't think it's fair to single out Hayter here when you see the other champions who, besides the Dentist, were pretty much all "she can wrestle fine and looks cute/attractive/hot" with almost nothing else to show for. Now as usual, we'll see if that support lasts or if in a month, dubbalos will be starting to bitch about her because "she's overpushed/not that good anyway" (see also Liv Morgan, Bianca Belair and Thunder Rosa to a lesser extent) and move on to the next fad like the fickle fans they are.
Toni used to have great match all the time in PROGRESS and NXT UK.

Shida has great matches, and Thunder Rosa is one of the best babyface promos in the world (and is great in the ring usually as well, although she has matches where she is quite sloppy, too).

I just don't understand why they have gotten behind Hayter so strongly when they really didn't with anyone else other than Dr. Baker, despite having done comparatively so little with her. She's been a supporting character in Britt's story for almost every moment until now.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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ROH Validation
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DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
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Re: BRM Reviews AEW Full Gear 2022 (fell off a cliff)

Post by Thelone » Nov 22nd, '22, 19:35

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 12:59Toni used to have great match all the time in PROGRESS and NXT UK.
That's been her peak so far and that was like three or four years ago at this point. She moved to NXT proper and barely did anything of note there, then moved to Smackdown and requested her release after only six months, then signed with AEW and hardly did anything for six months before winning the (interim) title after that cooldown period.

I'm not saying she's terrible or anything, but I do think she's been overrated for years because she's hot and playing it up ("Badass Wrestler with the Best Ass. Phat Ass Aussie. 🍑" says her OnlyFans bio for example).
Shida has great matches, and Thunder Rosa is one of the best babyface promos in the world (and is great in the ring usually as well, although she has matches where she is quite sloppy, too).
Does she? Is that why her challengers were cutting her off after two words when she was interviewed by Schiavone over and over?
I just don't understand why they have gotten behind Hayter so strongly when they really didn't with anyone else other than Dr. Baker, despite having done comparatively so little with her. She's been a supporting character in Britt's story for almost every moment until now.
I'll still go with her sex appeal mostly (let's be realistic here), but I can see fans who watched her Stardom stuff get a bit restless that she's been the Dentist's muscle for more than a year (with countless dumb swerves) when she could be more than that. Now of course, we'll see if she's put in a position to actually get out of Baker's shadow and can rise to the occasion, but only time will tell (and the track record is... not great to put it mildly).

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Re: BRM Reviews AEW Full Gear 2022 (fell off a cliff)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 23rd, '22, 00:31

Thelone wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 19:35
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 12:59Toni used to have great match all the time in PROGRESS and NXT UK.
That's been her peak so far and that was like three or four years ago at this point. She moved to NXT proper and barely did anything of note there, then moved to Smackdown and requested her release after only six months, then signed with AEW and hardly did anything for six months before winning the (interim) title after that cooldown period.

I'm not saying she's terrible or anything, but I do think she's been overrated for years because she's hot and playing it up ("Badass Wrestler with the Best Ass. Phat Ass Aussie. 🍑" says her OnlyFans bio for example).


Fair point about her seemingly having already hit her peak and not really having shown any flashes of her old self in a while. Maybe I'm naive, but I think we're past the point where people are overrating someone's matches because they're hot. Charisma? Maybe (and she definitely doesn't seem to have the charisma she bad back in PROGRESS with the sunglasses and backwards spiky baseball cap and eye-black). But I think the vast majority of people can separate actual in-ring ability from hotness.
Thelone wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 19:35
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 12:59 Thunder Rosa is one of the best babyface promos in the world (and is great in the ring usually as well, although she has matches where she is quite sloppy, too).


Does she? Is that why her challengers were cutting her off after two words when she was interviewed by Schiavone over and over?
Yes. Yes she does. When they let her just talk about either wanting revenge or about what winning a particular match or title means to her, there are few better. TK not putting her in the situation where she thrives should not be an indictment on her own ability.
Thelone wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 19:35 [
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 22nd, '22, 12:59I just don't understand why they have gotten behind Hayter so strongly when they really didn't with anyone else other than Dr. Baker, despite having done comparatively so little with her. She's been a supporting character in Britt's story for almost every moment until now.
I'll still go with her sex appeal mostly (let's be realistic here), but I can see fans who watched her Stardom stuff get a bit restless that she's been the Dentist's muscle for more than a year (with countless dumb swerves) when she could be more than that. Now of course, we'll see if she's put in a position to actually get out of Baker's shadow and can rise to the occasion, but only time will tell (and the track record is... not great to put it mildly).
I just don't see the "sex appeal" thing with Hayter, but that's just my tastes.
I don't buy the "STARDOM fans are restless to see her pushed more" thing because it seemed like a whole lot of people got behind her in a short period of time, around when they did the spot where Baker cost her the title. I suppose that could be it, but it just seems weird to me that doing that spot would make so many people suddenly care about a midcard heel who they haven't done anything to make her likable yet or hadn't really pushed very much.
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