Coming back to the Target Center in Minneapolis, MN, this was one of the first shows where the surprises in terms of guest appearances were kept to a minimum so that AEW’s talent could be on full display. It was a four hour show with 10 matches, including a freebie to open the show on YouTube.
Nyla Rose / Jamie Hayter Vs. Thunder Rosa / Hikaru Shida
This was a very bizarre match as a warm up during the pre-show. I describe it as bizarre because normally you don’t see these people teaming with each other. The circumstances for this match was that each side will eventually face each other in singles competition for the TBS title. Serena Deeb was at ringside where she got into Hikaru Shida’s face. They also played up Shida’s injured knee but it didn’t factor directly into this match but I’m certain it will once she faces Nyla Rose (conveniently enough). Shida did get the win here which felt gratuitous and tells me that Nyla will go over her in the tournament. Thunder Rosa was super over here.
One thing I will point out is that there was a leaked photo showing Hikaru Shida vs Serena Deeb at this PPV but it looked scrapped. Also, I think Jade Cargill was going to face someone for the women’s TBS title final but it seems they ran out of time before that could manifest. I really hope Tony Khan looked at that match on Rampage and figures out that Jade Cargill can get into the finals but should not be the one winning it. She’s just far from ready and needs to be sent elsewhere for more experience.
MJF Vs. Darby Allin
This was the opening PPV match but in reality a thinly disguised wrestling match underneath the veil of a grudge. Also, it went on for a good 20 minutes which got the crowd hot. They did a high paced great opening sequence and really got the crowd invested because both guys not only are good but polarizing in terms of their popularity/infamy.
MJF does great work as a heel despite being a good worker. He sold his knee (which he does quite often in these matches) after injuring it from a piledriver on the apron. Darby Allin did an insane Coffin Drop to the outside where MJF had rolled out before to take a breather then got slammed on the floor by Allin. They would do another sequence of roll ups, leading to both spinning around in a circle inside the ring as the referee attempted to catch them in trying to make a pin.
Eventually, Wardlow and Shawn Spears attempted to come down to ringside but was intercepted by a bat wielding Sting for his cameo of the night. That was enough to distract the referee so MJF could knock Darby out with his ring and shove it back into the pants. Then as promised, MJF gave Darby a headlock roll up for the pin. Pretty hot opener featuring two of their biggest homegrown stars.
The Lucha Bros Vs. FTR
This was for the tag title belts. I’m not a fan of the Lucha Bros and thought that FTR would take the titles here. It was another long match with various sequences that I can’t recall. But the key moment was when FTR disguised themselves with their green masks. I think Dax was supposed to be the legal person but Cash had swapped places (as JR put it doing the old Killer Bees under-the-ring switcharoo spot). So the Lucha Bros got their finisher on Cash. Because the referee couldn’t see who the legal person was, he called for the pin on Cash. But the Lucha Bros did unmask Cash so they might bring the issue up on Wednesday to say that they weren’t exactly pinned cleanly and get another follow up match.
Bryan Danielson Vs. Miro
This was one of the two matches I really wanted to see on this PPV. Miro has improved greatly in his role and character while Bryan Danielson has become the best pure wrestler in the world. According to Bryan Danielson, he has never beaten Miro and I’m only aware of their one match in the WWE.
I think this might’ve been Miro’s best match ever. He didn’t do every move he knows but it was just hard hitting, was a smartly wrestled match by Bryan and showing Miro he can hang. Even if Miro doesn’t win the world title here, he should at least be kept in that title picture. Bryan won by dunking Miro with a spiked DDT from the top rope followed up by choking him out for the submission victory.
So now, Bryan will go on to face the winner of the title match. More on that later. The question is what will Miro do in losing here? I suppose this was going to be Moxley losing but with him out it throws a huge wrench I assume into a variety of plans. Again, we haven’t seen CJ Perry/Lana, despite Miro constantly referencing her in his promos. Not sure if she’ll ever make an appearance in AEW, but at this point I don’t think he needs her because he’s doing fine and really shining on his own.
Young Bucks / Adam Cole Vs. Jungle Boy / Luchasaurus / Christian Cage
Here’s where I started to get frustrated. Pretty much this was another Bucks match that lasted too long, made no sense and just went all over the place. There were a few cool moments like Christian doing a balcony level dive, which seemed insane considering his injuries and age (but I guess if you’re going to do something like that, might as well on a big show) and Luchasaurus getting a Shooting Star press on the Elite from the stage. But otherwise, I think this match killed a lot of momentum on the show because they threw the kitchen sink in. Jungle Boy got the pin on Matt Jackson after requesting from Christian to be the one doing the Conchairto. With Jungle Boy sporting a rough beard now, I suppose he should be called Jungle Man as some people had joked elsewhere. Not really my cup of tea.
PAC / Cody Vs. Malakai Black / Andrade El Idolo
Weird match that I think originally was drawn up as a 4-way. But for whatever reason those plans got scrapped. Instead, they treated this match where each partner had some contention with their respective partners. PAC begrudgingly tag himself in or vice versa and periodically Black and Andrade would do the same. I get why Pac and Cody would do that but it made no sense for Black and Andrade to have heat.
In one funny spot, Andrade fucked up his flip over the top rope while Cody dumbly waited on the apron just before doing his own. It was a similar spot they did in their previous encounter but Andrade goofed. Cody eventually took out Black in the crowd which allowed Pac to get Andrade with his Black Arrow splash for the victory.
FTR ran down oddly because of how Andrade purchased their service but got chased off eventually. I’m guessing that for the moment Lucha Bros will get another team to beat to have the tag team titles a little longer while FTR becomes embroiled in this weird feud. Not sure what the deal with Andrade and Malakai is but Malakai hinted that “there will be changes coming for his character.” So, uh, turning face because he’s cool like the Undertaker when UT first started?
Britt Baker Vs. Tay Conti
This was for the AEW women’s title. When I watched this match, I knew it should have belonged on Dynamite or Rampage. Not here. Tay was obviously nervous and Britt didn’t look great. Usually, Britt has good opponents she can work with because she knows how to make herself look good but doesn’t have the experience to make mediocre opponents look better. Tay has improved but is mediocre. Even the announcers mentioned that Tay probably had butterflies in her stomach because this match just never kicked into full gear (pun intended).
I’ve been saying for a while now that Tay, while improving, just lacks the experience to be on this level. Worse yet they had these two go for a while. It should have last 5 minutes max because neither women are good enough to go more than 8 without blowing up and losing the crowd.
When I watched this match, immediately what came to mind was how bad AEW needs Charlotte Flair. People can rip on her all they want because of how she’s used, her ego, maybe even staleness. But it’s just because there’s nowhere else for her to go in the WWE. In AEW, she could carry a match like this where Tay wouldn’t feel nervous because Charlotte has the confidence and knowledge to call the match. Like I’ve said before, Charlotte Flair is the last piece in the missing AEW puzzle. If I were Tony Khan, I would do all he could to grab her above everyone else in the WWE when she becomes available. There is no one else that Tony Khan can grab from the WWE that would make as much of a positive impact on their company just because the women in AEW are either not experienced enough, lack true super stardom or are not polished. Charlotte has every attribute necessary to put AEW’s women’s division on the map unlike every other women wrestler.
And this is not a knock against Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks nor Bayley. But those three need their time to really be solidified in the WWE. I think removing Charlotte from the WWE would allow those three to be featured more prominently and get to shine while Charlotte helps to build up the women’s division in AEW. You can’t convince me otherwise.
As far as women’s PPV matches in AEW goes, there’s only two possible at this stage: Britt Baker vs Ruby Soho and Britt Baker vs Thunder Rosa. I think whatever their next PPV is, they should finally pull that trigger on Thunder Rosa vs Britt Baker part 2. Make it a real match not some garbage match though.
CM Punk Vs. Eddie Kingston
So this was the 2nd match I really wanted to see. The build up was great and simple. But you have two guys who are excellent at what they do. If Bryan Danielson is the best wrestler in the world right now, CM Punk is the best in ring storyteller. This also was by far the hottest match of the night and my personal favorite match of the evening.
Punk got color and started to receive boos. Kingston might be one of the biggest babyfaces in that company. I think he’s more over than anyone because he is the ultimate under dog. Every time he loses he gets more popular. Punk acted like a total dick where he did John Cena’s Five Moves of Doom with the running shoulder tackle and his sit down power bomb, leading to the “You can’t see me” spot, except that Punk held that position for a while as he looked around the crowd to massive boos. I want to say he called that spot in the ring because he was getting all those boos. If not he’s quite prescient about knowing what kind of reaction he would get with that crowd. He also got the three amigos in for his friend Eddie Guerrero, which subsequently got an “Eddie!” cheer going that inadvertently was for Kingston too. Just genius level wrestling here.
Punk eventually got Kingston with the G2S but crawled over for the victory. They sold like death as both struggled up on their own. Punk went to shake Kingston’s hand who took off and was emotionally distraught after the match.
The thing is that they don’t do wrestling like this anymore. This is wrestling of the highest caliber where people are emotionally invested not just in the moves but in the people and story. Punk is telling wrestling stories at such a high level and he’s working with such a variety of opponents that you can’t wait to see whom he’s going to deal with next. Plus, he’s climbing their ladder very slowly. It’s like what I’ve been saying all along. Bryan Danielson is working from the top down and Punk is going from bottom up and I think they’re going to meet in the middle some place.
The Inner Circle Vs. American Top Team
From the best match of the night to the worst. They called this mess a “Minneapolis Street Fight” which is a euphemism for a garbage match. They started off fine with some wrestling. Junior dos Santos got to show off what he’s learned recently. Sky and Page made no difference except for Page doing an embarrassing spot where he put over a 100 year old legend in Baron von Raschke, who was at ringside. He got put into a claw hold, which is one of the worst moves in wrestling but did so why protesting in fear. A guy supposedly in the prime of his career getting put into a claw hold for a spot so that people, who probably won’t remember the AWA could get a pop.
The reason why this match happened is because they wanted to have a pro-wrestling match rather than an MMA match. Also, because two of the people can’t wrestle or barely can wrestle anymore. And I guess they had no confidence in Andrei Arlovski because it was impossible to make sense of what anyone outside of Junior had done on their team.
Dan Lambert was doing bad comedy in this match and got embarrassed by Jericho multiple times. Wasn’t the point of this entire thing to build up and/or put more focus on Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page? Does Ethan Page just like to bury himself by allowing old folks to put unrealistic moves on him where in the back he’s like, “I totally respect you, dude! You can do whatever! I’m a mark!” Because that’s the vibe I get with him being such a goofball. And poor Scorpio Sky. His prime time is leaving and ready to leave forever because there are so many better people in the company than him at this point. So I feel there’s no need to salvage either guy. What else can they do? Go after the tag titles?
As for Chris Jericho, what an embarrassment. He put himself over here in some middle finger to probably Jim Cornette. But it just makes Chris Jericho look awful and becoming an even worse version of HHH. At least in his age, HHH still looks physically great and can work at a high level when required because his style is far more realistic than Jericho’s. So I guess for Jericho, in his mind, to have 5 star matches, he has to resort to garbage wrestling. This match was absolutely pathetic and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
They did announce for Dynamite that Toru Ishii is coming in to tag with Orange Cassidy in taking on the Butcher and the Blade as part of a few more NJPW doing a small US tour. Of course, the one we all want to see is Bryan Danielson vs Okada.
Jay Lethal is All Elite
Tony Schiavone makes a big announcement in bringing in Jay Lethal, who says he’s signed with All Elite. Since Ring of Honor is pretty much dead and most of their talent has asked for their releases or getting released, it was a no brainer for Jay Lethal to show up in All Elite. I think Jim Cornette mentioned that he was one guy that Tony Khan should go after. So he immediately challenged Sammy Guevara on Dynamite, which shows how much of an impact he’s going to make immediately. Sammy accepts and probably will win but I hope Lethal gets it just in case Sammy continues to be involved in that stupid Inner Circle vs American Top Team/Men of the Year garbage feud.
Kenny Omega Vs. Hangman Adam Page
This was for the world title and for myself at least, I didn’t care. I was pretty spent as this PPV was too long and this match went on for a while. I felt that 4 hours is just too much for a show and a bunch of their matches should have been cut down significantly, like MJF vs Darby 13-15 minutes, FTR vs Lucha Bros, that falls count anywhere match that took forever and had everything included, Britt Baker vs Tay Conti down to 5, etc. Just way too long of a PPV and I was already unhappy by a lot of the results.
Also, I feel this match should never have happened. I don’t get why they wanted to push Adam Page. Maybe it was in his contract but I think that with Bryan winning as the next challenger, Kenny should have been the one. The reason is that all that oomph for Kenny vs Danielson part 2 is gone now. And I don’t particularly want to see Adam Page vs Danielson for the title. It will be a fresh match but it has no real context compared to what Kenny and Bryan had established on their first meeting.
Regardless, the match was fine I guess work-wise. I just didn’t care. Adam isn’t Bryan when it comes to structuring matches and Kenny continues to be Kenny. The Bucks eventually came out and just nodded at Page who got the pinfall on Omega. People called this “long term story telling” but I call it long winded story telling. The match just took forever and I feel Page lost too much momentum after getting jobbed out on numerous occasions, being associated with a comedy jobber group and taking paternity leave while all the big names from the WWE came in.
And it’s not that I dislike Page but the booking just made no sense to me. Once Bryan won, sure there was doubts that Page would lose. But FTR lost and should have won the tag titles and there wasn’t anyway Tay Conti was beating Britt Baker here. She has probably two years to go before deserving to be considered for another title shot. At any rate, that just left Page vs Omega as having the possibility on one of AEW’s most loaded PPVs for a title change.
And here’s the thing. They really booked themselves into a corner here. If Page had lost, I don’t know what they could have done with him. Also, that would make only Miro vs Danielson as being significant in having this PPV. The rest of the matches on the card were pretty much throwaways, although Kingston vs Punk was more because of them making their own issue seem significant. But in the scheme of things, none of the rest of the booking on this card mattered.
However, with Page winning, they don’t have any momentum for the possibility of another Bryan Danielson vs Kenny Omega match, which would have drawn in my opinion as opposed to theoretically Adam Page vs Bryan Danielson. The only way Page winning would have been better is if Moxley was around and won against Bryan to setup a feud with Page in having Moxley become a mega heel.
Miro also would have been a great first challenger to Adam Page. He really deserves a world title shot at some point and would do great against Adam Page because it would not only be a fresh match but signify a monster heel vs a popular face. So again all these plans seem jacked up.
Final Thoughts
Match quality wise this wasn’t a bad PPV. My problem was purely the booking of most of the matches. There only was two really outstanding matches for me. But again I kept losing interest during matches because they took too long. I’m glad they gave people the time to tell their stories but I’m not glad that they allowed them to put every spot they know in certain matches.
One might say that Adam Page was made into a star this night. But the match just felt meh. The door where he should have won the title had long closed so I don’t feel this had as much impact as when they could have pulled the trigger, which was prior to Punk and Danielson coming in.
I keep saying that the Bucks and Omega should take a vacation. Omega probably needs it the most. He doesn’t wrestle that often but needs to be off TV while Adam Cole becomes a bigger star. I liked that Jay Lethal made his appearance but we still are missing a lot of anticipated people like Ric Flair, Bray Wyatt, Lana/CJ Perry etc. Quite frankly, after that Dark Side of the Ring, I doubt Ric Flair will make an appearance for AEW anymore or if he does, then it’ll be when Charlotte leaves the WWE. Bray Wyatt might not show up at all and CJ Perry probably lost a key opportunity or that she simply might not fit.
Anyway, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great. Maybe there were tons of spots but that’s not the only thing I look for in a PPV these days.