This is effectively part 2 of the huge Queens, New York Arthur Ashe Stadium show. For this show, they made it a special 2 hour broadcast. There were a few key matches I was looking forward to seeing as well as how the audience would respond because of the 5 hours that had to deal with as a total show. Also, gone sadly is Mark Henry from commentary and replaced by Ricky Starks. Not sadly gone is Chris Jericho but that was because he had a match later that night.
CM Punk Vs. Powerhouse Hobbs
They started the hour with their biggest name in CM Punk taking on Powerhouse Hobbs. The attraction here was seeing CM Punk’s first television match and he chose the youngster Hobbs as his opponent. Hobbs looked super excited but had to contain himself since he was being positioned as a heel but you could tell that this was the biggest night of his life up to this point.
Match was good and showed Hobbs’ potential. It was well paced and only had a single botch where Hobbs seemed to land wrong on a top rope rana that CM Punk did. After that, CM Punk got bloodied possibly in the jaw or nose. So again as with many things in AEW, we have our first injury of the night. Hobbs didn’t have a chance to do his big finisher so that’s being protected as hitting on Punk would mean that Punk shouldn’t kick out. Punk did a special top rope elbow drop a la Randy Savage. Have to note that there was a guy in the audience dressed up exactly as the Macho Man so not sure if Punk paid homage after seeing the guy. Also, Punk did a corner buckle whip similar to Bret Hart. CM Punk looked great here. A much different match than the one he had with Darby Allin but still a good pace. Hobbs looked like a million bucks in this match minus the rana. Some people on reddit noted the comparison with him and Ice Train/Scott Norton (Fire and Ice). He even did Ice Train’s running tackle.
Adam Cole / Young Bucks Vs. Christian / Jurassic Express
This was the second match I wanted to see. More because I wanted to see Adam Cole. He got one of the loudest reactions that night. The main story was Adam Cole avoid Christian and Jungle Boy most likely because they’re saving those matches. But they did have a few moments together. Don Callis was on commentary while Brandon Cutler and Luke Gallows were outside along with Marko Stunt.
Typical chaotic Young Bucks match. Tonight I forgave them a little more because the match was pretty hot. Too many super kicks though but I will say that Jungle Boy looked great. Ending was Luchasaurus getting triple kicked then receiving Adam Cole’s Boom knee. No post match but Adam Cole did get in Jungle Boy’s face when Jungle Boy was checking on Luchasaurus. So that match will happen on Dynamite next week so that’s another one I’m looking forward to seeing.
Jericho / Hager Vs. Men of the Year
Dan Lambert accompanied Men of the Year. Jericho is still over massively with his dumb song even though Jericho physically looks awful. Some people pointed out Jake Hager looked good here but he had zero response from the crowd. That’s what happens when no one sees you anymore for months at a time. Finish came with Dan Lambert tripping Hager up while Scorpio Sky got an inside cradle for the pin.
Let me just say how stupid that ending was. It was an old school ending but considering you have people in the previous bouts kicking out from crazy moves, it just makes a big guy like Hager look like a goof. Like Ruby Soho can kick out of a 2nd rope Air Raid Crash which should’ve broken her neck but Hager can’t even make it out of a little trip. No wonder Hager doesn’t see any TV time.
Post match was Jericho and Hager trying to get retribution on Dan Lambert. Suddenly, Scorpio Sky invites a bunch of people from Top Flight and security allows them to surround the ring. Paige VanZant looked completely out of place there. She was waving and acting like she was too excited to be around. She gave awful looking shots Jericho and Jericho should be ashamed. Jorge Masvidal gave Jericho a big knee strike that looked like it missed the mark.
So I was talking about that whole MMA vs pro-wrestling angle. It looks like they tried to do it. But this whole thing stinks. It was more like bad pro-wrestling. The shots looked bad and there was a take down that looked awful. The fact that the MMA people just walked out from the back and started waving made this look terribly fake. Jericho and Hager looked like idiots just standing in the ring while Dan Lambert slipped out before everyone stormed in on Scorpio Sky’s orders. I felt like the guys from the MMA group were just confused on what to do.
Part of the problem is that they got two pro-wrestlers who were wasted by a 62 year old mime and a skinny skateboarder punk just before as key players in this. No one takes Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky seriously. You can have them in a midcard feud but they don’t have the star power to make people care in a situation like this.
Jericho could be the right person but he’s just so old and fat now that it looks awful. You needed someone in there who could take the punishment. The punches from VanZant were awful. Some of the green females in AEW can throw better punches than those. Excalibur sounded like a goof for trying to put over VanZant’s abilities. She just needed to slap Jericho hard across the face and I think he could’ve taken that.
Why not wrench Jericho’s arm back and have him sell a twisted broken arm? Or break another appendage that he could sell in a cast? And why did they need to get all those people involved? It just makes the MMA fighters look super weak needing a whole gang to beat up two people. It was too much sports entertainment rather than playing to the strengths of MMA.
Tony Khan should go back and watch the old NJPW vs UWF stuff. Or check out Akira Maeda shooting on Riki Choshu’s face with that shoot kick that broke Choshu’s orbital bone. Heck, go check out the Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori Dream Slam stuff to see how you can build up intensity between a legit shooter and a pro-wrestler. Honestly, this was an embarrassing failure of a segment and I’m seriously disappointed the way this was done. They already fucked the whole thing up big time.
Lucha Bros / Santana & Ortiz Vs Butcher & Blade / Private Party
Just a stupid match. Chaos. The usual Lucha Bros stuff. Matt Hardy looks more like a schmuck as each week passes by. I bet he’s glad though collecting that big Tony Khan money. Other than that, I could care less. They did a stupid spot with Orange Cassidy and Jack Evans that belongs on Dark because Evans is used to wrestling in front of crowds of 100.
Matt Hardy Backstage Segment
Schiavone got an interview with Hardy and Jack Evans. Hardy challenges Orange Cassidy in a hair vs hair match where it’s Jack Evan’s wrestling Cassidy to represent Hardy. Again, it’s so convoluted and stupid that you wonder why these people get time at all.
Anna Jay Vs. Penelope Ford
Here is the bathroom break match of the night. As I mentioned before, both girls are attractive but have no talent. Anna Jay is too green and Ford has one good move. The Bunny comes out to give Ford brass knuckles and Ford gives Anna Jay a shitty looking shot that knocked her out.
Of course, an afterbirth happens so Tay Conti comes out to save her friend and gets waylaid. The rest of Hardy Office come out and surround the ring as Orange Cassidy, for some god knows what reason shows up with Kris Statlander while the rest of the Job World Order show up to clear the ring. As Tay checks on her friend, the Job World Order continue that horrible, never ending, nobody cares angle of whether they’ll split or stay together with Evil Uno walking out.
So at least if you have a big show like this on a major TV network and the boss is kind enough to give you some TV time, fucking end the angle already or at least push it forward. Stop wasting time or just get off TV already. I understand the boss wants to give people as much time as possible since they’ve got their biggest crowd, but sorry, no. It just comes off very amateurish and there’s no pathos since nothing gets resolved. They didn’t even have a brawl with the heels so only more apathy is created here. If you’re going to do nothing save it for Dark where this shit belongs.
BTW, somewhere in there was an Andrade Idolo package that I didn’t care about. You know when is he ever going to wrestle again?
Jon Moxley / Eddie Kingston Vs. Lance Archer / Minoru Suzuki
Mark Henry attempted to conduct a pre-match interview but Eddie is not civilized. It seemed like he was attempting to crack Lance Archer up the entire time. I kept thinking what a great job Mark Henry has. Just do 3-4 lines, hold a microphone and smile then collect a massive paycheck. Where can I sign up?
As far as this match is concerned, it was just rubbish. I feel sorry for Suzuki, thinking back on his Pancrase career. Now, he’s just an oyaji wandering around laughing as though he shared in Moxley’s meth addiction. They called this a Lights Out, Unsanctioned match. That’s the professional way of saying this is a garbage indy brawl.
At one point, Moxley got his wrists taped up so I think he’s into some kinky shit. Inexplicably, Lance Archer goes around the ring to chokeslam a bunch of ring attendants. Some of these people were already lying around on the floor it looked but more importantly, why were they even around in the first place?
Oh, it’s because Lance Archer needed to do his apron chokeslam and required the cooperation of others to catch Moxley. Suzuki looked completely out of place in this match. He’s just become this shit brawler. It’s really sad. He beat Ken Shamrock in Pancrase and now he’s reduced to this.
At one point, Homocide, of all people, makes his entrance. He got a pop and I now many of my suspicions are satisfied. He helped Kingson and Moxley by being a distraction as well as untying Moxley. Kingston got a win over Archer after bashing him inside a trash can with a kendo stick that looked absurd. At least, after “bashing” poor Archer “dead”, he actually got a pinfall.
Final Thoughts
There was one good match tonight and one guy I enjoyed watching. The rest of the show was pretty bad. The one good match was obviously Hobbs vs CM Punk and the one guy that I enjoyed watching was Adam Cole. Everything else just fell apart and became typical AEW. The most disappointing aspect was the awfully executed pro-wrestling (AEW) vs MMA fighter angle. Honestly, they better cut their losses if this is how things will go.
When you look at a show like this, it’s clear that Tony Khan wants to push his younger talent badly. So you get people like Hobbs, Jungle Boy, Jake Hager, Ethan Page, etc. involved on a show that has a 20k audience but the result is really mixed because the execution just sucks.
There was a lot that should have been shaven off. Anything dealing with Hardy and Orange Cassidy is just awful. It’s boring and it’s in one of those endless feuds that never goes anywhere. So they’re doing a hair vs hair stipulation match next week. But I thought that was Peter Avalon’s gimmick.
The women’s match was really bad. It had no place being on this card. Nothing against women wrestling but these two are green jobbers. They’re now having a tag match with Penelope Ford/Bunny vs Tay Conti/Anna Jay next week. So we have to be tortured for one more week? At least, if you did the tag match this week, you would have four people trying to cover for each other rather than putting two green girls in.
Also, the Job World Order continues to bore and generate increasing apathy. Nothing ever happens besides inexplicable arguments. There’s a difference between a slow burn like Roddy Piper turning on Captain Lou Albino vs. an angle that never goes anywhere. The reason I hate shit like the Job World Order or the unending pile of insomnia that is Matt Hardy’s midlife crisis is that nothing new happens. There’s no subtleties that lead me to suspect something big will happen. There’s nothing for me to care about in these people because they have no personality. It just takes up valuable TV time that could be used for another match or giving time for someone else that can use it and is capable of doing well in that spot.
I just realized I glossed over Miro vs Sammy Guevara. It was a stupid segment. I’m glad Miro got some time on stage but I really hope that Sammy Guevara doesn’t beat Miro. That said, the bright side might be if Sammy beats Miro, Sammy should be challenged by Malakai Black and get his head kicked off appropriately. Either way, if Miro loses to this chucklehead, I’m going to feel really bad for the guy. He really has had an uneventful title run. I think if he was beating jobbers every week on TV then I wouldn’t have minded. But he wrestles infrequently and the people he gets are mostly jobbers so his title reign looks pretty bad.
The main event was….ugh. Another Moxley match. You could tell it was all his idea because they repeated the hands behind his back spot. Also, what’s his goddamn fascination with these shitty brawls? It’s not like Chris Benoit vs Kevin Sullivan where the brawl goes through the crowds and concession stands and had energy. I get Kingston getting the big win in his hometown but he looked terrible out there. Basically, Kingston and Moxley looked like marks that got into wrestling doing bad imitations of their favorites.
The Homocide run in was stupid even though I found out that he’s having a match against Suzuki in GCW. But they didn’t even announce why he was around. He just shows up out of nowhere. And they prepared his entrance music. Like this is just bad fan service at this point. It’s not as though Ric Flair suddenly showed up and started “whooing!” the audience (although he probably won’t be around for a while after those last two Dark Side of the Ring shows).
When I look at the combined effort of Dynamite and Rampage, I kept thinking to myself, there was absolutely no need to go 5 hours for this total show. They should’ve opened up with CM Punk vs Hobbs on Dynamite rather than Bryan Danielson vs Kenny Omega. Bryan Danielson vs Kenny Omega should’ve been Rampage for the full hour. Maybe move Adam Cole’s match to Dynamite. The rest of Rampage easily could’ve been cut out. It just wasn’t a good showing.
Either way, two hours for a taped Rampage is excessive to me. The big problem with AEW is that they think certain people are stars but really they aren’t. The good thing about having 20k people is that you can see which people are real stars because people will react to the ones they care about.