aew 2021: don callis’s sunglass game is on point

PUNK

What a time to be alive

yo

Lol fucking ice cream bars? Way to make the Greatest baby face promo in history

pic.twitter.com/csU4rh8hQW

— luchablog (@luchablog) August 21, 2021

I need to go back to sleep.

But fuck me pro wrestling is a glorious thing and my favourite wrestler is back. That pop was so loud you couldn’t hear his music. People were fucking crying! The T-shirt’s are already going for silly money on ebay. Darby still looks like a star too, I loved his new face paint. Everything was perfect.

LOOK IN MY EEEEEEEEEEYES, WHAT DO YOU SEEEEEEE?

I think they did a fantastic job threading that. Punk calling Allin out might’ve been enough- but then to put Allin over at the end with the double coffin drop for the same hometown crowd that’ll be rooting against him shortly was great.

They took the usual GBP 3.66 out of my account for the monthly AEW Plus subscription yesterday. I feel like with the four Dynamites and two Rampages in the last month were...a pretty good return for that

Bowens/Martin on Dark was fucking lit

every match dante martin wrestles is essential viewing

Really enjoyed the Bowens / Martin match, it was a bit stilted in places but I think that is to be expected from Dante at this stage. pleased to see him moving up the card to the point of being a known face. he's gonna be so amazing for them with a few more years under his belt. he's booked on the September PWG show too - really think he's got the potential to organically develop into a star of the indy scene in between AEW bookings until they're ready to give him a proper full-time spot on TV.

i remain a little sceptical of Tall Paul Wight as a colour commentator but him and King do have a pleasing "bros have fun watching wrestling" chemistry that is growing week on week. not yet in the same league as the wonderful Excalibur/Taz pairing on Dark on but I think along with Skeeavone they're building something cool there.

tbh I would like to see them give Elevation more of a distinct feel as a show - I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between Elevation and Dark. Elevation features slightly more mid-card matches rather than squashes / indy showcases?

anyway all i want in the world rn is to watch more of the very good wrestling produced by this very good wrestling company. fuck how is it not Wednesday yet

What is he like?

I think only getting a road warrior/Steiner type squash artist would make me watch dark.

He’s jovial. Haven’t yet worked out if he’s decided to play it that way deliberately or if he’s just genuinely stoked to be where he is rn

He did a bit in last night’s episode during the Tay Conti match where he was talking about how the wrestlers should develop their characters which felt like the bad kind of pulling back the curtain but he’s definitely improved since he started

think eddie’s presence helps big show loosen up, the first few weeks of elevation he was a lot more muted and tamped down and now he and eddie sometimes alternate shouting the match instead of calling it, and it rules

i tried to distinguish elevation and dark to someone this week and couldn’t. the distinction used to be that dark was full of squashes and elevation had more patient, lower-card showcasing matches, but it’s since gone back and forth. i mean, it’s fine, rampage debuted with its own character and vibe, the youtube shows can be interchangeable

Seeing the Reddit post where someone hypothetically makes the AEW g1 (which hangman should win, not said in post) makes me love this company so much.

It has potential signees like dragon and wyatt but even if it didn’t, fuck me I love these wrestlers and wrestling so much

idk about Wyatt. like many people I really thought he was going to be something special after he had that amazing match with Danielson at the Rumble and then the Shield/Wyatt Family 6-man tag, all those many years ago, but has he done much of note in the ring since? idk I haven't really paid attention to WWE outside of Wrestlemania during the majority of his run.

I mean obviously I'm aware of the Fiend as a popular gimmick (primarily through the prism of Twitter jokes at his expense following each stupid "cinematic" shitshow on PPV / from wrinkling my nose at all the broken brained WWE lifers who worship him and his act). But i really don't think AEW needs him, the roster is getting pretty clustered as it is, especially near the top end, and i'm not sure what he brings to the table. Mainstream-ish popularity and merch sales are the obvious answers to that question but fuck that, we're here to have fun.

Idk, maybe I am allowing my contempt for the sorts of WWE fans who have been relentlessly boosting him for the last few years to cloud my judgment here, but seriously i don't want any of those imbeciles anywhere near the AEW fanbase and I feel like Wyatt is one of the few acts that they might actually follow across the great divide

let him go and be the main star in Impact for a bit. Bray Wyatt in the G1 could also be fun I guess, and i doubt many of the revolting Reddit lot would follow him to Japan

he's never had a halfway good singles match with anyone other than Danielson and the Fiend was unwatchable shit for idiots

god bless Bryan Danielson. he's gonna make so many people look so good when he joins AEW

once he's done with his run on top just give me 12 minute Bryan Danielson matches on Dark and Elevation for the rest of time

I basically agree with everything you say about Wyatt.

Could you imagine in Taker had to leave and go to WCW? It would have been atrocious. I mean most of Taker’s career is a mess and that’s in the fed. Wyatt doesn’t even have the special match history / ministry of darkness theme music.

just give me 12 minute Bryan Danielson matches on Dark and Elevation for the rest of time

I was gonna clown on this and say ‘Yeah, it’ll be more like Danielson in a six-man with the Wingmen against Ryzin, your man with the Guile hair and a local jobber’ but now I’m kind of jazzed to see that.

weird show. some cool stuff as always (Jamie Hayter in particular, she looks like she can be a big deal for them) but everything is feeling a bit flat. thought they'd be looking to fire on all cylinders coming out of Rampage but this has been about as subdued as it's been since crowds came back

that tease from Punk though, lol

kind of a nothing show all in all. gotta assume that they'll have had more new viewers checking them out tonight than ever and it felt like one misfire after another.

Kinda torn between who I want to win the tag tournament. Think the Lucha Bros would put up a monster match against the YB but I would love it if Jungle Boy and co get the tag titles.

initially i thought Jurassic Express made sense - i don't see any other titles changing hands at All Out and I wondered whether they might give JE the win to get the big babyface pop and let the crowd have a sing-along to Baltimora on the PPV and then do a month-long reign before they drop the belts back.

i think they're about due for this sort of reign anyway, the long title runs are great for giving the belts value and re-educating the fanbase that this all matters but I think it's fine to give an up-and-coming but not quite there yet babyface act a big pop on the night and then have them drop the belts quickly to an opponent higher up the food chain.

anyway Jungle Boy's time will come and I reckon it's about time Fenix was given a proper spotlight. Pentagon i love dearly from his Lucha Underground days but he has felt kinda lazy and sloppy for a while now. the match at All Out is sure to rock, anyway.

seeing some ppl complaining about Kojima as opponent for Mox - i don't really get that, this feels like it's pretty plainly about Mox getting frustrated about not getting the NJPW match he wants, building to a Moxley / Tanahashi match at the Dome in January. v cool to see NJPW guys in featured positions on big-time US PPVs

darby and cm punk kiss

To expand on what Windsor said, I really appreciate Mox going through clearly some dream matches of his now that he has the leverage to ask for them. Nagata was fun, Kojima will be cool, I can only hope that he gets to go through all the NJPW Uncles, then Tanahashi, then some crossovers, until he finally gets that Dream Onita match.

our friend maura is watching this rampage episode in person

really fantastic episode too. i love rampage

oh man so jealous. that was a superb hour of wrestling. it absolutely flies by.

check out the "Countdown to All Out" show if you have time, really good sit down interview with CM Punk and JR. Which ends with JR saying how many great acquisitions AEW has made and asking Punk if he doesn't think that's set to continue, which gets a lol yes AEW is the place to be right now

Feeling pretty sure now that Danielson is debuting on Sunday night, they're running all the same plays from the Punk return. and it's working! i've booked Monday off work.

also Kris Statlander is very strong

what a fun time! it was surrounded by three hours of dark matches including one that had the crowd very perplexed because of WRESTLING EMOTIONS. also punk led the crowd in a “thank you for being a friend” singalong

also… redeem deez nuts

How do we feel about Max Caster returning? I feel uneasy about the fact that he never apologised.

Why would this bad guy rapper apologise for his bad guy rapping?

his return-to-the-ring rap was both low-key contrite and entertaining without really being an apology. idk, i’m glad he’s back, feel like knowing he probably won’t do anything to that degree again is enough

also to a hoy hoy’s point i feel like a heel apology would be a pretty direct breach of kayfabe. as far as something like this can be handled, i think it was handled well? but i also don’t think i’m the right person to judge it

Seriously? Kayfabe is a BS excuse. Max Caster the person wrote it, not ‘Max Caster’ the character. There’s edgy and there’s crossing the line; he crossed it, and hasn’t owned it. Zero difference between this and what Sammy said about Sasha Banks in that interview, for which he apologised. Tony apologising? That’s fair enough. But if you don’t feel at all skeevy about the situation, I don’t know what to think.

Also, the offending references were to real-life situations outside of kayfabe. If you want to play the kayfabe card, then stick to the confines of kayfabe (though even the Julia Hart stuff before verges on the actually gross and not pantomime gross).

On revision, my tone here is a bit more argumentative than I meant it to be, but I stand by my points.

I gets ya, I just don’t think I agree. Or care that much about MC. He got put in the dog house for a bit but doesn’t have to break character.

feel like julia had to be in on the verses about her, idk

but you make good points mac

i guess what it comes down to for me is that i'm just glad he experienced direct consequences

happy all out day

https://i.imgur.com/KxM70qN.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMTrMYTL9QU

(the punk promo at the end of this bonus dark really made my day, starts an hour and five minutes in)

feel like julia had to be in on the verses about her, idk

I’m sure she was. But there’s a power imbalance there: she’s 19, and new to the company, so one might agree to something one isn’t entirely on board with. (Not that we know her mind, of course.) Kayfabe-wise, I would’ve felt better about it if she tried to beat the shit out of him instead of simply standing there with a grumpy face. But that’s just me.

HAPPY ALL OUT DAY

(And by that I mean, happy tomorrow morning, waking up a bit earlier, to watch it before work)