I can't recall them now but JR had some remarks where I was just flabbergasted that he made them. He wasn't very good but his voice brings me back to a happier time so I'm ok with that.

It just clicked with me that AEW's first world title feud is Jericho vs Hangman.

Not that I invested a ton of hope or energy into this company to begin with, but it is disheartening to come away from the first show so thoroughly convinced that I'll probably never be a fan. I wanted to love it.

I suppose it bears mentioning that other corners of the internet would almost certainly laugh at the consensus here and call this show the GOAT, etc., so there is a market for it. And if they can ever do anything that makes Vince even slightly uncomfortable, great.

I'll give the TV show a shot whenever it rolls out. I'll also have a quick hook when it looks like a lot more of this.

I went to bed mid way through but from what I've read in this thread I really don't get what people were hoping for. It was always going to be that indie style, stupid big sequences, ridiculous kick outs, high work rate.

From the bits I saw

Battle Royal was fine, winner is a little disappointing but meh.

Kip v Sammy was a good singles match, that over the rope suplex spot was awesome. Could do without the suicide dives but meh that's me.

SCU v Strong Hearts, really good tag match. Ending was a bit messy with far too many spots but some of them were awesome.

FFW womens - This was pretty bland. None of them really did it for me in the ring.

BF v Angelico and Jack Evans - I missed some reasonable sized bits of this match but that finishing move was great.

"This was better than WM X-Seven." says one poster.
"WWE is done." says another.

It was pretty much what I expected for the little I saw. But it went a step beyond in TYB's match. That one was offensive. The KO/Jericho match was pretty boring too me. This show doesn't really matter because it's the hardcore people who will watch anyhow, it's the weekly shows that'll really show what they're made of.

6 woman tag - meh, skipped most of this.

Cody v Goldust - Smashing up the throne was a bit cringey but it clearly got a reaction so can't blame them for it. Will be funny when the Rhodes become HHH and steph. I enjoyed the match quite a lot. The blood was silly but I assume when you blade you don't have that much control, I doubt they wanted it to be like that.

Young Bucks - Thought this was really great.

Jericho Omega - This was ok, Jericho just isn't having great matches in ring anymore unless there are some stipulations that cover up how old and out of shape he is (relatively).

Ending was great, love a bit of Ambrose.

I never really studied up on the whole AEW thing in the run-up. I just knew that it was a new company that had deep enough pockets to potentially at least cramp Vince's style and motivate him accordingly, even if it couldn't truly compete anytime soon and probably ever. And I was vaguely aware that they were pushing toward a more realistic sports-like feel, though obviously I understood that the wrong way. Optimally the Cody vs. Dustin thing would have been the style of most of the show, but instead it was a significant outlier.

Anyway, I acknowledge that I really should just forever give up on any notion that modern wrestling is ever going to be un-ruined.

Odd to not see a mention of Awesome Kong itt. Guess im still her main mark here.

My "oh damn" reaction post was with regard to her, but unfortunately that women's four-way just wasn't very good.

Just caught the surprise ending. I guess it's been a while since I've seen Jericho in the ring. What the hell happened to him. Looks like end of career Flair. Fat is Jericho.

He put on weight on purpose when he went to NJPW so he was bigger than the guys he was facing. He says...

He's really good, thought that when I first heard him on All in. I figured he'd be the best of the 3

Yeah, he's very good on all the PWG DVD's. I'm just glad Striker wasn't there and we didn't hear about Meltzer, stars, and insider references.

not the biggest fan of JR anymore, but he still brings the big fight feel type thing. I wish they were able to get the kid from ROH, I thought he did one hell of a job at All In, him and Excalibur and Callis were great..

Who was he facing? Sumos?

I honestly didn't think he looked that bad, but in my head he's looked like crap for a few years now. I looked up him at mania in like 2016 which is when I got back into wrestling and at the time thought he looked awful (it had been 10+ years) and he does look worse than that but I have no doubt he could lose it if he wanted to. I genuinely think he thinks it's a good thing for his character, the same for lots of other weird little things he's going to do and has been doing (i.e. face paint).

I think this forum is interesting in that it's seemingly (and I could be way off mark here) reasonably ITK older school fans of wrestling. I think it's interesting because I imagine you're the kind of people who AEW should be attempting to get on side if they want to take off and you all seem very luke warm about what was a good show and you have the same reaction to a lot of very good NXT PPVs.

I mean, they're almost certainly not going to back down from this flawed way of thinking that "more acrobatic" automatically equates to "better," so many of us are probably just not ever going to be the target market for their matches.

To the extent that they advertised themselves as something different, though...it sure doesn't seem like they're actually looking to break new ground in any meaningful way.

I was maybe a little too hard on the show. The highly choreographed, kickout-centric match just isn't my thing, but it's obviously what is cool right now in wrestling and tons of people love it. The show was a pretty big success for their first outing and it seems like they've created buzz which is huge. Beyond the questionable optics of focusing on ex-WWE guys, Jericho and Moxley send a message to a more casual audience that this is a legit competitor to be taken seriously.

I'm still a bit of a skeptic, just because it's not like it's some shocking revelation that the roster they have can put on an exciting PPV with a lot of big spots. I watch more for the characters and storytelling, which I assume is true of most of their potential audience, and this show didn't have much other than Dustin/Cody. So that's where I'm curious to see the weekly TV and how they handle the episodic format, filling TV time, etc.

I've never really watched the Young Bucks much and I'd maybe get it if that match is just them doing their spots and taking the other guys spots I get how that's a bit meh but I hadn't seen so much of that **** before and it was all pretty great. Some of those 2v1 spots on the ropes from both sides were done so well.

I don't know if you watched much of the interviews from people after the event but talk about kayfaybe being dead. Tony Khan in particular. From the interviews it did get me a bit worried that Jericho is going a bit mad with power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkFbjt69Akc

This forum as a whole does a really good job imo of looking at things without preconceived notions bringing bias into their views. It's why it was able to pick up on Jerichos last WWE run being entertaining while most other places were still in their "jericho is stuck in the past, is old, and has worn out his welcome" mentality. On the other end of the spectrum, it enables the forum to call PPVs from things we want to like bad such as some of the more recent NXT ppvs where it's just a bunch of high spots and kickouts with no real drama to any of the matches. We just ... kind of view things as they are instead of what we expect or want them to be.

As for AEW itself, they were always going to have the Meltzer lovers and WWE haters. Last night was their wet dream. Cody Rhodes beating up a HHH throne! Dean Ambrose being crazy! Kickouts! High spots! Blood everywhere! Chanting along to SCU calling your city bad!

To succeed long term - remember, TNA had a lot of hype initially too - you're gonna need the other 85% of the wrestling fandom. With the way they promoted their product it sounded like they were aware of that fact and so I was intrigued. They talked about a more realistic feel (which I took to mean less spamming high spots with no drama and more in ring storytelling). They talked about wins and losses mattering (which we've already seen Kenny Omega lose a title shot and thank his opponent and the run in participant for raising the stakes while zero people seemed to care about losing). They talked about better production values (which I took to mean less crowd shots during matches and less quick cuts that make me mildly nauseous). None of those things came to fruition. It was, as I said last night, like watching an ROH show. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with just being an indy fed backed by a wealthy wrestling fan. It just wasn't what I was hoping for long term - a true competitor to Vince.

It doesn't help that the promotions main event is going to be booked around people I don't really care about.

Cody was always fine and had spurts of showing promise for something great. But it's been years on the Indies now getting to do his own thing and I've yet to have seen a match from him that I felt I needed to tell others to check out.

Take what I said about cody, remove the part about showing promise for being something great, and that's how I feel about Hangman.

I think the only person in WWE over the last 18 months that was less interesting than Dean Ambrose was Finn Balor. I'm not talking about their promos or any creative decision that can be explained away by them not being allowed to do something. Just in their matches.

They said Neville was going to be a main player but he's already refused to attend an event because he doesn't want to job.

Kenny is great and I'm a big Jericho fan - even this version! - but they can't carry everything. They need more for me to be excited about.

That doesn't mean there isn't promising things. I enjoyed the second match on the preshow. I quite enjoyed the Chinese wrestlers and that 6 man tag was quite good before devolving into the "everyone run in to hit your move then get hit by one" nonsense that every wwe 6 man tag turns into. Justin Roberts is a great ring announcer. Excalibur is a great commentator. I quite liked the tag title match.

Last night notwithstanding, I'm a huge fan of TYB's. Their work in PWG, ROH, and NJPW is extremely good and I'd recommend checking out pretty much any match they've had in any of those three promotions.

I think you guys are being wayyyyy too critical. This was fine for what it was: a debut ppv by something that’s vying to be a new player

Ambrose could have been a main eventer, he was over as **** and was just a victim of horse**** writing/booking. He can definitely be a legitimate top star here

The problem is going to be if they oversaturate this with wwe mid carders or olds and it just becomes TNA 2.0. But if they are selective in the former wwe’rs they bring over and organically build the talent they have, it’s possible to grab a foothold

My wish list among former wwe’rs:
1. Barrett
2. Punk
3. Harper

That’s it

Barrett just seems a bit past it imo. Moreso in interest in the ring than anything.

Punk obviously huge pop but really? Nah. I missed his era so I don't get the hype and he's just shown by UFC he's a no-one.

Harper omgwowfapfapfapfap

I think that WWE has loads of people that would do great in AEW but I get the don't take the bathwater with the baby approach. Even with people who I think could be great (i.e. Apollo Crews) if you take two for every Zayn it's very soon just WWE.