SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Welcome everyone!
Four weeks after All Out and we have our second AEW PPV, WrestleDream, in a row that felt inconsequential. Predictable match after predictable match. Right up to, and including, that main event match. This was not a good showing for AEW. Before you get too mad, of course the in ring work was great. It always is, but like I said on the Dynamite Post Show with Wade Keller, 7 years in I want more than just good matches.
I get that this PPV build was weird due to the untimely death of Pac but, for me, that’s all the more reason to do something that might stand out on this PPV. I don’t want a hot shot angle or anything but just something to give AEW back that spark they had just a few months ago.
Let’s look at who I thought, actually, had a good week and who I felt did not.
RISING STAR OF THE WEEK
THE YOUNG BUCKS
RUNNER UP: KYLE FLETCHER & KEVIN NIGHT
I figured I would just combine my winner and runner up this week since they fought each other at WrestleDream. Not to mention the four of them had the match of the night, by far.
We need to relish every Bucks PPV match we get going forward because I don’t know how many more we are going to get. Then when they are against two wrestlers the caliber of Knight and Fletcher, come on.
Both teams went out there to steal the show and did. Even though it was predictable, right up to how Knight & Fletcher lost, I felt like the journey to get there was really fun and never dragged. Just another great PPV tag match from the Bucks.
Going forward, I thing we all know where the Bucks are headed, especially since it looked like Swerve and The New Level are going their separate ways. We are FINALLY going to get to see The Young Bucks vs. The New Level, something I have been wanting to see for ten years or more. I cannot wait.
For Fletcher, I laid this out last week: It’s time for him to move up the card. If that means the Continental Title, so be it, but I want him to eventually dethrone Ospreay.
For Knight, this one is a little harder to see where he is going. He could very easily slide right back into the TNT Title picture and it would work for him. While Fletcher is turn-key ready for the main event, Knight is about where Fletcher was two years ago and just needs to keep getting better.
FADING STAR OF THE WEEK
ANDRADE EL IDOLO
Erik Krol and Todd Martin are the first two members of the AEW’s “No Fun Club” (reference to the latest PWTorch VIP Post-PPV Roundtable) and I have put in my application to be the third. What are we watching with Andrade? This guy has the look, can go in the ring, and has the ability to come across well on the mic. Sadly, what we get is a guy who is enamored with a catch phrase, taking selfies during matches, and wrestled a triple threat each match because he has to fight his pants!
If you have read my column before, then you know what this means, Andrade is on Kazuchika Okada level for me. A bust. Okada lost me months ago, so even when he tried to turn it on, like the France match with Will Ospreay, it’s too late. I have lost faith in both.
Going forward, Andrade needs a curator to help him with certain things. Wade Keller and I laid out tiny tweaks to the selfie spot and his overused catchphrase in our Wade Keller Post-show after Dynamite last week. First, make the way he gets to the catchphrase seem more organic. Not what they did on Dynamite. Second, put the selfie spot during his entrance. Make it something everyone is looking forward to. Third, eliminate the pants spot completely.
RUNNER UP: Clockwork Carnage
I can be a fan of new stipulations in matches. I have seen the birth of several matches over my 30 years of watching wrestling. Some have become iconic – WarGames, Hell in a Cell, and TLC. Some have been the middle of the road but really good at times – Elimination Chamber and NWA Scaffolding matches. Others have been just terrible – Punjabi Prison Match, King of the Road, any item on a Pole match, Electric Steel Cage match(thank you TNA), and many many many more.
Clockwork Carnage may not be a part of the last group, but it’s definitely not a great new gimmick match. In fact, the match really felt like something TNA and Jeff Jarrett would have put together for Jarrett to win. Go back and watch early TNA if you think that’s hyperbole.
So Will Ospreay came up with this match concept. He was very proud of it. Unfortunately, like I said, all of it felt very “let’s just make up a new match, TNA-style.”
I thought I would enjoy the match despite its contrived set up. I even said as much last week on the Dynamite post-show with Wade. That was not the case. At no point did I ever feel like Ospreay would lose. Then, when he won in the last few seconds, I just rolled my eyes. A predictable ending to one of AEW’s most predictable PPVs ever.
