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AEW in Summer 2022: This was supposed to be the Summer of Punk.

King Kamala

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I'm somewhere between Useless Moron Scott Keith and CWM (the two pillars of Western Canadian internet wrestling criticism) in terms of my excitement level. This show will probably good as hell and a make good for G1 Supercard but I agree with Kotz that it has major one off vibes. I'm fine with hardcore fanboy service. Summer is generally a dead time of year for pro wrestling and we're over two months away from the next pay per view. Not everything has to be crucial, career defining storylines. Sometimes, fun sidequests are OK!
 

909

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I'm not particularly excited for the show and am looking at it like ECW's One Night Stand 2005 where the entire crowd is going to know everything about everyone and cheer them like gods. It's an interesting one-off curiosity. Those are fun to watch even if I don't know who most NJPW people are. One thing I can say in the build is that nothing has made me say "hmm, I should give that other company a look."

The best part of the show being this weekend is that AEW can sort of return to business afterward and hopefully sort out a rhythm again. It's been rough lately.
This isn’t a one off. It feels like nobody is getting that part, or that they don’t want to. Given how many of the workers want to work over there this is more like something people better get used to or watch something else.

The build hasn’t been totally ideal because of injuries, but they’ll iron that out in the future.
 

RedJed

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I thought the matches added last night really put this card to a whole other level of greatness. Before last night, the card was certainly not as strong as I was hoping, but they did good on the last week build on it. Particularly getting Shingo and Hiromu in was a nice addition (where the fuck is Naito/Sanada though?!!).

To be a bit critical, even though the IWGP title four way will be likely great, I do wonder if maybe doing two single matches (Page/Okada and Cole/White) instead would have been better overall? It's nitpicking though really as this card is loaded already with 10 matches, and I wouldn't be shocked if they even add another one on Rampage. I LOVE the idea of Desperado/Kanemaru vs Lee/Swerve by the way.

My first initial thought, like I think most had, was that they gotta be bring Cesaro/Claudio in finally. This is a new talent debuting in AEW according to the promo so it almost seems like a lock it has to be him. That will be an amazing match if that happens!

I'm fucking so pumped to get to Chicago this weekend for this show, words can't give it justice. We got pretty great lower level seats, right in front of the ring, row 6!
 

King Kamala

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I sort of misspoke, I guess when I termed Sunday's show as a one-off. Obviously (or at least hopefully), there'll be more AEW x NJPW shows but I'm looking them more as occasional All Star Game type shows than WrestleKingdom level events. More Survivor Series than WrestleMania to put it another way.
 

Sex Machine Gun

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This isn’t a one off. It feels like nobody is getting that part, or that they don’t want to. Given how many of the workers want to work over there this is more like something people better get used to or watch something else.

The build hasn’t been totally ideal because of injuries, but they’ll iron that out in the future.
The buyrate will be interesting. I see somewhere around the earliest AEW PPVs happening, 70k or so.
 

cobainwasmurdered

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This is going to have storyline implications and wrestlers are going to be showing up in both companies more still. They're merging the roh/njpw tag belts. They're telegraphing a bunch of things.

Also what was the problem with G1 Supercard? Cobb Vs Ospreay, Bandido Vs Ishimori Vs Dragon Lee, Sabre Vs Tanahashi, Naito Vs Ibushi, Okada Vs Jay White. It was a loaded show.
 

Epic Springs

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All the ROH exclusive stuff stunk (Matt Taven winning the world title lol) not to mention the Cass and Enzo stunt. It put the nail on the coffin for the ROH/NJPW relationship and made the latter reluctant to work with another American company again. All the New Japan stuff was good.
 

cobainwasmurdered

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njpw did 15k buys in the US for a WK before it had done any tours or any tv presence in the country. I think this show will do just fine but even if it doesn't they introduced a ton of new guys to the audience that they will be using over the next several years and started to get them over. It's a process.
 

AA484

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I normally read SK's review for the hell of it, just to get an idea about what went down. He has been pretty pro-AEW for the most part, but isn't a fan of this PPV. Here is what he said about it (basically only so I can see CWM and 909 rip the quote apart)

This should have been the easiest layup this side of the WCW Invasion and instead we’re faced with a show where I seriously wouldn’t even order it if I wasn’t reviewing it. I’m not intrigued by anything on it and the only result that even matters, in the main event, is ridiculously obvious. The rest is like, who cares? I’m sure it’ll be good wrestling, but I can get good wrestling already. This is not what I want out of the product and Forbidden Door is a huge whiff already. Throwing a million new people on the show with no build and then expecting me to pay $50 for a PPV featuring them is, frankly, a bit insulting.

Do better, AEW.
 

King Kamala

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It's a process.
Yeah, I think people are so used to stagnant products (WWE and to a lesser extent, past decade of ROH before TK saved them) that they forgot what a developing and evolving product looks like. AEW is not in its finished form. Heck, look how much its changed since 2019!
 

Sex Machine Gun

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You don't know AEW marks until you read DVDVR but even some of them conceded that last night's go-home show was too crowded. I expected that place to be swimming in jizz leading up to this weekend and while there's excitement for sure it isn't that fever pitch. I bring this up because they're AEW's most hardcore audience to a T.
 

Epic Springs

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I am curious about Naito's absence from this card. It's the thing that stands out most to me.
 

King Kamala

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I normally read SK's review for the hell of it, just to get an idea about what went down. He has been pretty pro-AEW for the most part, but isn't a fan of this PPV. Here is what he said about it (basically only so I can see CWM and 909 rip the quote apart)
I'm fine with "I don't know who these guys are!" from casuals and even people who post here but Useless Moron Scott Keith's paid to write about professional wrestling! If you're not going to be a good writer, at least know the product! That's how Meltzer's stayed in business for 40 years!
 

tekcop

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I think it looks like a fun show, but I don't really like multi-corner matches and there are 3 on this show. And one of them involves Adam Cole. I'll check it out later, but it's not something I'd pay for.
 

909

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I normally read SK's review for the hell of it, just to get an idea about what went down. He has been pretty pro-AEW for the most part, but isn't a fan of this PPV. Here is what he said about it (basically only so I can see CWM and 909 rip the quote apart)

Him pretending that he doesn't know who these people are just so that he can complain is p hilarious tbh. Let's look at what happened to most of these matches.

Punk match - ruined by injury
Moxley match - changed from whatever it was going to be due to Punk's injury
ZSJ vs Bryan - ruined by injury
Adam Cole match - build changed by injury
Sting's match - build changed by injury to the point they could only just now confirm the match
Andrade and Lucha Bros - banned from show outta nowhere
Orange Cassidy - just cleared from injury last week
Hardys who were gonna be tag champs and certainly in a match - lol nope

Sanada's hurt too but I don't know if he was going to be on the show anyway.

Like how can anyone be so stupid as to not see the pattern here? This is a show where hurdles had to keep being jumped in order to make it happen. But regardless, this is a show that's all about the wrestling. If you don't care, it seems like they don't care, but what AEW is not gonna do is spoonfeed anyone. You either like it or don't and they don't care and they'll keep doing whatever they want. That's what they've been doing for two of the last three years and its worked so far.

And almost all these injuries came from putting on great matches that people liked, killing themselves for the fans entertainment, so I would again say to get over it.
 

909

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Also to the point about the WCW invasion, did this guy think all these New Japan factions should put their feuds aside and invade? Cause lol that would have been much worse.
 

Dandy

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Put me in the group that thinks this is by no means a “one off.” Not even just an annual show, but more. I think there will be a decent little crossover with this and ROH thrown in to add something to all three companies.
 

909

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Also, lastly, I think it's time for my favorite analogy. AEW has literally countless times now advertised NJPW shows. They've also had a lot of NJPW wrestlers on their shows. AEW advertised almost every show Mox was on since KENTA attacked him, they advertised G1 when Mox was in it, they advertised Dominion, the shows with the All-Atlantic tournament matches, they advertised Best of the Super Juniors with Yuta, Capital Collision, the ECW Arena card, couple NJPW Strong tapings, etc I could go on for a while. A lot of these wrestlers have been on Impact too, and they had the three way cross-promotion tie-in with Gallows and Anderson. I don't wanna hear this man.

People who are complaining about not knowing talent, it's like walking through the desert. It's like someone told them there was water in this spot, here, here, there, here, etc. And then they walk past all those spots without stopping and complain that they don't have any water. Bitch what? They already tried to introduce all these people to you, you didn't want to find out. Complain about yourself. They are recommending great wrestling shows to you and you don't watch them. Whose fault is that? I have no sympathy for this outlook. It's not a sin for AEW to expect that their fans love wrestling as much as AEW does. I actually find this very endearing, it's totally the opposite of how I feel I've been treated as a fan by every company other than AEW and New Japan. Maybe I'm more willing to forgive because of it.
 

tekcop

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I really like that this isn't some stupid "us vs. them" invasion angle. It's just two companies working together, putting together some interesting matchups. Since this likely isn't a one-off thing at all, it's just a way to show that these two promotions exist in the same universe and kick off new programs going forward.

Complaining about not knowing the wrestlers also doesn't make sense, because the selling point is that you already know who these people are. I love Tanahashi, but he's 45 years old, moves like Matt Hardy, and doesn't speak English. A month on TV isn't going to make anyone a new fan. Fans only care about Okada because we know he's New Japan's ace and they've either watched or at least are aware of his career.

One complaint I do have is that a lot of the NJPW guys have big personalities and haven't been able to show it much. Non-Japanese speakers get to cut fun promos backstage with subtitles in Japan. I wonder how something like that would go over in the US?
 

Broward83

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One complaint I do have is that a lot of the NJPW guys have big personalities and haven't been able to show it much. Non-Japanese speakers get to cut fun promos backstage with subtitles in Japan. I wonder how something like that would go over in the US?
A good majority of non-AEW/non-NJPW fans making racist comments and going "Okay-duh?! The fook is this guy? I'm watching American wrestling, I don't wanna hear no 'ching-chong-ching' shit on my TV.."
 

tekcop

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A good majority of non-AEW/non-NJPW fans making racist comments and going "Okay-duh?! The fook is this guy? I'm watching American wrestling, I don't wanna hear no 'ching-chong-ching' shit on my TV.."
I don't think you're wrong. But they're not the target audience.
 

909

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Complaining about not knowing the wrestlers also doesn't make sense, because the selling point is that you already know who these people are. I love Tanahashi, but he's 45 years old, moves like Matt Hardy, and doesn't speak English. A month on TV isn't going to make anyone a new fan. Fans only care about Okada because we know he's New Japan's ace and they've either watched or at least are aware of his career.

You know what’s bad though? This is a source of a lot of the complaints. I think maybe I underestimated how many post-2019 fans converted to being AEW fans during the pandemic, but they’ve advertised New Japan so much in the last year plus that there’s absolutely no excuse. They can’t expect that the entire wrestling world revolves around them and expect AEW to treat their fans like idiots and slow roll all these established wrestlers. They did more than their job in trying to prepare people for this.
 

cobainwasmurdered

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sanada isn't injured (he worked two days ago) but he and Naito were probably going to do something with the Lucha Bros based on the card/logic. With that canceled it makes sense to give Naito a chance to rest up before the G1.


AEW + NJPW is going to inspire the most insipid hot takes from the internet at large. People like SK are useless morons (I'm going to add that filter again). Others are just racists. None of them are really worth paying attention too. It's a sad reminder that Dave Meltzer actually is one of the better and more unbiased (although not the best and still biased!) in wrestling.
 
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