Week 2 of our nWo tribute act continues with Kenny Omega making a major announcement after his attack last week… and it turns out to be…
He’s a new character in Street Fighter 6… well, that was long overdue.
In all seriousness, Kenny’s in the ER, he thanks the Bucks for reminding him that this is business, and books Anarchy In The Ring for Double Or Nothing, a match between the Elite (Bucks, Okada, Jack Perry) against what he dubs Team AEW, which comprises Fuck The Revival, Eddie Kingston, and Bryan Danielson… because clearly, that guy has nothing better to do. Now I get Eddie’s beef with the Elite (Okada beat him for one of Eddie’s belts previously), but why is Danielson here other than he wants to kill himself again? I’d ask why Mox isn’t here, but I’m guessing that he’s going to be defending that IWGP title at the PPV.
Hey, you know what? I’ll give them this much; Anarchy In The Ring is going to be a fun time and it’s probably the best note to end the PPV rather than the Swerve/Cage World title match, which has me perplexed. So Swerve won the title and he gets beat up by Christian’s Patriarchy. And then a week later, Swerve gets beat up against by Brian Cage and the Embassy of Goofs that largely live on ROH television, but I guess they’re now part of AEW programming. So I guess next week, we can Swerve get beat up by the Geek Kingdom… and the week after, it’ll be Swerve getting beat up by the Dark Order… and then at the PPV, Swerve overcomes the odds to retain his title and we move on to the next thing that’ll make your reigning AEW World Champion – who is supposed to be THE FACE OF THE COMPANY – look like a total chump.
Speaking of which… poor Serena Deeb. She’s been trotted out here as the next “babyface” challenger to Timeless Toni’s title, talking about all the hardships and injuries she’s suffered to get to this point, and the Edmonton crowd doesn’t care because they like Timeless Toni. Edmonton can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned… but seriously, people are cheering for Toni, but they’re still booking her as a heel while all her challengers are made to look like total goofs. If the roles had been reversed and Deeb could continue to be the hard-ass heel making a mockery out of Toni before she gets her comeuppance, that’d be one thing… but no, let’s have Toni toss money in Deeb’s face, which the crowd cheers. Let’s have Deeb KO Toni with a punch, which the crowd boos… although I will note that Toni took that punch like she got shot in the head.
Willow cuts a promo and she’s all charming and charismatic while promising to make Mercedes’ night a living hell… and then later Mercedes comes along to cut the same tired promo she’s been cutting all her career. More than enough to satisfy the Sasha Stans that still exist, but… she left WWE due to creative differences… and now here she is at AEW to do more of the same lousy shit she did in WWE… and apparently, she has the same writer doing her verbiage. Dude, at least TRY to be a bit more original and not just rehash the same shit people were tired of seeing years ago.
The Chris Jericho Learning Tree stuff is a thing… he confuses Edmonton for Calgary… could’ve been worse, he could have called them Vancouver or even Toronto. Those would’ve been fine burns as well… but yeah, I’m still not sold on this shit.
You’ll note that I have not mentioned any of the matches and… well, the matches were just fine. Copeland/Brody King was a bit of fun, Trent/Orange was alright, and there was a women’s match that I completely forgot about, but that’s the most I could say about this show, which wasn’t inspiring me with much confidence. This Elite nWo tribute act isn’t working for me. It comes across as a bit of a parody, there’s no reason for me to care about, and once again, your reigning AEW World champion looks like a chump. Is it any wonder why I stick with Impact for my weekly viewing?
I’ll give this show one more week, but after that… moving on to something else.
dtm666 