So it’s BLOOD AND GUTS III… featuring the All-New, All-Different ELITE (Bucks, OKADA, Hangman Page, and Jack Perry) up against the AEW team of reigning World Champion Swerve Strickland, reigning ROH Champion Mark Briscoe, resident Crazy Man DARBY ALLIN… and the Acclaimed. All due respect to the Acclaimed – they are/were an entertaining act – but two of these things are not like the other. And if you want to toss Jack Perry into the mix, then make it three.
It’s been no secret that the build up to Blued and Goots has been underwhelming. The EVP Elite storyline that’s been going on is kinda lame, Jack Perry comes across as more of a geek than the next big star in the company whose push is seemingly designed as a proverbial FU to Phil, who is apparently much happier in WWE these days when he isn’t getting injured. And other than the World Champion and maybe Darby Allin, the team opposing your big heel faction seems to be pulled out of a hat. Are we that low on big stars that we need to fit the Acclaimed in there? Again, no disrespect intended, but they didn’t exactly get me hyped for this match.
And when all was said and done… well, the match was already, but as others have noted, the ending was underwhelming.
The ending of the match came when Jack Perry was cuffed to the side of the cage and took an unprotected head shot from a chair, which you don’t see often because of the concussion issues. Of course, the last time AEW did an unprotected head shot to try and sell a wrestling angle, people were pissed at the company as opposed to the guy doing it. Anyway, so ol’ Jungle Jack is hung to dry and Darby douses a can of gasoline all over the fellow. Jack is defiant. Jack will not quit. One of the Bucks, however, not only quits the match, but offers Darby a TNT title match at All In. So now, that’s a thing.
I’ll be honest; this was a really underwhelming match. Part of it is the lack of excitement due to the fact that the driving story behind this thing feels tacked on and unearned. Part of it is a lack of focus on the Swerve/Hangman feud that everyone seems to feel is the hot thing right now and you wanna know something? I’ve said that I was opposed to Swerve/Hangman getting the All In main event because I’ve already seen it… and a part of that is due to the fear of this becoming another John Cena/Randy Orton situation where they put that match out so often that it starts to feel like a clutch and oh boy, here we go again… but you know what? I turned a corner on that because right now, that is the hottest thing they’ve got. They should be getting a big match together and in a perfect world, the ending should’ve reflected that so we could build towards a potential title match at Wembley.
But instead of that, we’ve got Swerve vs. Bryan Danielson for the World Title at All In and from all accounts, Danielson looks like he is already done. He hasn’t appeared in weeks to promote this match and whenever he does get interview time, he comes across as the most laid-back, ambivalent wrestler on the platnet talking about how he doesn’t really need or want the World title or looking forward to life after this full-time contract is up. For someone who is supposed to be one of the smartest guys in wrestling, he doesn’t seem to understand that a match of this magnitude on a show of this magnitude needs a bit more enthusiasm to get people excited. For fuck’s sake, when JEFF JARRETT – who isn’t even in the fucking match and in hindsight, might’ve been a better choice – does a better job of cutting an impassioned promo to build up this World title match than the guy who’s actually in the match, there is something seriously wrong here. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Brandon Cutler vs. Peter Avalon on AEW Dark had a better build and storyline than this AEW WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE BOUT AT ALL IN FROM WEMBLEY STADIUM.
Think about that for one bloody second, you fucking muppet!
In other news, MJF has dumped the AEW All-Atlantic International Big Gold Western States Heritage Championship in the trash and introduced his own AMERICAN Championship, which looks oddly American… and is also a better looking U.S. Title type thing than whatever the fuck WWE has at the moment. This eventually draws out Will Ospreay, who challenges MJF to a rematch at All In before plucking the belt he lost last week out of the trash, so I guess he’s the champion again and… why?
Britt Baker wrestled her first match in a year or so, submitting Hikaru Shida in a match that was a thing that happened. I’m not going to be too harsh; it’s been a while since Britt has had a match and no doubt, she hadn’t found her footing. After the match, Mercedes comes out and refuses to accept Britt’s All In challenge, but then the brickhouse known as Kamille comes out of hibernation and womanhandles poor Britt to really show off that impressive size… until Mercedes struts in with her high heels and reveals that they’re both the same height… as a loud, tiny man is fond of saying, why is this so goddamned hard?
And then at one of those Comicon things, Tony Khan officially booked the match anyway after an altercation… I wonder if they’ll show this on TV… on a show people actually watch…
Chris Jericho retains his FTW title over Minoru Suzuki, who does the usual Minoru Suzuki stuff he usually does before eventually losing. By this point, you’ve seen enough Murder Grandpas stuff that you know what to expect and since it’s Chris Jericho, of course nothing is going to come of this and we get to continue this ridiculous learning tree stuff. I honestly don’t understand the appeal of this. It’s stupid and not a good kind of stupid.
So that was Blood And Guts III, an unsurprisingly underwhelming show that continues its limp dick build towards All In. We’ve been on this road before because I recall not being excited about last year’s All In build either… but then that was the first time out and you’d be willing to give it some slack if the final product was worth a damn… and it was despite some drama. This year’s show, however… what’s there to be genuinely excited about? Swerve/Danielson feels like a nothing match when it should be the biggest thing on the card, Timeless Toni defending against Mariah May does nothing for me – and neither does Mariah May after that one hot turn that resulted in a ho-hum promo segment and an even more ho-hum jobber match. MJF vs Ospreay… eh. Britt vs. Mercedes… eh. And they’re teasing another FTR vs. Young Bucks match… yippee. Hey, Tony? I don’t know if you recall, but the Acclaimed have a guaranteed tag title match that they should be cashing in any time soon… surely, this would have been a good place to have that match, no?
Right now, I’m more excited for TNA going forward than whatever’s going on with AEW right now. Joe Hendry’s pursuit of the World title…
…and getting curtailed by that dastardly Canadian bastard Josh Alexander is something to look forward. I’m curious to see where Nic Nemeth goes with his TNA title run, and what other NXT spares will show up to spice up the show a bit?
Actually, you know what? Forget that. There’s a Joe Hendry concert on NXT. That might be enough to give NXT a watch for once… we’ll see about that one.
dtm666 