Category: AEW PPV Musings

All the AEW PPV Musings

AEW All Out 2022

Three years ago, All Elite Wrestling was born. And with it came a newfound hope for the wrestling audience who grew tired of the same, tired WWE nonsense that they’ve been watching for years. This new promotion, comprising some new faces along with some familiar ones, would immediately make waves, be the talk of the town, and become somewhat noticeable. So much so when WWE moved their weekly NXT show off the WWE Network and onto USA in an effort to curtail AEW’s new Dynamite show, AEW’s show trounced NXT on a weekly basis, with NXT only scoring a few wins here and there. It seemed like for the first time in years, there was competition on the mainstream level and another choice on the dial for disenchanted wrestling fans who grew tired of WWE to check out.

For three years, AEW was the new hotness.

All of a sudden, Vince McMahon had retired from WWE due to some controversial circumstances and the creative reigns fall upon ol’ McSon-In-Law himself, Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Things start turning around for WWE; ratings slowly start to creep their way upwards, fans are excited about the product, reviews have been positive. All of a sudden, WWE is no longer the tired brand that it had been for years; it was a fresh WWE with gained momentum on its side. Just one night before AEW would hold its fourth annual All Out PPV, WWE held its Clash At The Castle “premium” live event and it turned out to be a banger of a show that I’ve had rather nice things to say about. And that wave of momentum continues to this day, despite the return of Vince to the WWE Board.

For the first time since its inception, AEW no longer felt like the cool kids. They were still putting out good shows, but their booking has been spotty as of late. Rumors of backstage dissention and general unhappiness had run rampant, and Tony Khan looked to be a man on the verge of a mental breakdown. One needs look towards the build to this All Out show, which did not have a featured main event until the week before. As a result – not counting any of the Tony Khan-owned ROH shows and not counting the Forbidden Door PPV, which was a joint thing with New Japan Pro Wrestling – All Out 2022 was the first major AEW PPV that I skipped due to lack of interest, which seemed almost impossible three years earlier.

Then the media scrum happened… and we’ll touch on that in a little bit, but first, the All Out PPV, which I was able to watch recently and… let’s continue.

Continue reading “AEW All Out 2022”

AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door (June 2022 PPV)

First off, hope you all had a fine holiday and new year. Second off, I want to give a quick thanks to my old buddy who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, for he was able to put together a sweet little DVD package allowing me to watch the last three AEW PPVs that I missed out on last year, including Full Gear, Forbidden Door, and the highly controversial All Out PPV.

So we’ll be covering these PPVs for the next couple weeks, starting with the AEW/New Japan crossover show, Forbidden Door; which took place a few weeks after AEW’s Double Or Nothing PPV. I wasn’t exactly sold on the concept, plus key people I would’ve liked to have seen on the show were out with injuries, and so my interest waned and I skipped out on the show. It turned out to be the first AEW show that I had missed, though it wouldn’t be the last.

Now that I’ve seen the show, did I miss out or not? Let’s find out.

Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara & Minoru Suzuki defeated Eddie Kingston, Shota Umino & Wheeler Yuta in a tremendous opening six-man contest.
ROH Tag Champions  FTR defeated IWPG Tag Champions Great O-Khan & Jeff Robb and Roppongi Vice in a Winners Take All 3-way to retain their ROH titles as well as win the IWGP titles, thus beginning a long, long, long, long, long, long, LONG road to FTR going after the AEW titles so they can hold them all. I think they are still waiting for their shots as we speak.
Pac defeated Miro, Malakai Black, & New Japan guy Clark Connors to win the inaugural AEW All-Atlantic International World Western States Heritage championship in a four-way match. Someone else from New Japan was supposed to be here, but he got injured and they slapped in Clark Connors in there. Honestly, they should’ve stuck with a three-way between the AEW guys, but someone had to take the fall and poor Clark was our victim de match.
Sting, Darby Allin & Shingo Takagi defeated The Young Bucks & El Phantasmo in a fun six-man that featured Sting doing a dive off the entrance stage on top of the bucks and that other guy.
AEW Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa defeated Toni Storm to retain the title. We needed a women’s match and New Japan didn’t have a proper women’s division (does STARDOM count? Honest question) so we got this, which looks so out of place that it stands out automatically, which is incredible. The match itself was a thing that happened. Nothing particularly noteworthy.
IWGP United States Champion Will Ospreay defeated Orange Cassidy in a pretty good match to retain the title. This is followed by a beatdown from Ospreay’s mates.
The debuting Claudio Castagnoli defeated New Japan’s Zack Sabre Jr in a good match. This was supposed to be Danielson, but he was hurt, so we got Claudio. Good pop for Claudio.
IWGP World Champion Jay White defeated Adam Cole, Hangman Page, and Kazuchika Okada to retain the title in a four way.
 Jon Moxley defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win the AEW Interim World Championship – a.k.a. I’m keeping the belt warm until reigning champ CM Punk comes back so that I can kick his ass on a random episode of Dynamite.
Forbidden Door had great wrestling and was a good showcase of some New Japan guys to the AEW audience who normally wouldn’t watch that stuff – though the crossover is obviously there. This was a show that if all you wanted was great wrestling and a chance to see some New Japan guys outside of New Japan, then this was the show for you. But watching this months after the fact, I never felt that I missed out on anything more than some great wrestling. Despite the hype and the crossover, this didn’t feel like a big deal. It was, for all intents and purposes, an AEW B-Show PPV event similar to the old Fyter Fest and Fight For The Fallen shows from 2019, except those were free.
That said, if they do another one of these next years, maybe I’ll be more inclined to watch it then, but it depends on the context and the matches offered… and no more of this interim garbage, okay?

AEW Double Or Nothing 2022

This past Sunday, WWE held their annual Hell In A Cell PPV event featuring another Cody vs. Seth match… I didn’t watch it, but I did finish watching the AEW PPV, so let’s talk about that, instead.
In all seriousness, folks, I’m sorry that the musings took a week longer than usual, but considering I had other plans during that particular weekend that prevented me from catching the show live – not to mention the ridiculous running time that meant having to break this down to smaller sessions over the course of several nights – it makes sense that I held off posting the musings until I was good and ready to talk about this show.

Continue reading “AEW Double Or Nothing 2022”

AEW Revolution 2022

You know… it just occurred to me that I have yet to comment on the AEW Revolution PPV that took place back in March. So let’s rectify that because I need a primer before I jump into Double Or Nothing this weekend, which is looking to be a banger of a PPV.
So did this, by the way. And no, there was no exploding bomb in this one. Then again, there wasn’t one in the last show, but at least they didn’t advertise it this time around.

Continue reading “AEW Revolution 2022”

AEW Double Or Nothing 2021

Yeah, I know… it’s a little late, but other stuff came up, as they usually do on Sundays. Besides, you can afford one less DON musings among many others on Monday, so whatever…

For what it’s worth, I saw the show the night after but avoided spoilers for the most part… but yeah, the first AEW PPV with a full crowd and following a go-home show that is the first of several to be pre-empted to the Friday night death slot for the month of June due to playoffs and all, which is going to suck tremendously… but that’s another story for another time.

Right now, let’s just enjoy this AEW show, which has a bunch of big matches, fun matches, and whatever the hell Cody Rhodes is doing.

Continue reading “AEW Double Or Nothing 2021”