Wrestling tropes AEW leans on a little too much

[Deleted]

1. Heel stable beatdowns.  It drives me insane when Kenny Omega, who was a member of Bullet Club, the most "heel stable beatdown" heel stable since the NWO, walks right into every trap the BCC places.  It's like babyfaces in AEW lose 20 IQ points the moment they stop being heels. 

2. tournaments.  I love the G1 and King of the Ring as much as anyone else, but I'm trying to think of the last time they went more than 3 months without some kind of tournament. 

[Fade is a CodyCryBaby]

Insane move no one could ever kick out of only to be kicked out of.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Excalibur running down match cards until sparks fly out of his eyes

(Still funny though)

[schizo]

Definitely agree on the tournament trope

Having THREE ongoing tournaments at the same time is absolutely overkill for me and it’s what turned me off the product this past month

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Jul 15, 2023 1:08:32 GMT -5 schizo said:

Definitely agree on the tournament trope

Having THREE ongoing tournaments at the same time is absolutely overkill for me and it’s what turned me off the product this past month

The tournament matches have been absolutely fantastic if it's any consolation

MJF/Cole is also absolutely making the Blind Tag worth it, it's set up a much more interesting dynamic for their relationship/feud and it wouldn't have happened as organically otherwise imo, so the Blind Eliminator definitely helped in that regard.

[Some Guy]

-Women's heel title reigns/interefence: both Britt and Toni's reigns have been Seth Rollins heel title reigns driven to the extreme with interference, so I suppose non Jade heel women's title reigns fit into this. Jade's also had some interference, just nowhere near as bad as those two.

-Overly long feuds: sometimes this pays off (like Hangman/Kenny), but other times you get the Jericho/Eddie, Jericho/Ricky, Scorpio Sky/Sammy, Gunns/Acclaimed, and the ongoing Britt/Saraya feud which is now in its 10th month

-Sticking to the plan no matter what: this is most evident in the ending of title reigns but specifically Jade's reign was so beyond stale by the time Statlander finally won that it feels like her reign has still never gotten off the ground. That along with Britt's reign becoming horrendous just because they had to wait to have her drop it to Rosa in her hometown, and having Acclaimed drop the tag titles when they were still such a hot act to the Gunns as a transition to the FTR reign they inevitably planned on which has finally gotten going after several months. Tony is just REALLY stubborn with his plans.

[dynamitekidd]

Those freaking title eliminator matches.

[mrbananagrabber]

Jul 14, 2023 23:50:18 GMT -5 Fade is a CodyCryBaby said:

Insane move no one could ever kick out of only to be kicked out of.

Absolutely this.

[A Platypus Rave]

Jul 15, 2023 2:06:50 GMT -5 Some Guy said:

-Sticking to the plan no matter what: this is most evident in the ending of title reigns but specifically Jade's reign was so beyond stale by the time Statlander finally won that it feels like her reign has still never gotten off the ground. That along with Britt's reign becoming horrendous just because they had to wait to have her drop it to Rosa in her hometown, and having Acclaimed drop the tag titles when they were still such a hot act to the Gunns as a transition to the FTR reign they inevitably planned on which has finally gotten going after several months. Tony is just REALLY stubborn with his plans.

This is absolutely AEW's biggest issue.

They decide what the plan is and that's what we're going to do... even if we need to leave a storyline in a holding pattern for years to get what we want.

It seriously derailed Adam Cole's momentum when he first came in since they were clearly setting up an Undisputed vs. Elite storyline... but kenny was out... they stuck to this plan so damned long that Bobby Fish was let go before they half assedly pulled the trigger due to the fact that the entire UE got injured in the mean time.

[KME]

Jul 14, 2023 23:29:37 GMT -5 @thelongandtheshort said:

1. Heel stable beatdowns.  It drives me insane when Kenny Omega, who was a member of Bullet Club, the most "heel stable beatdown" heel stable since the NWO, walks right into every trap the BCC places.  It's like babyfaces in AEW lose 20 IQ points the moment they stop being heels. 

2. tournaments.  I love the G1 and King of the Ring as much as anyone else, but I'm trying to think of the last time they went more than 3 months without some kind of tournament. 

Unless you're counting the Pillars Tournament, which only had 4 competitors and 2 matches, their last tournament before these current ones was the one Starks won just after Full Gear, so like 8 months ago, seems like something they started cutting back on until very recently and even that can be excused to some degree given the Owen is a yearly tournament. They were definitely overusing them in 2022 though, it seemed like back then that a new tournament would start as soon as another finished. They were also probably overusing PPV type names for Dynamites as well and have cut right back on that too so they seem aware of tropes they overused.

I think they overdo it on Battle Royale's and definitely agree that Tony is too rigid on doing whatever his original plan was, slightly worried about how the MJF/Cole thing goes because I feel like Tony will just go whatever was originally mapped out rather than react to how popular they are together and hold off a bit.

[Hypnosis]

Jul 15, 2023 2:58:35 GMT -5 dynamitekidd said:

Those freaking title eliminator matches.

Agreed.  The challenger should only face the champion when the title's on the line.

[lucas_lee]

Post match beatdowns

Too much interference in consecutive segments/matches.

[ppl591]

Tournaments and battle royal or casino battle royals. Just way too many. I user to be excited by the occasional battle royal but I'm just over it at this point. And it feels like there's always a tournament or trials of jericho or punk or cody going on. I don't care about the match quality I am utterly sick of them

[mrpeacock]

Jul 15, 2023 7:58:45 GMT -5 KME said:

Jul 14, 2023 23:29:37 GMT -5 @thelongandtheshort said:

1. Heel stable beatdowns.  It drives me insane when Kenny Omega, who was a member of Bullet Club, the most "heel stable beatdown" heel stable since the NWO, walks right into every trap the BCC places.  It's like babyfaces in AEW lose 20 IQ points the moment they stop being heels. 

2. tournaments.  I love the G1 and King of the Ring as much as anyone else, but I'm trying to think of the last time they went more than 3 months without some kind of tournament. 

Unless you're counting the Pillars Tournament, which only had 4 competitors and 2 matches, their last tournament before these current ones was the one Starks won just after Full Gear, so like 8 months ago, seems like something they started cutting back on until very recently and even that can be excused to some degree given the Owen is a yearly tournament. They were definitely overusing them in 2022 though, it seemed like back then that a new tournament would start as soon as another finished. They were also probably overusing PPV type names for Dynamites as well and have cut right back on that too so they seem aware of tropes they overused.

I think they overdo it on Battle Royale's and definitely agree that Tony is too rigid on doing whatever his original plan was, slightly worried about how the MJF/Cole thing goes because I feel like Tony will just go whatever was originally mapped out rather than react to how popular they are together and hold off a bit.

AEW has been running for a little over 4 years and has done 21 tournaments including the current 3 running. Plus they’ve done TEN, Casino battle royals (4 men’s, 2 women’s, 3 Tag Team, 1 Trios) . That’s not even counting standard battle royals. Looking back on it that’s pretty crazy.

[SneakMan]

Ever since AEW got rid of the rankings, they’ve been relying way too much on “challenger gets a title shot based on either calling out or attacking the champion.” The rankings were not perfect but I miss #1 Contendership matches. I miss undercard matches having a purpose, even if it’s a main event guy vs a midcarder where the outcome is obvious.

[Allie Kitsune]

I kind of don't like the concept of Eliminator matches, because they don't necessarily _eliminate_.

If they're going to be "eliminators", then if the person who isn't champion loses, they shouldn't be allowed to challenge for that title again _at all_ as long as the person they lost to is champion.

[Cyno]

I wish they would've gone with a happy medium between maintaining the creative handcuffing of the ranking system and what they have now.

[Mid-Carder]

Heels women's champions needing loads of interference to win every time

[Bang Bang Bart]

MJF making people fighting him fight through a gauntlet of opponents before getting to him.

[kingoftheindies]

Jul 15, 2023 12:51:12 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

I kind of don't like the concept of Eliminator matches, because they don't necessarily _eliminate_.

If they're going to be "eliminators", then if the person who isn't champion loses, they shouldn't be allowed to challenge for that title again _at all_ as long as the person they lost to is champion.

Funny enough doing the FTR BCG match Kevin and Nigel stressed that that was the stipulation of the Eliminator match