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Post by eJm on Jul 29, 2021 5:42:13 GMT -5
I think that's just it. Right now, it's harder to tell because a) it's the first time AEW did an ending like this and b) the story isn't over so there's nothing to base it off yet. Like, it feels like it could go either way but it's not like with other companies where they have a built-in precedence and history and it's not fair to compare them to AEW (Yet) because they're so young. This could be the biggest deal in the company so far or it could be Jarrett/Raven. I assume/hope Khan and the EVPs know what they’re doing in delaying gratification until (presumably) September 5th. Oh, same. The track record is more positive but again, this isn't something they've done before so it could go either way.
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Post by eJm on Jul 29, 2021 5:43:18 GMT -5
I will also say...
The entrances were perfection.
Like, I don't think there was anything I'd change from either side.
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Post by polarbearpete on Jul 29, 2021 5:44:26 GMT -5
That’s where I’m at. I don’t think anything was ruined moving forward for the storyline but the ending was completely deflating and took me and the crowd out of the show. AEW has typically built to moments like this that are predictable and satisfying and then delivered in a big way. This seemed like a departure from their storytelling norm. As Dork also said though there is a magic to that. There's an emotional attachment there AEW can now use and build Hangman up even stronger. Same with Dark Order. This was their failure and now they have to get back up. It was deflating and it was a deviation from their norm... then again many people believe AEW can be a bit too predictable sometimes. A lot of people didn't see this coming... and they can make it special if they play their cards right. Sure moving forward there are still a bunch of ways to make the storyline work long term. I do think it was overly deflating and placed improperly as the opener, as it completely took the crowd and the viewer out of the show. So for the long term storyline they can still make it work, but it definitely hurt the show last night.
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Post by eJm on Jul 29, 2021 5:45:47 GMT -5
As Dork also said though there is a magic to that. There's an emotional attachment there AEW can now use and build Hangman up even stronger. Same with Dark Order. This was their failure and now they have to get back up. It was deflating and it was a deviation from their norm... then again many people believe AEW can be a bit too predictable sometimes. A lot of people didn't see this coming... and they can make it special if they play their cards right. Sure moving forward there are still a bunch of ways to make the storyline work long term. I do think it was overly deflating and placed improperly as the opener, as it completely took the crowd and the viewer out of the show. So for the long term storyline they can still make it work, but it definitely hurt the show last night. I'd say that's factually true, don't think anyone can deny that. In that sense, it was the wrong decision and it was a real good thing that stuff like the six-man, Rosa and Gage/Jericho got the crowd back.
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Jul 29, 2021 5:51:12 GMT -5
I'm sure the payoff will happen eventually. That wasn't what upset me. Hell, I knew Game of Thrones was going to start having villains pay for it eventually (even if the last season WAS garbage, but I digress). It was season after season of depressing shit up to the end that made it a slog, much like how I'm starting to feel about The Elite. It just feels like someone really wanted this tag match for a heat spot when there was already plenty of heat to be had. There's a time and a place to take the wind out of an audience's sails, and this wasn't it. If they were just so damned hell-bent on getting TEH HEATZ BORTHER after this match, then it should have ended in a DQ once The Elite realized they were in danger of losing, then you have them take out Hangman's arm so he doesn't have his greatest weapon. All in all, I just feel like it was comically over the top heat-booking which does not make for a good story, in my opinion. And if, as has been suggested by a few others in the live thread, that Tony Khan overturns the match or throws it out or whatever, I think it makes Hangman and DO look even WORSE, because now they need a Deus Ex Machina to come in and save them. I'm sorry, I love AEW, I do. But I feel like this was a massive misstep, and what was once "Man, I can't wait for Hangman to win the title" has turned into "Jesus Christ, I can't wait for this Elite storyline to be over." Personally if you do this now IS the time to do it. Five weeks and 5 Dynamites (3 Rampages) out of All Out? This is where you have The Elite's final big victory together before the fall. I don't think it was meant to derail anything or kill the storyline. It was a bold gamble to do it given how white hot the angle is... but you have so much time to play with now where if Hangman and Dark Order had just won they would have had potentially five weeks of filler. Now they don't. I think over the top heat booking is Elite winning clean. They didn't. They cheated to pin basically every member of Dark Order. Reynolds had his tights pulled. Stu got counted out after Gallows lead him away from the ring. Silver got triple teamed. Hangman got hit with the belt. Everyone was really protected and Elite came off desperate. Hangman is out of the top 5 and now has to battle back into them. Same with Dark Order. No Deus Ex Machina needed. The quote "It's not about failing... it's about getting back up after you fail" has to hold weight to it. Hangman and Dark Order have now reached the lowest point. They need to find the confidence and the spark that makes them great and show that this loss isn't a defining moment The Elite want to make it. If AEW pulls this off they will have given Hangman and Dark Order's wins even more meaning when they happen by All Out. They won't just lose a five on five match... The Elite are on the path to lose everything and they'll have no one to blame but themselves.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Jul 29, 2021 5:52:26 GMT -5
Sure moving forward there are still a bunch of ways to make the storyline work long term. I do think it was overly deflating and placed improperly as the opener, as it completely took the crowd and the viewer out of the show. So for the long term storyline they can still make it work, but it definitely hurt the show last night. I'd say that's factually true, don't think anyone can deny that. In that sense, it was the wrong decision and it was a real good thing that stuff like the six-man, Rosa and Gage/Jericho got the crowd back. According to live recounts even from FAN users here who went to the show live: the crowd wasn't really deflated all that long and continued to be really excited throughout the night It was properly deflating in moment but everyone knows the end game here.
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Post by eJm on Jul 29, 2021 5:59:56 GMT -5
I'd say that's factually true, don't think anyone can deny that. In that sense, it was the wrong decision and it was a real good thing that stuff like the six-man, Rosa and Gage/Jericho got the crowd back. According to live recounts even from FAN users here who went to the show live: the crowd wasn't really deflated all that long and continued to be really excited throughout the night It was properly deflating in moment but everyone knows the end game here. Yeah, I can see it being more like a low-key version of the end of the Undertaker’s streak. Deflating, hurt stuff afterwards (some of it not their fault at all like FTR/PnP) but there was something to get them back.
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Post by Bang Bang Bart on Jul 29, 2021 6:02:26 GMT -5
I'd say that's factually true, don't think anyone can deny that. In that sense, it was the wrong decision and it was a real good thing that stuff like the six-man, Rosa and Gage/Jericho got the crowd back. According to live recounts even from FAN users here who went to the show live: the crowd wasn't really deflated all that long and continued to be really excited throughout the night It was properly deflating in moment but everyone knows the end game here. The endgame is as unsubtle as Darby’s promo from last night.
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Post by polarbearpete on Jul 29, 2021 6:05:42 GMT -5
I'd say that's factually true, don't think anyone can deny that. In that sense, it was the wrong decision and it was a real good thing that stuff like the six-man, Rosa and Gage/Jericho got the crowd back. According to live recounts even from FAN users here who went to the show live: the crowd wasn't really deflated all that long and continued to be really excited throughout the night It was properly deflating in moment but everyone knows the end game here. Maybe some weren’t deflated but the crowd was noticeably affected for a good stretch of time afterwards. And as a viewer I had trouble getting back into things to that level for the rest of the show, though the Darby line right after the First Dance announcement did pop me.
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Post by eJm on Jul 29, 2021 6:12:14 GMT -5
According to live recounts even from FAN users here who went to the show live: the crowd wasn't really deflated all that long and continued to be really excited throughout the night It was properly deflating in moment but everyone knows the end game here. Maybe some weren’t deflated but the crowd was noticeably affected for a good stretch of time afterwards. And as a viewer I had trouble getting back into things to that level for the rest of the show, though the Darby line right after the First Dance announcement did pop me. I’d say that announcement was the turning point because you could hear the fans calculating everything in their head in real time and the reaction gets louder and louder.
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Post by BitterAF on Jul 29, 2021 6:21:52 GMT -5
There's no point in watching if everything plays out exactly as you imagine it. Good for AEW
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jul 29, 2021 6:22:31 GMT -5
It was UGLY salty. And UGLY sniping. Like the kind of salty that for the longest time didn’t seem to show up in AEW posts. The kind of salty that resulted in a pretty stern warning in the live thread directed at literally (not in the hyperbole sense…in the very literal sense) everyone active in the thread. Not our collective best moment for sure. It was ugly, it reminded me of the TNA section the countless amount of complains that the section became "Lets mock TNA" section due to fans giving up on the product. I will admit that I bothered a bit that Hangman lost but not the point that I was going to give up on the show A lot of people gave up on even mentioning TNA because even neutral posts about anyone involved would be met with scorn because you're not hating Dixie Carter hard enough therefore you're condoning her, something that even popped up in the Wrest section. It's hard to have any sort of discussion faced with that or keep a forum active, so I sure hope this place isn't heading that way.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 29, 2021 6:43:45 GMT -5
If he's THAT good, why does he need so many people to help him cheat to win? And don't just say "Because he's a heel, and they need to do that." Because while he's good, he's not the guy he was in New Japan. He didn't become this unstoppable monster in AEW until he started putting together the Super Elite. Look at the Winter is Coming main event, he was going to lose that match before Callis got involved. He would have lost at Revolution if not for Anderson and Gallows. Nakazawa and The Bucks have gotten him out of countless jams. He's dangerous because he has backup and that backup is guys he's been friends with for years, decades in some cases. It's not just that he has a wrestling stable, he has a wrestling fraternity and that's what makes him so damn dangerous. And that's why I believe Hangman's narrative this year with the Dark Order was designed to be a parallel to Kenny. The guy who needs his friends to help him win vs. the guy who just needs his friends to help him believe he can win. It's not about how good Kenny is, it's about how good Hangman is. And I'm willing to bet that he is better than Kenny at All Out. Yeah, Kenny turned heel in the first place in large part because they made it clear that, like Hangman, he too was having a crisis of confidence, albeit not as overt as Page's (or at least he downplayed it more when he'd do guest commentary or something). They played up Kenny getting frustrated at people wanting to know when they'd get to see "New Japan Kenny", why he wasn't the ace already, why he and the Bucks had such an "off year" during the first year of AEW, it was pretty well laid out even if it wasn't as crystal clear as the hurt Hangman was going through after losing to Jericho. So he's basically saying "You wanted the Cleaner, the greatest wrestler in the world? You got him!", but he so badly needs to maintain that image and aura for himself that he ends up doing whatever it takes to win. He probably doesn't "need" to cheat to beat anybody, but he's so deep in his own head (with his head so far up his own ass) that he refuses to even risk the possibility of a loss. As said before, that's kind of Ric Flair booking: Flair had to be "The Man", so in spite of being one of the best he'd still resort to cheating and having the Horsemen do dirty work for him, lest he risk losing his identity.
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Post by Bang Bang Bart on Jul 29, 2021 6:44:13 GMT -5
There's no point in watching if everything plays out exactly as you imagine it. Good for AEW The interesting thing will be how they get from Point A to Point B with the road less obvious than it was before.
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Jul 29, 2021 7:05:35 GMT -5
I will also say... The entrances were perfection. Like, I don't think there was anything I'd change from either side. Not going through the whole thread to see if someone else mentioned it, but there was an extra spotlight there.
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Post by Pgarodactyl on Jul 29, 2021 7:06:14 GMT -5
I haven't read the replies in this thread, but I wanted to give my thoughts.
Because of this ending, I am now agonizing over the fact that I have to wait another week for the next chapter in this story. AGONIZING! I want so badly to know what happens next, how we get from where we are now to where we all assume we're going to end up. I want to know what that bridge is, but we have to wait a full week to figure it out.
It's like I'm a kid again. It's like I'm remembering how pro wrestling USED to be before the internet robbed us of our innocence.
Bravo, AEW, and thank you.
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Post by eJm on Jul 29, 2021 7:06:49 GMT -5
I will also say... The entrances were perfection. Like, I don't think there was anything I'd change from either side. Not going through the whole thread to see if someone else mentioned it, but there was an extra spotlight there. Oh man, I just noticed that...
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Post by Celexa Bliss 54 on Jul 29, 2021 7:11:50 GMT -5
Because while he's good, he's not the guy he was in New Japan. He didn't become this unstoppable monster in AEW until he started putting together the Super Elite. Look at the Winter is Coming main event, he was going to lose that match before Callis got involved. He would have lost at Revolution if not for Anderson and Gallows. Nakazawa and The Bucks have gotten him out of countless jams. He's dangerous because he has backup and that backup is guys he's been friends with for years, decades in some cases. It's not just that he has a wrestling stable, he has a wrestling fraternity and that's what makes him so damn dangerous. And that's why I believe Hangman's narrative this year with the Dark Order was designed to be a parallel to Kenny. The guy who needs his friends to help him win vs. the guy who just needs his friends to help him believe he can win. It's not about how good Kenny is, it's about how good Hangman is. And I'm willing to bet that he is better than Kenny at All Out. Yeah, Kenny turned heel in the first place in large part because they made it clear that, like Hangman, he too was having a crisis of confidence, albeit not as overt as Page's (or at least he downplayed it more when he'd do guest commentary or something). They played up Kenny getting frustrated at people wanting to know when they'd get to see "New Japan Kenny", why he wasn't the ace already, why he and the Bucks had such an "off year" during the first year of AEW, it was pretty well laid out even if it wasn't as crystal clear as the hurt Hangman was going through after losing to Jericho. So he's basically saying "You wanted the Cleaner, the greatest wrestler in the world? You got him!", but he so badly needs to maintain that image and aura for himself that he ends up doing whatever it takes to win. He probably doesn't "need" to cheat to beat anybody, but he's so deep in his own head (with his head so far up his own ass) that he refuses to even risk the possibility of a loss. As said before, that's kind of Ric Flair booking: Flair had to be "The Man", so in spite of being one of the best he'd still resort to cheating and having the Horsemen do dirty work for him, lest he risk losing his identity. Thank you for wording that far better than I did lol
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Post by toodarkmark on Jul 29, 2021 7:15:13 GMT -5
I haven't read the replies in this thread, but I wanted to give my thoughts. Because of this ending, I am now agonizing over the fact that I have to wait another week for the next chapter in this story. AGONIZING! I want so badly to know what happens next, how we get from where we are now to where we all assume we're going to end up. I want to know what that bridge is, but we have to wait a full week to figure it out. It's like I'm a kid again. It's like I'm remembering how pro wrestling USED to be before the internet robbed us of our innocence. Bravo, AEW, and thank you. Then def don't read through the thread. You're in a much better place. It's amazing storytelling, some of best babyface/heel writing since the 90's. I feel like the Four Horsemen beat up Magnum TA. It's something lost in today's world, and I'm so thankful AEW brought it back.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Jul 29, 2021 7:18:54 GMT -5
I haven't read the replies in this thread, but I wanted to give my thoughts. Because of this ending, I am now agonizing over the fact that I have to wait another week for the next chapter in this story. AGONIZING! I want so badly to know what happens next, how we get from where we are now to where we all assume we're going to end up. I want to know what that bridge is, but we have to wait a full week to figure it out. It's like I'm a kid again. It's like I'm remembering how pro wrestling USED to be before the internet robbed us of our innocence. Bravo, AEW, and thank you. The AEW Board needs more energy like this tbh.
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