Celgress
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by Celgress on Nov 14, 2021 1:01:18 GMT -5
I think the TBS Tournament has thrown a big into thing right now but yeah, it weak to put it nicely. I'd like to think the pandemic followed by RoH and MLW starting their divisions slowed it's growth but even that seems a lame excuse. Indeed, it is shameful in 2021 that a women's PPV title match can serve as your bathroom or snack break, shameful and depressing.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Nov 14, 2021 1:03:19 GMT -5
Honestly, my biggest problem is, winning the title has been the worst thing to happen to Britt.
Her whole character was someone who has grievances, someone who was always feeling screwed, or overlooked.
It'd be like if Jericho got a match with Goldberg and won in WCW. It'd have completely defanged him as a character.
Tay being a challenger no one thought would win didn't help matters, but Britt needs to lose the title and soon. Revolution, at the latest.
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Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Nov 14, 2021 1:05:49 GMT -5
I think the TBS Tournament has thrown a big into thing right now but yeah, it weak to put it nicely. I'd like to think the pandemic followed by RoH and MLW starting their divisions slowed it's growth but even that seems a lame excuse. The ROH and MLW divisions have been made up almost entirely of talent that were available to AEW when the promotion started, and were especially available during the pandemic doldrums when AEW desperately needed bodies. Hell, like half of them have even wrestled for AEW. Like, Rok-C said her call to work an AEW match came from Shawn Dean, which says something about the timeline of when they tried to recruit her. (Also, makes me wonder if Dean is the reason that AEW started getting a bigger variety and higher caliber of women doing enhancement matches.) Granted, the hate threads for the Bunny hereabouts make me wonder if Khan was right to hold off on wrestlers like Davienne and Hyan, who could fill similar roles and are less polished at TV performance but decent in a cool-moves-and-solid-storytelling sense, but I still think that the division would be better TV if there were at least enough heels to go around so that faces aren't just in an endless rotation of Bunny and Nyla on Dynamite while they wait for their title matches.
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Post by darbus alan on Nov 14, 2021 1:06:28 GMT -5
Also, AEW really needs to come to grips that it's perfectly fine for champions to have shorter reigns. Britt Baker is great, but is also someone who doesn't need the belt, much less have this much a stranglehold on the division for months on end.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Nov 14, 2021 1:09:03 GMT -5
Also, AEW really needs to come to grips that it's perfectly fine for champions to have shorter reigns. Britt Baker is great, but is also someone who doesn't need the belt, much less have this much a stranglehold on the division for months on end. I can agree to that. They've gotten better with that with other belts... but the women's divisions sorely need to have the belts change hands a bit more.
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asuka007
Fry's dog Seymour
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Post by asuka007 on Nov 14, 2021 1:15:08 GMT -5
There are a number of problems:
1. Everyone knows that Britt vs. Rosa is the endgame. And when you have a feud where everyone kind of knows the winner from the beginning, you arguably need to work MORE to make it interesting. But AEW simply does not do that with the women’s feuds.
2. Britt’s feuds are booking in basically the same way every time. And her opponents rarely get a chance to properly respond to her or cut promos. So they feel like afterthoughts.
3. Because the women still get limited time on TV, and a lot of it goes to Jade and Britt, the others do not feel like they really gain anything from feuding with Britt and there’s a lack of other compelling women’s stories on TV. Like what do you do with Tay now? She does not even have the TBS Title tournament to fall back on now.
4. With Britt, there’s this weird dichotomy where they want to have her flunkies interfere constantly like she’s a coward heel. But then they also at the same time want to make her look super tough. So she’s for example tonight kicking out of pretty much all fo Tay’s big moves (not a fan of that). It’s the worst of both worlds.
Etc.
I could not blame the fans there for not being into this match because AEW gave them little reason to be.
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Post by Jindrak Mark on Nov 14, 2021 1:15:08 GMT -5
Debuting Ruby Soho and immediately jobbing her out to Baker a week or two later is still puzzling to me. There was no need to do that match so quickly if Ruby was just going to lose. She could have been the top face in the division.
This title run reminds me of Seth Rollins first WWE title reign in 2015. Even before he won the title he had been the de-facto top heel since turning a year earlier and got more TV time than anyone else so it felt like he was already the top dog. It’s the same with Baker. She’s technically only been champion for 6 months but it feels like forever because even before she won it she may as well have already been the champ for all the spotlight she got compared to the actual champ Shida who like Lesnar with Rollins was often not on TV.
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Chiral
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Post by Chiral on Nov 14, 2021 1:22:46 GMT -5
The division has a ton of problems, though I think the problems with tonight's match were a combination of 1), the crowd was exhausted and 2), no one remotely believed Britt was losing. The crowd was red hot for the dark match and all. Though yeah, Britt is becoming a serious problem for the division. She's damn good but it's very hard to care the slightest bit about her when she is the only person who is ever presented as mattering and we all know who she's losing the title to, we're just dragging our feet on just getting it over with. And even when she does lose the belt she'll still probably be the only woman who matters because she certainly was during Shida's reign. The apparent decision to just arbitrarily extend her reign into 2022 for the Rosa match just killed all the tension of the reign, and her being the be all end all of the division kinda super blows as a long term deal.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Nov 14, 2021 1:24:41 GMT -5
I still think fans were perfectly into Britt/Tay... and they were just exhausted from so many banger matches before it. Like I agree that the build for this feud could have been better... but I don't agree that there wasn't any crowd reaction and it was because Britt/Tay wasn't over as a feud or people didn't want to see it... the crowd was just winded by this point in the show
And I still dont think they were egregiously silent for it either... but that's just me.
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Blade
Don Corleone
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Post by Blade on Nov 14, 2021 1:26:51 GMT -5
The women's division suffers, like several things on the show do, from not getting enough personal attention, so it feels half-baked. It does good things sometimes but always drifts away when they're not doing A Thing right then.
With that being said, it HAS gotten better. We've pretty much constantly had a second women's feud going for the last several months rather than it just being Britt and Whoever She's Beating Next. First it was TayJay versus Ford/Bunny, now it's Deeb/Shida. That isn't ideal but it IS better than what we had six months ago. The TBS belt is also a baby step forward and should ensure we continue to always have at least two feuds going.
But there is no reason it couldn't be better still except that it's not being given the time and attention it needs.
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Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Nov 14, 2021 1:29:14 GMT -5
Re: the TBS title: I truly wonder, if the network being the issue is true, if it's a bribe to TBS to put more women's matches on the shows.
I also hope, so much, that the TBS title can be used to at least get some interesting debuts done in short order, especially given some of the quality talent who will be available in time for the first champion's early forgone conclusion defenses.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Nov 14, 2021 1:31:12 GMT -5
I think the division sticks out because the rest of the company is firing on all cylinders right now. I think the division has a lot of talent and generally puts on good matches week to week. The Shida/Deeb match recently was one of the best women's matches I've seen all year. And that was a great month long story that looks to be continuing. More women are getting multi person tags which is a good thing. But it's still a step behind the tag and the men's divisions. But I think it can be true that a) the division needs some work b) it has come a long way and c) it might be the best division in North America right now, especially if you treat each WWE brand separately.
And for the record, I liked Tay and Britt a lot. Just wish the crowd was more up for it.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Nov 14, 2021 1:32:57 GMT -5
I’m not going to be in this topic much only to say that I agree and I hope things improve more because an inch of progress has been made and all I can do for now is be positive and hope the TBS title helps things.
What I WILL ask is that this topic doesn’t become the new go to “All problems with the women’s division” thread because, well, discussions being lumped here about it doesn’t really help the perception about it on this forum. Minor thing but thought I should say considering.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Nov 14, 2021 1:35:06 GMT -5
Also, I have never put too much stock into the whole "the Network doesn't want women's matches' thing. SmackDown occasionally has no women's wrestling on the show and FOX seems to at the very least not be anti-women wrestling given they've actively wanted Charlotte on the show for years. Part of the reality of American wrestling is women make up around 10-20% of the roster and usually get about one out of every five matches. That's generally true for AEW, WWE, and ROH. Impact can sometimes be the exception but I also don't think their level of talent matches some of the other companies and their booking is usually more questionable. Also to be frank, it's on a much smaller scale. Point being, I don't think AEW is some outlier where we need to point to Turner being against women wrestling a certain amount of times as the culprit. This is just how it is. Could they be better? Absolutely. But the answer to me isn't likely to be a Network related one.
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Post by dgenerationmc on Nov 14, 2021 1:39:06 GMT -5
The standards keeping rising and rising for the division but I'm not sure if AEW can/will keep up with them. There's been a steady improvement over the past 2 1/2 years but the speed and routes it's taking definitely isn't gonna make everyone happy. All I know is that up until the summer of 2020, I did nothing but roll my eyes at the division and AEW overhyping it (especially in the first year, holy shit) but now I'm fully invested and want it to succeed because I've seen growing signs that it can. The fact that I've gone from pointing and laughing it at/changing the channel to being locked in means something to me.
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Post by Jedi-El of Tomorrow on Nov 14, 2021 1:40:54 GMT -5
Also, AEW really needs to come to grips that it's perfectly fine for champions to have shorter reigns. Britt Baker is great, but is also someone who doesn't need the belt, much less have this much a stranglehold on the division for months on end. Yeah. Would it really have hurt the title, Britt, or Statlander/Conti/Ruby to have one of them score an upset win over Britt, and then drop the title back to her a month or two later, if they want Thunder to win the title from Britt?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2021 1:43:56 GMT -5
Yeah. This and the POC in the ME picture for the men have been my biggest problems with AEW as a whole for a while now. Hopefully things change but I don't now. Seems like the stuff I enjoy they keep pushing back so we'll see what happens. I know Omega was pushing huge for their division from the jump but yeah, nothing.
We'll see how things are a year from now. Hope they can change things.
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Post by xxshoyuweeniexx on Nov 14, 2021 1:45:34 GMT -5
I feel like the TBS title will help things for starters.
But if there’s one thing that it won’t fix, it’s having only like two women that clearly matter (Britt, Jade) and besides like Thunder Rosa and whoever is facing Britt at the time, no one else matters. I understand a lot of talent are green and stuff, but you can’t have it where only like 4 talent matter at a time, then it’s no better than WWE with it’s 4 Horsewomen boner.
Also characters are important too. Like I don’t think she’s that bad, but it’s a problem when The Bunny has a more memorable character/hook than someone like Shida or Tay. Good wrestling is great, but that’s not just enough in today’s day and age. Let these girls get a chance to show some characters (not just on Dark).
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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Nov 14, 2021 1:54:24 GMT -5
I think AEW has kind of a general problem with phoning in title feuds. The build to the Lucha Bros finally dethroning the Bucks was basically, "They won a title shot, get a cage match because the Bucks kept cheating against other people," FTR seemed more concerned with Cody than with the people they were actually trying to take the tag belts from, they dragged their ass on giving Kenny a clear challenger for Double or Nothing until like two weeks before the show, I don't think there's been an actual feud over the TNT title since Cody / Brodie, Shida would kind of just face whoever was available when she was champion, Kenny / Christian was pretty much thrown together in two weeks with a separate title match being the only real attempt to put any weight behind it...
Not asking for every title defense to be built up for two and a half years - god no - but it feels like they see, "The belt's on the line," as the beginning and end of making a match interesting, even when the result is completely obvious.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Nov 14, 2021 2:07:58 GMT -5
I think AEW has kind of a general problem with phoning in title feuds. The build to the Lucha Bros finally dethroning the Bucks was basically, "They won a title shot, get a cage match because the Bucks kept cheating against other people," FTR seemed more concerned with Cody than with the people they were actually trying to take the tag belts from, they dragged their ass on giving Kenny a clear challenger for Double or Nothing until like two weeks before the show, I don't think there's been an actual feud over the TNT title since Cody / Brodie, Shida would kind of just face whoever was available when she was champion, Kenny / Christian was pretty much thrown together in two weeks with a separate title match being the only real attempt to put any weight behind it... Not asking for every title defense to be built up for two and a half years - god no - but it feels like they see, "The belt's on the line," as the beginning and end of making a match interesting, even when the result is completely obvious. Ok but the Kenny/Christian title defense shouldnt really be included here... that was out of their hands and for what they did with it? I thought it was pretty good. I do agree though that sometimes the matches and payoffs are just better than the builds... but most of the time the payoffs at least make the journeys worth it to me anyway
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