Shows starts with two teams brawling out for an NXT Tag Title match. They have a really good match. Stacks and Tony D’Angelo are both REALLY good. Stacks got what Jim Cornette would describe as a hot tag. He sells like a motherfucker and was doing the modern trick of kicking out of everything in a tag match. The Garzas were the challengers by the way. They started out fighting because apparently the heels attacked the babies last week, so the faces are getting tougher because Booker T thinks they are too nice as champions.
Great finish too. Worth letting it catch you by surprise if you plan to watch, which I STRONGLY recommend.
There’s LOTS of bad acting on the show, but some promos are “decent” in that weird WWE way. Wes Lee, Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes are REALLY good. Roxanne Perez is REALLY bad.
They feature lots of women’s wrestling, but it’s not THAT bad. Jerry Lawler is choosing matches for the Iron Survivor and chooses Kelani Jordan vs. Kiana James. Kelani is athletic as hell and a natural babyface. Kiana has one of those annoying “I’m a boss” gimmicks. This wasn’t bad.
The other one Lawler picked was Bron Breakker vs. Eddy Thorpe. This was really good. Thorpe was in New Japan’s Strong dojo thing. He was selling ribs here and worked well as a face. Bron Breakker is special. Between the dog imagery, the Spear, the Heyman connection — I don’t know they don’t wait until Mania 41 to king Bron by beating Roman.
Commentary is better than most main roster stuff. Vic Joseph feels more organic than Michael Cole, even with Vince allegedly gone. I’ve never been a Booker T fan, but he’s really not offensive anymore. There was a match he referenced that a day never goes past he doesn’t remember his loss to Triple H. I believe him, lol.
Ilja Dragunov is fucking awesome. One of those wrestlers that you watch and just think “he’s the best today.” He’s got a match with Corbin at the PPV, and Corbin is being a total fucking cunt. Ilja gets into it with fellow babyface Nathan Frazer because Frazer is talking in front of a magic camera in a phoney WWE way about how Baron does have the better life than Ilja, who can’t see his kid because he sacrifices so much to be in the United States as NXT Champion.
I’m actually not doing it justice, but Ilja being frazzled by Corbin’s shit and rubbing in how he’s the pampered athlete is actually really good. Ilja went fucking nuts in his consequent match with Frazer and just fucking…he’s special, man. Frazer fights and you get a Phoenix Splash. They look way more like they are trying to win matches than AEW entertainers though.
Andre Chase did a segment that was not…good, but it was clearly a satire of AEW. He talked about reckless spending, scandals behind the scenes, internal investigations. Andre has let Chase U down. The entire talent roster is unhappy.
If you knew, you knew. It was at this point I wondered if CM Punk was helping put this together. Just the way some of these guys worked. It was better than when I last watched AEW. Felt a lot more like Collision, but more kinetic.
Lexis King is a massive shit-stirrer lol. Ben Buchanan was always good, but he looked way better. He was like a more impressive Adam Page. So many stories, so much to recap. Another women’s match between Arianna Grace and some woman who carries a sword with Joe Gacy under the ring hiding and talking about how shit he is lol. Grace has got a good look. She is descended from a former Miss WrestleMania, I guess.
Then you got to the main event. Wes Lee vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Bronson Reed. I don’t like even Johnny Gargano man. Check this out. They just try to make the spots look *somewhat* organic. But this got two “holy shit” chants. They built the match up all night with videos of the former champions, then current champion Dom was there to watch Wes Lee hopefully fail. Really simple stuff, but really appreciated.
Lots of wrestlers appeared multiple times, either to set up their match or intertwine their personal issues.