WOMEN'S BATTLE ROYAL (NYLA ROSE): This was an insane weekend for wrestling. On Saturday there were three big shows. NXT UK had a Takeover show from Wales. New Japan had a show from London. And then there was this, AEW's second PPV and their last show before they debut on TNT in October. Considering college football also started on Saturday, the best fighter in the world (Lomanchenko won at the 02 Arena in London on Saturday) was fighting, and the U.S. Open was going on. It's too bloody much. I kind of want to see the sun. I still haven't watched a second of the NJPW show, although I did watch the NXT UK main event, which was a really good, 42 minute title match between Tyler Bate and Walter, who retained. As for this AEW show...it was great, but not as good as Double or Nothing. This Chicago crowd wasn't as hot as the Vegas crowd. I guess because in Vegas everybody's on vacation, it's an earlier start time so they're more awake, and it's Vegas so they're probably fucking blitzed and don't have to drive. This show started with an hour, free pre-show. This battle royal was never boring but was never awesome or anything. Awesome Kong was in it. Cody's wife was in it. Will Ospreay's lover, Bea Preistely, was in it. Nyla Rose, a big girl, won, and will face Riho on the TV debut for the title. **
PRIVATE PARTY vs. ANGELICO & JACK EVANS (11:35): This was an excellent match. The one dude in Private Party wrestles with sunglasses on, which I think is hilarious. Angelico and Jack Evans have apparently held the AAA tag titles in the past. What this turned into was just a bunch of wild, fast, intricate, creative moves on top of a bunch of high flying. It was sheer spectacle. ***1/2
SOCAL UNCENSORED vs. MARKO STUNT, LUCHASAURUS & JUNGLE BOY (11:45): This was another awesome match with more of the same; a bunch of creative, thrilling moves one after the other and a bunch of high flying. Luchasaurus does a bunch of crazy stuff for a tall guy like the standing moonsault and the Matrix bend-backwards-to-avoid-a-punch maneuver (I'm sure there's a name for that...somewhere). The crowd fucking roared in approval for everything Luchasaurus did. Jungle Boy, who's excellent, didn't get to do much here, though it was fast paced and wild. ***1/2
PAC vs. KENNY OMEGA (23:20): This was supposed to be the big Jon Moxley vs. Omega match but Moxley got a staph infection during the G1 so had to pull out. So we got what I figured would be a better match. It wasn't...but it was definitely Omega's best match so far in AEW. It was kind of weird that this went on so early considering these two superstars are used to being in the main event for a title when in Japan (PAC lost the Dragon Gate title in July...Omega lost the NJPW title in January). Omega did his patented over the top rope dive and hit is feet on the metal guardrail. PAC did a moonsault off of the top rope and hit his feet on the guardrail. Maybe they forget that this isn't Japan where if there is a guardrail it's like twenty feet away. For whatever reason the crowd was not super hot for this. And it never heated up into anything like a classic Omega/Okada bout or anything. This was about as good as PAC's matches in Dragon Gate over the last year. Good but not great. PAC won with a submission hold which the crowd loathed. ***
JIMMY HAVOC vs. JOEY JANELA vs. DARBY ALLIN (15:00): This match was insane. AEW, at least tonight, seemed to be veering into becoming ECW. Which isn't a bad thing...but I kind of hoped it would turn into something like New Japan, which good, long, dramatic matches that the WWE never does. Unfortunately the crowds so far just want tables and blood. Well they got it here. I'm not sure I can even attempt to describe the mayhem in this match. They put thumbtacks in Havoc's mouth then taped his mouth shut then taped him to a chair then Allin did a flip over the top rope and onto Havoc on the chair. Yep. They used a staple gun. Havoc gave Janela paper cuts between his fingers and on his mouth with a sheet of paper which, let's be honest, the crowd popped big for but it was stupid. Allin did a skateboard trick from the top rope onto Janela's back and the bottom of the skateboard had thumbtacks on it. I guess I could just describe everything but it might sound like I'm a crazy person. Allin did a back drop with a wooden barrel from the top rope onto the steel stairs and the barrel shattered into a million pieces. Janela did a gruesome over the top rope DDT type of slam on Allin through a ringside table. This was truly a clusterfuck of epic proportions. And perhaps the best match of the show. ***1/2
THE DARK ORDER vs. BEST FRIENDS (13:40): The Dark Order just doesn't get much of a crowd response. I'm not sure why, because as The Super Smash Brothers, they've had some great matches in the past with The Young Bucks in Ring of Honor. They're definitely entertaining but the crowd doesn't like them for whatever reason. The Best Friends are popular but not the most entertaining to be honest. This wasn't bad or anything just kind of okay, especially going after that last match. Post-match, Orange Cassidy showed up after the lights went out and did a dive through the ropes while keeping his hands in his pockets. I guess his gimmick is he's too cool? **1/2
RIHO vs. HIKARU SHIDA (13:35): The crowd actually made more noise for this match than the last, which, let's face it, is astounding. Two Japanese girls wrestling? It wasn't great or anything but Riho, the young, skinny, small girl is great. She's actually teaming up with Omega in a tag match for DDT in November. And she'll probably end up being AEW's first women's champ since she won here and will face Nyla Rose for the title. **1/2
CODY vs. SHAWN SPEARS (16:20): Spears used to be in the WWE. Remember him? He was called the Perfect Ten or something stupid? For whatever reason, AWE crowds love Cody. I'm not exactly sure why. He's not a particularly good wrestler. But in this company he's a fucking star. And while this match wasn't much of anything, there was a ton of outside interference from legends that brought the crowd to an orgiastic frenzy. Tully Blanchard, who used to wrestle Dusty Rhodes a lot back in the day, was in Spears' corner. Eventually Arn Anderson came out to slam Spears which got the loudest pop of the night. All of this spectacle made this feel like a big time PPV match. And, Jesus Christ, when was the last time a WWE match felt like that? **1/2
THE LUCHA BROTHERS vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS "LADDER MATCH" (21:00): This match reminded me of the Naito/Ibushii match from Dominion in June. That match was incredible, one of the year's best, but afterwards I thought that I never want to see them do it again. After this match I thought the same thing. Never do a ladder match again with these two teams. They're going to fucking kill each other. There were two spots that were so brutal I thought someone was going to die. And I'm not even talking about the Canadian Destroyer that Pentagon did on one of the Jackson's through a table from the top of a ladder. Are you kidding me? That has to be the craziest spot in the history of wrestling. Seriously. One of the Jackson's was supposed to fall of a ladder and through two ringside tables but his foot caught the rope and it whiplashed him straight down hard and he landed through the table headfirst. That was brutal and oh-so hard to watch. He's lucky he's not paralyzed or dead. The other spot was when Pentagon pushed a ladder out from one of the Jackson's and he fell right onto the ladder in a sickening thud. There was also a Pentagon package piledriver on one of the Jackson's onto a ladder bridge. This was just a car crash and while it was entertaining and exciting and all of that by the end it was just difficult to see so much suffering. There match at Double or Nothing, which didn't have ladders or anything and was just a wrestling match, was still insane but not this insane and was a better match. This was the 6th time this year these teams wrestled each other and I think it's hopefully the last. The Lucha Brothers retained their AAA tag titles. After this match, TNA's LAX showed up to a crowd that sort of, kind of knew who they were. ***1/2
CHRIS JERICHO vs. ADAM PAGE (26:25): And now we come to the dud of the night which also happened to be the longest and the main event. Jericho won the title here in a long, mostly dull, slow match that never turned into much of anything. Page did his moonsault off of the edge of the ring and Jericho hit him with a Code Breaker. Jericho bled. Jericho wasn't as fat as he was in his previous matches so I guess he hit the gym since Dominion. But he's still 48 and still slow and while making the big star the champ makes sense...does anyone really want to see title, main event matches with Jericho? Nope. Page has never been a main event star in my mind and he didn't exactly prove it here. Granted, there's not much to do with Jericho besides brawl. Naito learned this, as his match earlier this year at Wrestle Kingdom against Jericho was actually, shockingly pretty good, probably because Naito is a crazy person who will take DDT's on ringside tables. So Jericho is the champ and now we have to wait a month until the TV debut on TNT. This show was crazy and great. Will we get sick of it when it's on every week, though? I guess we'll see. After all, every great or popular TV show either dies or turns into something as boring as RAW. *
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