AEW DOUBLE OR NOTHING

 

Las Vegas

THE HARDY'S & HOOK vs. ETHAN PAGE & THE GUNNS (15:10): This was the pre-show match. This went way too long. This was also the first match Jeff Hardy has been in since his return. He looked like he twisted his ankle at one point, because he hurt it then stupidly tried to climb up on the top rope to do a move and he awkwardly slipped off and almost landed on his head. That was scary. He did finish the match but didn't do his Swanton Bomb finisher. Hook got the win with a tap out. Remember when Hook was super over and super popular? Well they haven't really done much with him since then. He should, like, evolve, right? I really hope The Hardy's retire soon, because watching them wrestle these days is just sad. *

BLACKJACK BATTLE ROYAL (ORANGE CASSIDY) (22:25): There were like a hundred wrestlers in this match. It was for the International Title, which used to be called the All Atlantic title. I have no idea why they changed it. Cassidy retained. Kommander did his awesome rope walk into a flip dive to the floor. Considering you lose when you fall to the floor...does this make sense? They said he didn't "enter" the match yet but isn't being on the top rope entering the match? The Lucha Brothers got a lot of spots in this match. Ricky Starks, Juice Robinson, and Jay White were also beating each other up and eliminating each other. Big Bill got pushed big for unknown reasons. The final had Swerve Strickland and Orange Cassidy left and those two tore the house down. The final few minutes with those two were awesome. **1/2

ADAM COLE vs. CHRIS JERICHO "UNSANCTIONED MATCH" (17:00): This was a dud. Not a surprise, since Jericho is too old and slow to be in singles matches anymore. Basically this was a no rules match. Jericho was hitting Cole with a Singapore cane when Britt Baker came out and started hitting Jericho with a Singapore cane of her own. That got a huge pop. Cole and Jericho sprayed each other with a fire extinguisher. The end had Jericho bring a chain into the match and Cole ended up hitting him in the head with the chain. Eventually, Cole kept punching Jericho in the head so the ref stopped it. Kind of a lame ending. This was just boring. *

FTR vs. JEFF JARRETT & JAY LETHAL (20:00): You can tell that Sonjay Dutt is one of AEW's writers, because the matches he's involved in always have way too much going on in them. In this one, we had Mark Briscoe, who was the special referee, get inadvertently hit with a guitar. Aubrey, the new ref, ran down to the ring but was hit with a guitar over the head by Karen Jarrett. This all felt like it was written by Vince Russo. Although, if it was it probably would have been a Guitar on a Pole match. FTR retained the tag titles. If this had been just a standard wrestling match it probably would have been kind of dull, so at least all the craziness and House of Torture-esque interference made it entertaining. **1/2

WARDLOW vs. CHRISTIAN CAGE "LADDER MATCH" (17:10): I'm not sure why they didn't just have Luchasaurus face Wardlow for the title here. I guess because Christian is famous for being in ladder matches and hasn't been in one in AEW yet. The big spot was when Wardlow put Luchasaurus on two tables and then did a Swanton Bomb off a Big Dog ladder onto him. That was insane. Jeff Hardy made that move famous twenty years plus years ago and it's wild to see a big dude like Wardlow do it. The other memorable moment came when Wardlow tried to jump from the top rope onto the ladder and climb it but he's too fucking big and the ladder cracked and him and Christian fell awkwardly off it. The big spot made the match. And is Luchasaurus never going to wrestle again? He hasn't wrestled a match since he lost to Jungle Boy in that cage match in March. **1/2

TONI STORM vs. JAMIE HAYTER (3:05): Jamie Hayter must be injured. How else to explain her losing the title in 3 minutes? The Outcasts constantly interfered in his match, even beating up Hayter before she even came out of the curtain. They sprayed her in the face with paint when the ref wasn't looking. Britt Baker did come out to help to no avail. Hayter beat Storm for the title last November. Kind of weird to go back to Storm as champ so soon unless Hayter really is injured. I was also thinking this could be a way for Britt to beat Storm for the title at the big Wembley show in August considering Britt should be in a big match on that show. Either way, this wasn't really much of a match. *1/2

THE HOUSE OF BLACK vs. THE ACCLAIMED & BILLY GUNN (15:30): This was an unannounced match. You know there's trouble in the booking department when that happens. I think this will be happening a lot more now that AEW has a new, 2 hour, weekly show debuting in a few weeks. CM Punk is going to be the star of that show as well, although he hasn't been announced yet. Tony Khan apparently is the head booker and is now going to have to book 5 hours of weekly wrestling plus his PPV's and Ring of Honor shows. So expect more of these unannounced, out of the blue matches. The crowds still love The Acclaimed. I enjoy Max Castor's raps, but in the ring they're kind of mediocre. The House of Black usually works better with high flying or hard hitting wrestlers, not wrestlers like The Acclaimed. This wasn't terrible, but there were long stretches where Bowens was just getting beaten down and waiting and waiting and waiting to give a hot tag. Billy Gunn obviously got pinned. **

JADE CARGILL vs. TAYA VALKYRIE (8:50)/ KRIS STATLANDER vs. JADE CARGILL (0:48): The crowd was sitting on their hands and waiting for this to be over when finally they popped when Taya delivered her finisher and got a 2.5 count. They both have the same finisher. That's strange. Jade eventually won in a sloppy, awful match. Jade had a cool entrance where she did some dance moves with a few dancers and a female rapper sang. Jade definitely looks impressive but she's terrible in the ring and hasn't improved a lick. After Jade won, Mark Sterling, her manager, announced an open challenge and anyone from the back could come out for a match. I was thinking of who would be a big surprise and could only think of Mercedes Mone, but she's injured. Statlander came out. She got a big pop. She's been injured forever and won the TBS title by giving Jade her first loss. That was cool. They even shot confetti into the ring. Jade sucks in the ring, so I'm glad she lost the title. Neither match was great but Statlander winning was awesome. **

MJF vs. SAMMY GUEVARA vs. DARBY ALLIN vs. 'JUNGLE BOY' JACK PERRY (27:50): This was definitely the best match on the show. This show wasn't one of AEW's best shows, but it was typical in that it was very entertaining. There wasn't one match-of-the-year, great match on this show, though this came close. The problem was that this had no drama or emotion, it was just a 30 minute spot fest. After the 20th Canadian Destroyer, I was kind of wondering if they knew how to do anything else. The big spot was when Sammy grabbed Darby and did a Spanish Fly from the top rope down onto MJF and Jack Perry on the floor. That was insane. They all did a bunch of crazy moves except for MJF, who doesn't fly. The end had Darby giving a Coffin Drop onto Sammy but MJF laid his belt on Sammy and Darby landed on the belt. Then MJF did a head lock takeover on Darby and pinned him. This echoes how MJF beat Darby at Double or Nothing 2020. This was a wild match and pretty similar to that PAC vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Omega title match a few years ago. Those three are obvious better, all around wrestlers than these 4, though. This was fun and creative, but I think these young guys still need to focus more on the drama and emotion that an epic, title match deserves instead of just delivering crazy high spots that get old after you keep doing them non stop. ***

THE BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB vs. THE ELITE "ANARCHY IN THE ARENA" (27:00): This was a good match and pretty much the same as last year's Anarcy in the Arena match. The two best spots featured Matt Jackson. Claudio had given him a pile driver in the bed of a pickup truck outside the building. Eventually Matt made his return to the arena and came into the ring and kicked Jon Moxley in the head but Matt had an exploding charge on his sneaker and it exploded on Moxley's face. That was cool, and had me thinking of Onita. After Moxley put thumbtacks onto the ring, TBCC took off Matt's sneaker and sock and dropped him feet first onto the thumbtacks. That was a crazy spot. They also put thumbtacks in Nick's mouth then Claudio gave him an uppercut. They also all brawled around the building. Claudio did a Giant Swing on Nick out on the concourse then threw him head first into a trash can. Moxley and Omega both slammed each other onto barbed wire on a big poker chip by the entrance. There weren't a lot of moves or wrestling in this match, which is kind of a shame since Omega and The Young Bucks are three of the most exciting wrestlers in the business. The one disappointment of this show and AEW in general lately is that Omega has been tied into these multi-man matches and hasn't been in a lot of singles matches. The last AEW PPV Omega singles match was when he lost the title to 'Hangman' and that was two and a half years ago. The ending came when a masked man came into the ring to help TBCC. It turned out to be Takeshita, who I guess is a heel now. Yuta pinned Omega, which was kind of a shock. This presumably sets up The Elite & somebody (hopefully Kota Ibushi) vs. Takeshita and TBCC in a Blood & Guts match. That would be the greatest match in the history of the world, right? And we never got that Blood & Guts match with The Elite. It was set up. It was supposed to take place in March of 2020 in Newark. And we all know what happened in March of 2020. So we'll hopefully finally get that match, 3 years too late. The pandemic is finally over! ***

WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS

 

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

SETH ROLLINS vs. AJ STYLES (20:40): This show was just okay, although the super hot and boisterous crowd certainly was a big plus. AEW's Double or Nothing crowd was a little tepid, and they only sold half of the seats in the T-Mobile Arena in Vegas. That show was better than this, but the WWE is hot these days for whatever reason. I guess The Bloodline storyline has resonated. That seems to be the reason everyone says that the WWE is hot. The big problem with the WWE is that everything feels sterile whereas AEW feels kinetic, wild, and alive. Oh, well. This first match was for the new World Heavyweight championship. If you remember, they unified the two titles at last year's Wrestlemania and now they've un-unified them. It lasted a little more than a year, so that's longer than I would have figured. I both like and don't like having two main titles. On one hand, you get more championship matches on the PPV's so that's usually a plus. On the other hand, it kind of dilutes both champions. Seth was the obvious favorite and won. If this match had occurred five or so years ago it probably would have been better. AJ is obviously not as great as he once was, so I'm not sure why he was even in this match (they did a tournament on RAW and Smackdown and this was the final). I thought this would be better. **

TRISH STRATUS vs. BECKY LYNCH (14:50): How old is Trish Stratus? And what has she been doing since she left the WWE? Did she make enough money back in the day or did she have to get a real job since then? Who knows? Okay, she's 47. It's weird that they had so many women's matches on this show considering Saudi Arabia treats women like cattle. The women all have to wrestle in full body suits because they can't show skin except for their heads and hands. It's just sad. None of the women's matches were any good. And considering Trish is 47 and hasn't wrestled in years, why did they make this a 15 minute match? Jesus! Too long. I suppose this feud will continue since Trish won thanks to interference by Tony Stark. Is that her name? Who is Tony Stark? I give up. 1/2*

ASUKA vs. BIANCA BELAIR (15:00): Last month, in Puerto Rico, the fans booed Bianca out of the building for unknown reasons but she still beat Asuka and retained her title. They probably should have done the title switch then, but I believe they wanted Bianca to get to some dumb, days-as-champ milestone. Asuka won the title here. This match was not good at all. I kind of thought Bianca and Asuka were, like, good wrestlers. This was a bore. 1/2*

RHEA RIPLEY vs. NATALYA (1:10): I feel bad for Natalya. She had to fly all the way to Saudi Arabia just to lose in a 1 minute squash. What was the point of this? I'm baffled. -No Stars-

BROCK LESNAR vs. CODY RHODES (9:40): I was suprised Cody lost here. I guess they didn't want to have Brock lose to Cody twice in a row. That, and they'll probably do another match soon. I think this is only the second time Cody lost since coming back to the WWE. I'd say they were pushing him but he lost at Wrestlemania and now here so who the fuck knows? The story was that Brock beat up Cody on RAW last week and injured his arm. So Cody had a cast on his arm and played up like he was some sort of superhero impervious to pain. This was akin to his match last year against Seth Rollins when Cody had a torn bicep. Cody won that match, though. This match was pretty good because Cody got a lot of offense in. I don't know...I'm kind of tired of Brock Lesnar. **1/2

SAMI ZAYN & KEVIN OWENS vs. ROMAN REIGNS & SOLO SIKOA (26:25): This match wasn't that great or anything but the crowd was going ape shit for Sami. Sami was banned from Saudi Arabia for every previous show there because he's part Syrian and Saudi Arabia used to hate Syria. Now they don't so Sami is back. Sami posted pictures online where he visited Mecca this week. Is he a Muslim? I didn't know that. He spoke Arabic to the crowd before the match. Does he speak Arabic or did he memorize that? It sounded like he can speak Arabic. I know he speaks French. Does he really speak three languages? Oh, there was also a match. It was for the tag team titles. The big story was that the ref got knocked out and The Uso's came in. They inadvertantly super kicked Solo and Reigns got mad. Then Jimmy Uso super kicked Reigns twice. The Bloodline storyline keeps going and going and going and going. Jesus Christ. They're really milking this fucking thing, aren't they? I'd heard that eventually they're doing Solo vs. Roman. Does that mean we'll get a Solo turn in six months and this storyline is like The Never Ending Story? What was that giant, flying white dog's name? The crowd during this match was epic but the match itself was just a typical TV match. Just imagine if Sami was champ and had a title match here. But they didn't want to pull the trigger and have Sami win the title. Those fucking idiots. **1/2

WWE BACKLASH

 

San Juan, Puerto Rico

BIANCA BELAIR vs. IYO SKY (18:01): Puerto Rico paid the WWE to do this show there. I hope this doesn't mean the WWE never goes back, because this was one of the hottest wrestling crowds I've ever seen. You would have thought that this match was Omega/Okada or Steamboat/Flair or something considering how crazy the crowd was going during it. It felt like this crowd had never seen wrestling before or something and couldn't fathom how amazing it was. I was thinking this was probably a similar reaction to when movies were first invented and the audience saw a train pulling into a station on screen and went insane (that happened in 1895 by the way, and no, the audience probably didn't go insane). This match was good and all, but it wasn't that good. And there is wrestling in Puerto Rico. It's just that the WWE hasn't been there in years. Bianca retained her title but Iyo Sky was the star even though she's supposed to be a heel. **1/2

SETH ROLLINS vs. OMOS (10:31): You can tell Vince is back in charge because Omos is getting pushed. He faced Lesnar at 'Mania and now he's facing another huge star. Omos never wins against these big stars, though, so this "push" is moot. Sure, Omos is a tall dude, but can't Vince see that he fucking sucks? Granted, Vince also put Giant Gonzalez on TV and pushed Andre when Andre was past his prime. Vince loves big dudes. That'll never change. On another note...why is Vince not in jail? It came out that he paid a woman in his company 7 million dollars in a sexual harassment suit to get her to be quiet about it. And yet he's back, pushing tall wrestlers that can't wrestle. I hope Seth goes to AEW someday, because he's a great wrestler and this weird, dancing, Joker-esque gimmick is just fucking baffling to me. *

AUSTIN THEORY vs. BOBBY LASHLEY vs. BRONSON REED (6:51): Bronson Reed beat Okada last year in New Japan. Now he's getting pinned by Austin Theory. Did he make the right decision to return to the company that fired him? Maybe he didn't like living in Japan. Who knows? They were sort of pushing Theory's U.S. title as being the 2nd biggest belt...but now they're having a new RAW world title. Maybe they'll give it to Theory. What ever happened to the Intercontinental title? That seemed to have disappeared. This match was short and pretty forgettable. *1/2

RHEA RIPLEY vs. ZELINA VEGA (7:11): I guess Zelina is from Puerto Rico? The crowd was into this because of that. Besides the hot crowd, this show was fairly mediocre. Where's Charlotte and Becky Lynch and Rhonda Rousey, anyway? They used to be the big stars in this division. *1/2

BAD BUNNY vs. DAMIAN PRIEST "SAN JUAN STREET FIGHT" (25:03): They probably should have made this the main event since Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico and everyone came to this show to see him. Originally it was supposed to be Bad Bunny & Myserio vs. Damian Priest & Dominic. I think that match would've been better...especially because both Dominic and Rey showed up in this match. Carlito showed up and got the biggest pop of the night. I remember him in WWE but he didn't last too long. Silvio Vega also showed up but I don't remember him in WWF. This was a hardcore match so they used Singapore Canes, a trash can, a chain, and chairs. They did a big spot out in the crowd where Damian Priest slammed Bunny down onto two tables from a sound rig set up. Bad Bunny is a popular musician these days, filling Yankee Stadium, rumored to be dating Kendall Jenner. So I guess it's unique seeing him leaping from the top rope and hitting people with steel chairs. He's not really mainstream popular, though, but if you have kids they probably know who he is. I downloaded his album last year and didn't really like it. Maybe I'm just too old to be cool (it's all in Spanish, too, so there's that). This match was entertaining at least. And at least they learned their lesson from Cardiff and had Bad Bunny win his match in his hometown. **1/2

THE BLOODLINE (THE USO'S & SOLO SIKOA) vs. KEVIN OWENS, SAMI ZAYN & MATT RIDDLE (22:05): I was kind of bored watching this. The Bloodline storyline was the hottest thing the WWE has done in years...but that was a few months ago. Now it feels stale. They really missed the peak by not having Sami or Cody beat Reigns for the title. Because the story of Sami possibly turning on The Bloodline being so white hot, they've recreated that but with The Uso's and Solo Sikoa. They teased Solo turning on The Uso's in this match. Ugh. You know...it worked with Sami. It doesn't mean you just do it again with someone else and it'll work. I'm still bitter about how they botched the pinnacle of The Bloodline storyline. It'll go down in infamy as one of the worst decisions in wrestling. Matt Riddle ended up getting pinned. He's back from rehab and I guess this was his punishment. **

CODY RHODES vs. BROCK LESNAR (9:43): Brock Lesnar was a bloody mess in this match after he rammed his head into the exposed steel turnbuckle. I'm guessing they did this obvious set up for blood because at 'Mania in the Hell in a Cell match they stopped the match to tend to Finn's bloody wound and got a lot of flak for it. The WWE hasn't done blood in years because of advertisers. I guess they could do it here because this show was on Peacock (which does have commercials)? Who knows? Maybe they were jealous of AEW because AEW always does bloodbaths and the crowds love them. Either way, the match was pretty good but short. They started with Cody beating up Brock before the bell and hitting him with the ring steps. Then we got the Brock suplexing and destroying Cody for a while. Then Cody was in the kumura submission hold but flipped it over and pinned Lesnar. This match would've been a lot better if Cody was champ and it was for the title. Roman, the champ, wasn't on the show. I'm pretty flummoxed as to the WWE's popularity and high ratings and big crowds these days because the product has been falling apart ever since Sami lost in February. **1/2