AEW DOUBLE OR NOTHING

Las Vegas

DEONNA PURRAZZO vs. THUNDER ROSA (10:15): This was a good show and pretty entertaining. There wasn't a match of the year contender or anything, and the show was way too long at 4.5 hours, but it was a lot of fun. These first two matches were on the pre-show. Since coming back, Thunder Rosa has looked good, so it kind of baffles me why she lost here. Purrazzo has been a dud so far, plus she's fat. That might sound cruel, but her job is to be an athlete on TV, at least get in shape. There wasn't much to this but the Vegas crowd was super hot tonight which helped every match. They decided to go back to the smaller MGM Grand this year for Double or Nothing because they had a small crowd at the bigger arena last year. It looked like they filled about 70% of the place up. The big negative about AEW these days is that the ratings have fallen since last year and the crowds at the shows are small. Wrestling is usually cyclical, so I figure eventually things will change. The problem of course is if they don't change for years then the company goes out of business. *

THE ACCLAIMED & BILLY GUNN vs. CAGE OF AGONY (BRIAN CAGE, BISHOP KAUN & TOA LIONA) (11:41): I'm pretty sick of The Acclaimed. Even Max Castor's raps aren't funny or creative anymore. Match was forgettable. *

WILL OSPREAY vs. RODERICK STRONG (17:57): While this was a good match, I thought it would be better because Ospreay was in it. The one problem was that either Ospreay was legit shook up early or he was just selling the injury so he didn't do much for the first ten minutes. While the ref was distracted, The Kingdom put Ospreay on Mike Bennett's shoulders and Matt Taven jumped through the ropes onto Ospreay. Ospreay fall right on his forehead. Maybe he was injured there. So then it was kind of a beat down for awhile until Ospreay finally started doing all of his awesome moves. Ospreay won the International title here. **1/2

ADAM COLE/MJF: Adam Cole came out to talk...and then MJF returned for the first time this year. MJF kicked Cole in the balls and then gave him a brain buster. So I guess that giant feud they set up at the end of 2023 is already over? MJF got on the mic and said that he signed a new AEW deal "for life." Okay. MJF was better as a heel, so it's kind of a shame he's a good guy now. Still, he's the best wrestler in the world on the mic, so it's good he's finally back. Cole hasn't wrestled since last September, so it'd be nice when he finally gets back in the ring, too. And where the hell is Britt Baker? She's been MIA since last Fall. So has Jamie Hayter. Where are these people? I know they're not paralyzed. It'd be nice if this company, like, gave updates on these wrestlers.

BANG BANG GANG (THE GUNN'S & JAY WHITE) vs. DEATH TRIANGLE (PAC & THE LUCHA BROTHERS) (12:18): There's way too many titles in AEW. 7 titles were defended on this show. And Tony Khan hinted at creating a new, mixed tag team title. They do realize that eventually winning a title becomes meaningless, right? The Bang Bang Gang retained the 6-man tag titles here. Or whatever it's called. Death Triangle looked awesome as usual. Maybe they should do Ospreay vs. PAC at Wembley? Now that Swerve/Ospreay seems to be off that show. **1/2

TONI STORM vs. SEREENA DEEB (15:38): The crowds everywhere love Toni Storm. Who knew her stupid gimmick would actually get over? Match was fine but not great or anything. They really need to push Mariah May to the moon. She's the fucking star. May wanted to throw in the towel during this match at one point but Luther stopped her. May vs. Toni at Wembley would be great. **

ORANGE CASSIDY vs. TRENT BERETTA (13:55): I don't really think Beretta as a heel is working. The reason? I don't care about ever seeing him wrestle. Match was okay. I watched this show 2 days ago and already forget half of what happened. That's not a good thing. **

CHRIS JERICHO vs. HOOK vs. KATSUYORI SHIBATA (12:45): Jericho's new gimmick, The Learning Tree, is kind of amusing and funny. I'm already kind of sick of it, though. Jericho has the FTW belt now so this was a hardcore match. Jericho had a bag of dice that he dropped into the ring. They broke a table. They used Singapore Canes. Match was entertaining but nothing fantastic. **1/2

JON MOXLEY vs. KONOSUKE TAKESHITA (17:24): Moxley is, shockingly, the IWGP champion. He's not even in New Japan. The big Dominion main event next week is Moxley vs. Evil for the title...which tells you about how bad NJPW is these days. If Takeshita won this match then he would get an IWGP title. Considering Takeshita lost...why didn't they just make this match for the title? The strange aspect about this match was that Takeshita beat the shit out of Moxley for, like, 90% of this match. I guess they wanted to protect him? I mean...he still lost. This actually turned into a really good, hard hitting match. ***

ADAM COPELAND vs. MALAKAI BLACK "BARBED WIRE STEEL CAGE MATCH" (20:11): I think this was the best match of the night, mostly because of the spectacle. AEW hasn't done a barbed wire match since July 2022 when they did that Jericho/Kingston "Barbed Wire Everywhere" match on Dynamite. The only other barbed wire match they did was that Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match with the botched ending. They do use barbed wire in other matches...a lot. They had a barbed wire board in a random Willow vs. Skye Blue match on Rampage a month or so ago. The cage had barbed wire on the top and in the corners. They also had a 2x4 barbed wire stick. The big move came when Copeland wrapped Malaki in barbed wire on a table then climbed to the top of a cage and did an elbow drop through the table. Copeland landed on his feet, though, which was a mistake, because he broke and/or injured his leg and had to relinquish the TNT title this week. Malakai Black was a bloody mess in this match. And Malakai is rarely in singles matches. Why is that, anyway? The two also ended up outside the cage and the other House of Black members came out to beat up Copeland. Really wild, bloody, crazy match. ***

MERCEDES MONE vs. WILLOW NIGHTINGALE (18:04): Because this was Mercedes first match, the expectations were super high. The match was okay, nothing special. I suppose Mercedes has to get more ring time in to look as good as she once was. Mercedes won the TBS title, which was obvious. She's actually wrestling the CMLL star, Stephanie Vaquer, at Forbidden Door next month, which should be an all time classic. After the match, Kris Statlander turned on Willow. Not sure that's a good idea to turn Statlander heel. **1/2

SWERVE STRICKLAND vs. CHRISTIAN CAGE (24:45): The first half of this match was boring but by the end it turned into a pretty entertaining match. They did a bunch of interference early until everyone got banned and sent to the back. Swerve did a cool spot where they both hit the ropes and Swerve did a running kick to the head in mid-air. I don't really think anyone thought Christian was going to win the title. What did surprise me was they announced that it'll be Will Ospreay vs. Swerve for the title at Forbidden Door. I think everyone expected Ospreay to win the title at Wembley. I suppose they could do a screw job to have Ospreay lose at Forbidden Door. I doubt they'd have Ospreay lose clean. And that match is between two AEW wrestlers. I thought the whole purpose of Forbidden Door was to have wrestlers from different companies fight each other? **1/2

THE ELITE (JACK PERRY, KAZUCHIKA OKADA & THE YOUNG BUCKS) vs. FTR, BRYAN DANIELSON & DARBY ALLIN (29:55): There were some really great, unique, creative spots in this match. A lot of this was plodding, though, and just guys fake punching each other while walking around the crowd. Early on they had "Final Countdown" playing during the match which was pretty cool and the crowd loved it. The big spot was Darby setting Jack Perry on fire after shooting him with a flame thrower. Yes, that really happened. Yes, it was a pretty cool spot. Darby had brought out a flame thrower on Dynamite so we were all wondering how it was going to be used in this match. When Darby tried to drown Jack Perry in an ice bath backstage, I immediately figured it out. Jack Perry had to look "wet" because he'd be glazed in fire proof goo later on. Only Jack Perry's feet and ankles were on fire...and The Young Bucks quickly doused him with a fire extinguisher. It was still cool, though. Before that, Jack Perry was walking backstage and saw Tony Khan sitting at the monitor. Perry grabbed Tony Khan and dragged him into the arena which had me laughing. Darby saved Khan with the fire spot. There was another spot where Jack Perry crashed a bus through a pile of trash and into a trailer. The announcers said Darby was in the pile of trash or something. One of the Young Bucks did a Swanton Bomb off the stage through one of the FTR guys on a table. Last year they did an exploding shoe superkick gimmick. Tonight they did an exploding chair gimmick. Matt Jackson hit Dax with the chair on the head and it exploded. That was awesome. Okada looked pretty lost doing hardcore stuff. He did put on an arm band with thumbtacks to deliver a Rainmaker. Darby was also wearing a mask with thumbtacks on it. The Elite tied Darby's feet and hung him upside down at one point. Then they put on sneakers with thumbtacks to give him a super kick while he was hanging in the ring. The crowd chanted, "Please help Darby!" because he was hanging for a long time while everyone else was wrestling around him. Jack Perry pinned Danielson. This match was pretty exhausting. But it was creative as hell. Good show. I enjoyed it. ***

WWE KING & QUEEN OF THE RING

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

BIANCA BeLAIR & JADE CARGIL vs. CANDICE LeRAE & INDI HARTWELL (8:03): This was the pre-show match. They've seemingly already gave up on Jade Cargil as a singles wrestler. Funny, because I thought she was looking better in WWE so far than she ever looked in AEW. I think this was for the women's tag team titles. Do they have 2 sets of titles or just 1? Match was decent. I actually really enjoy watching Candice wrestle. They used to have that amusing NXT group with Gargano, Theory, Candice and Indi. They should reunite them. They were a blast. **

LIV MORGAN vs. BECKY LYNCH (15:23): AEW's Double or Nothing had 11 matches. This show had 5. I'd say you got your money's worth buying the AEW show because it was $50. This show, and all WWE PPV's, are on Peacock now. I have no idea how much Peacock is because I get it free as part of my Comcast subscription. Is that the reason the WWE doesn't even seem to be trying anymore with their PPV's? This show was totally forgettable. I wouldn't say it was short, as there were, like, 20 minutes of commercials between every match. I can't say I've ever liked these Saudi Arabia shows anyway. One reason is Saudi Arabia beheaded a Washington Post journalist just for bad mouthing the country. The other reason is they treat women like slaves. Oh, and also gay people, pornography, and alcohol are illegal. Would I change my tune if suddenly Saudi Arabia paid me $5 million dollars? Because it seems like paying people makes them care less about the evils of that country. Anyway, there was a show. The WWE is actually having 3 straight PPV's in foreign countries, thus having 3 straight PPV's on at 1 PM on a Saturday afternoon. Maybe they should do this in winter when people don't want to go outside at 1 PM on a Saturday. The WWE doesn't really seem to care about their fans, do they? Just ask Sami Zayn and the fans in Montreal. Drew McIntyre and the fans in Cardiff. I suppose I could go on. I am also completely baffled as to why the WWE is more popular than AEW. AEW had their 5 year anniversary this week and the one thing that Dave Meltzer noted was that he was surprised about how much internet vitriol there's been against AEW. It is odd. If you look at comments posted online after an AEW show there's always a bunch of trolls spewing ridiculous negative things for, really, no logical reason. I don't get why some people still want AEW to fail or mock the ratings or crowd sizes. I would understand if AEW was terrible or something...but it's far from it. Eh...there was a match here. Liv Morgan won the title from Becky Lynch. Dominik Mysterio threw a chair in the ring to help Becky but Liv used it when the ref wasn't looking to win. Because Rhea Ripley is out with an injury, I guess they figured they'd do something with Liv and Dominik. On RAW, Liv kissed Dominik but he didn't kiss her back. The intrigue! Becky's deal is up, so of course there's speculation she might go to AEW. Considering her husband, Seth Rollins, is in WWE, I highly doubt that. Match was okay. Liv had that cool, red latex suit on. Women aren't allowed to show the skin of their arms or legs. The head and hands are okay, though! & wearing a fucking S&M latex suit is okay! Makes sense! This fucking country. I give up. **

SAMI ZAYN vs. BRONSON REED vs. CHAD GABLE (13:39): I will admit that the crowd was great tonight. If you can't drink alcohol or watch porn...you've gotta be pent up with aggression, though, right? I bet everyone drinks and watches porn, though. C'mon. It can't be that hard to do that, right? If everyone was drinking in the U.S. during prohibition (supposedly), I'm sure they do it over there. I also wonder if the porn they watch is weird. Like...do they get turned on seeing a woman's bare leg like people used to in the 1800's? Anyway...the crowd was super into two wrestlers on this show: Sami Zayn and Randy Orton. Sami Zayn wasn't allowed to go to Saudi Arabia until last year because his family is from Syria. He also must be a Muslim because in the video package they showed up visiting Mecca. Mecca is literally just a giant box with a black tarp over it. It's literally the stupidest thing ever. Hopefully no Muslim is reading this. They couldn't make it, like, a giant gold statue or something remotely cool looking? What's in the box, anyway? Who came up with that? Someone put a giant box in a square and just said, "Hey, this is Mecca." And people were okay with that? It had to have started off with a bunch of doubters saying, "Yo! That's just a stupid box. What the fuck?" I guess I should, like, read into that. Anyway, the crowd loved Sami. Sami retained the IC title. Match was decent. They teased Otis turning on Gable but they're dragging that out. **1/2

NIA JAX vs. LYRA VALKYRIA (9:38): Nia won and is the Queen of the Ring. The King of the Ring, for whatever reason, just never turned into anything remotely intriguing. It used to try to be one of the big PPV's, happening every June, but even that fizzled out and they started doing it on RAW for a while. Lyra is from NXT. Her name is quite the mouthful, right? Who's the genius that came out with that name? There's too many syllables. She's a pretty good wrestler. She came out with all in black with black wings. Remember Vince fired Nia but HHH re-hired her? HHH must be her friend because he came out to crown her but he didn't come out to crown Gunther. *

GUNTHER vs. RANDY ORTON (21:50): The crowd loved Randy Orton. I guess because he's been around a long time and they know who he is. Usually Gunther is in great matches but this wasn't one of them. It was average. The KOTR winners get title shots at Summerslam. I guess that means Cody vs. Gunther, which should be a good one. **

CODY RHODES vs. LOGAN PAUL (24:15): Logan did a top rope splash onto Cody on the announce table. That was cool. I like Logan Paul, but he seems to be getting less exciting/daring with every match. Remember he used to do a ton of top rope stuff and crazy moves? He's settled down a bit and thus gotten less entertaining. He's still great and playing to the crowd, though. Match was good but nothing special. It was also way too long. Hopefully Clash at the Castle next month will be better. CM Punk vs. Drew should be the main event and for the title but, oh wait, they stupidly took the title off Drew and gave it to a guy not even on this show (Damian Priest). Is he banned from Saudi Arabia, too? Maybe he made fun of that box. **1/2

WWE BACKLASH

Lyon, France

THE BLOODLINE (SOLO SIKOA & TAMA TONGA) vs. KEVIN OWENS & RANDY ORTON "STREET FIGHT" (19:38): This show was really only memorable because of the super hot, boisterous crowd. They chanted, sang, jumped up and down, and stood for a lot of the show. I was wondering...are they like this when watching anything in Lyon, France? Like during every soccer match are they like this? And at every concert? Or was it just because the WWE rarely goes there? Either way, the show was forgettable but the crowd made the show at least entertaining. This show was pretty much just an average house show type of event. All of the matches were good but nothing was worth going out of your way to see. This opener was a street fight so they used trash cans and tables and chairs. The big spot had Kevin Owens giving Tama Tonga a top rope suplex bomb onto four chairs sitting up. Orton gave Solo an RKO on the announce table that sort of dropped but didn't break. Match was entertaining. **1/2

BAYLEY vs. NAOMI vs. TIFFANY STRATTON (13:34): Tiffany Stratton seems like a wrestler on the verge of being a big star. She looks like a barbie doll with gigantic fake tits but she used to be a gymnast so she can actually wrestle. I think she's supposed to be a heel, though, which kind of doesn't make sense. Hate the hot blonde? I mean...maybe if you're a woman. Doubt a guy would hate a plastic bombshell. The one good thing on this show was that all of the matches were pretty fast paced so weren't boring. Bayley retained her title. **1/2

DAMIAN PRIEST vs. JEY USO (15:47): This was fast paced with a lot of action. I think the big problem on this show was that there was no drama in any of these major title matches as to who would win. Bayley, Priest, and Cody just won their titles at Wrestlemania so obviously weren't going to lose that fast. Good match, though. I don't really think Damian comes across as a big, superstar champion, though. He seems like an IC title type of guy. The Judgment Day interfered throughout, though Dominic wasn't on the show. **1/2

JADE CARGILL & BIANCA BeLAIR vs. THE KABUKI WARRIORS (ASUKA & KAIRI SANE) (17:22): Cargill and Bianca won the women's tag team titles. I honestly forgot the WWE even has women's tag team titles. Do they still have two of them for RAW and Smackdown? As hot as the WWE is these days, I don't really think the product is all that great. I will say that Cargill didn't look as sloppy and as awkward in this as she has in the past. Maybe the WWE has better backstage trainers than AEW or maybe it's just that she's been doing this long enough to have gotten better. Bryan Danielson supposedly trained her a little bit in AEW. Maybe it finally paid off? Or maybe he was a bad trainer? Match was okay. **

CODY RHODES vs. AJ STYLES (27:18): This was a good match, although, honestly, I kind of thought it would be a lot better. AJ is older these days, so I guess expecting him to be as awesome as he was in New Japan is ridiculous. Also...Cody isn't as good as Okada or Suzuki were back when AJ wrestled those guys in NJPW. They did the big announce table break. That might be the only thing I remember in this match. This show was a throwaway but the hot crowd was something else. **1/2