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LOOKING AT LAST NIGHT'S AEW DOUBLE OR NOTHING

MJF RETURNS

Well, MJF is back. My main take away from this was MJF saying “no more haha”, about ten seconds before making a dick joke and dropping an elbow on a devil mask. So has anything really changed from his disastrous last few months of 2023? This whole angle just… happened. No build to it. Things just happen in AEW.  Cole appeared, and very quickly was cut off by the returning Maxell Jacob Friedman. It was all very contrived. MJFs promo bin general was really good, and the message he delivered was encouraging. Did we need a Vince McMahon reference? Absolutely not, but AEW are gonna AEW. It seems very clear that he knows just how bad his last run was, and as someone that sat through that Wembley main event, I hope for the sake of us all, that MJF will be doing his best to recapture the magic that launched him to stardom to begin with.  The question now will be, is Cole cleared to work again, and will we be getting a blow off to their story, or will they just move on and pretend it never happened? I would be fine with the latter.

ANARCHY

This was bad. Really, really bad. If you ignore the build to this that had plot holes so big, you could go through them with a jumbo jet, this was just a really bad match with some of the worst traits of AEW.  Playing jukebox with the music was really silly, for a match that was apparently a heated fight for control of the company. It did give us a cool visual of Bryan Danielson in a sea of people singing The Final Countdown. Then the music stopped, and so did the crowd. This killed any atmosphere the match had, and what we then got was a whole lot of really over the top, “brutal” spots, that got very little reaction from the crowd. Tony Khan getting involved was as bad as you would expect. Jack Perry “driving” over Darby Allin was completely stupid. Remember this is supposed to be the promotion for “smart” fans.  Dax got hit over the head with an exploding chair, and it barely got a reaction. That’s probably because they watched a man get set on fire minutes earlier, and where do you go from there? Maybe this stuff just isn’t for me, but I thought this was a mess. 

MONE

This was the highlight of the show for me. Mercedes Mone vs Willow Nightingale delivered a match fitting of a big time PPV, which is something you cannot say about a lot of this show. The two month build helped create anticipation, and despite some rocky segments in the lead up, the last few weeks have delivered. The big time entrances and crowd investment made this feel special. Mercedes is up there with the greatest ever female wrestlers from North America, and she reminded us how good she is, even after a serious injury layoff.  A lot of great work from both, and some nice story worked around ankle injuries. Willow Nightingale carried herself like a star yet again, and is someone that AEW should be going all the way with. Of course, the match had to have some interference, to fit in with the rest of this show, but it did make sense. Mercedes should have retired the Mone Maker when it ended in disaster in her NJPW debut, and unfortunately it did not go well again here.  After the match I was left with a good feeling. Good match, well booked, Willow has her next story direction as they build to the Kris Statlander turn. So of course, before I could finish the thought, Statlander blasts Willow, and instead of letting anything breathe, or making any effort to build anticipation, it just happens. 

SWERVE WINS

Swerve Strickland got the big time entrance, and looked like a star. This was exactly what it needed to be, a good solid match, and a strong title win to help establish Swerve as a credible champion. There was some great work and very creative spots, particularly a spear being smoothly countered with a House Call. Swerve did spend way too much time on the top rope before hitting the Swerve Stomp again.  If you’re keeping score, this was another match that did have interference. But all in all, it was good stuff. 

BROOD

If you like spooky lore and 1999 WWF tributes, this was the match for you. Does anyone care about The Brood in 2024? Did anyone care about The Brood in 1999? Adam Copeland makes reference to him bringing out his dark side. Inspired by The Brood? From my memory he was a job guy in those days. When I think of the version of Edge that was sick and twisted, it was The Rated R Superstar having wild hardcore matches with Mick Foley. And what is The Brood without that iconic music? No doubt, his entrance looked very cool. The match was solid enough if you’re into that sort of thing. The House of Black turn tease was really badly thought out and made very little sense. Gangrel appearing was a nice moment for long time fans, even though the presentation complete with silly lighting should be nowhere near an AEW product that is apparently for the sophisticated fans of hard hitting, edgy, sports like pro wrestling. 

WAY TOO MUCH

This show was outrageously long and had at least three matches that did not need to be on this show. Why not save something for one of the many episodes of Collision that has nothing importance on it? WWE just did a five match card, where every match meant something and it was a great easy watch. This was a slog to sit through. The first two hours of this show largely played out in front of a disinterested crowd, who’s interest got less and less with every match they sat through.

Ospreay vs Strong was a hot opener that the crowd were up for. But it started the theme for the night. Interference and screwy finishes.

The trio's match should have been on Dynamite, but it was nice to see Juice Robinson back.

I was dumbfounded when Serena Deeb made a babyface entrance. Last Wednesday I thought AEW had finally rectified the messy build for the match, and cast Deeb as the heel. Apparently I was wrong. Deeb continued to wrestle the match as a babyface despite Toni Storm being extremely over with the crowd. There was a spot where Mariah May almost threw the towel in for Toni, which apparently was because Toni did it to her some weeks ago. This was an important story point that was not made part of the build to the match, and something I completely forgot about.  If something is an important part of a story, highlight it and make sure people know about it. 

There was more. Jon Moxley, once the hottest star in this company, wrestled Konsuke Takeshita in a forgettable match in front of a very quiet crowd. The FTW three was a really bad comedy hardcore match that saw Katsuyori Shibata almost die, and was full of spots repeated from Shibata vs Jericho on Dynamite a couple of weeks ago. It left me thinking about how Shibata should be a huge part of NJPW, who badly need him. I hope things work out better for Bryan Keith than the many others who have been factioned up with Chris Jericho.  Orange Cassidy and Trent Berretta worked a match that did not fit the story, and the finish was essentially exactly the same as their match on Dynamite two weeks ago. So Trent has lost twice to Cassidy now, and Don Callis is still hovering around this whole situation.  

AEW has a lot of major problems. Nothing is connecting on any meaningful level and there is a major malaise over the entire product.  The company is stuck in a rut that they only seem to be getting deeper into, and it's very hard to see a way out.  Double or Nothing was once a special event in the AEW calendar. This was an event with no buzz, and one that you didn’t really need to see. This show marked five years since AEW began. Where was the social media blitz in the few weeks prior celebrating the milestone? There was more buzz this weekend for a WWE show in Saudi Arabia, and it was a show that had a much hotter crowd too. A red hot atmosphere was once the thing that set AEW apart, but that has been lost due to nothing but poor booking. This was a show that was way too long, had many matches that didn’t need to be on the show, and the running theme of way too much interference and screwy finishes. Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics posed the question on his social media earlier, asking is AEW a closer comparison to 2019 WWE than the current WWE product is. It’s a topic that needs to be dove into much deeper some other time, but AEW is certainly in a very different place than it was in 2019. I hate being so negative towards AEW.  I have been a huge supporter since day one and desperately want to see them flourish,  but it was very hard to come away from that show without thinking about anything other than the state of the company creatively five years into its existence. 

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