Professional Wrestling

Jungle Boy's entrance was so vanilla compared to the other Pillars' entrances .

Edited by Awesomekid42 on May 28th 2023 at 10:43:22 AM

Oh, it's not a fatal four way. It's a three-on-one.

Edit: Ok, now it's a free for all, lol

Edited by Awesomekid42 on May 28th 2023 at 10:47:49 AM

I would have thought that this would be the main event, but ending it with AITA makes more sense cleanup wise.

I don't think I've seen a Spider German/Superplex combo before. Nice sequence

Edited by omega2900 on May 28th 2023 at 9:49:37 AM

Congratulations to Sammy

Genius cheat by MJF at the very end there

The side headlock takeover story continues.

Darby vs Max 1v1 is gonna fucking rule.

BCC joins Jade in the live performance crew.

Oh, this is same band that did Moxley's old entrance theme.

I see we're calling back to last year's match with Wild Thing getting the New Jack treatment.

Edited by omega2900 on May 28th 2023 at 10:23:02 AM

Did one of the Young Bucks just rig his own leg with fireworks?!

yes he did

Takeshita why?

CALLED IT.

The weird thing is Callis and Takeshita don't seem to be part of the BCC. They're just doing their own thing.

Damn son, Takeshita's stare of death is fucking terrifying.

It's a good visual, but nothing will top bloodied Eddie Kingston with the gas can.

Yeah, when Schiavone said that they may have topped last year, I had to say that no one had tried to set someone else on fire yet, so they have a long way to go.

That was an AMAZING visual.

To be fair, they *did* blow a dude's head up.

So, here are my rankings for the matches of Double or Nothing.

Unranked: Jamie Hayter vs Toni Storm: Not really a match and more of a story moment, so I can't really feel like it's fair to rank it with the others, especially with how much they needed to work around Jamie Hayter's real life injury. Not much to this as a fight, but a decent way to show The Outcasts growing from petty bullies to full on brutal meances. And Jamie Hayter deciding to rip off her bandages and go out fighting was a cool moment. But by nature, the fight is pretty one-sided for Toni, ends pretty ani-climactically, and there's some jank moments. Primarily, Toni giving Jamie a minor shove transitioning into her full on sprinting to collide with the belt The Outcasts laid out.

9. Jade Cargill vs Taya Valkyrie: A snorefest almost the whole way through. The only part of the fight that remotely interested me was Taya jumping up to hit Jade as she was about to leap down on her. Other than that, I can't remember a single thing about the fight other than their finishers. It's slow, the blows don't leave much impact, and I felt no emotion throughout the ordeal. Kris Statlander made a nice surprise appearance to dethrone Jade, but with the nagtive buildup for her return, coupled with how short her fight with Jade was, it wasn't enough to get this match out of last place. (Or second to last if you count the unranked Jamie vs Toni)

8. The Acclaimed vs the House of Black: A fun match with a cool ending, but I feel like there wasn't much to this match that you couldn't find in any other trios match involving The Acclaimed or House of Black. And for a PPV match, that's pretty disappointing.

7. Wardlow vs Christian Cage: Pretty standard but fun fight that does a good job conveying Wardlow's strength, and Cage's strategic mind due to his experience with ladder matches. Not much to say.

6. FTR vs Triple J: Really great moments of synergy, solid tension in the fight by the time Mark Briscoe gets knocked out, and some devious heel work from Jeff Jarret and his wife. I feel like things dragged out a bit though, and the bit where Sonjay Dutt blocks Aubrey Edwards from reaching the ring for so long was stupid. Why couldn't she just shove him out of the way from the get go?

5. The Hardys and Hook vs Ethan Page and The Gunns: A shockingly good match for a pre-show fight. There's some great synergy between both sides, special mention going to the back to back finishers the Hardys and Hook do to Page at the end, and there's a ton of hype moments like Jeff leaping on the Gunsn as they're about to pin Matt, Hook judo flipping all three of his opponents back to back, or Page and the Gunns taking off Isiah's neck brace to brutalize him mid fight. I also feel like Jeff Hardy's rust worked to the fight's favor here, him falling off the ropes legit coming off as a result of the exhaustion he faced durign the fight. I will say, it seemed like Hook and the Hardy were pulling most of the weight for the fight to make it exciting, but all and all, it's a solid match

4. Blackjack Battle Royale: This is just non-stop fun all the way. There's a lot of good moment of ringwork or emotion within the ring, and it feels really balanced for the most part. The tension of getting ring-outted is incredibly palpable, especially with Orange, and despite it being a battle royale, some nice moments of teamwork special mention going to Trent Beretta pushing Orange out of the way and taking the hit from Big Bill, getting himself eliminated. Also, the one on one between Orange and Strickland at the end was great that not only pushed Orange to his limits and shown great heel work from Strickland, but had a hillariously fitting fake out where instead of an Orange Punch, Cassidy gave a light kick to Strickland's hand while he was hanging from the ropes, eliminating him.

3. BCC vs The Elite: There's one big flaw that stops this from being in ther Top 2. The camera cuts. It can be incredibly unfocused on what we're supposed to be following. I can kinda understand that due to the nature of it being full on chaos, but it results in stuff being missed like Kenny slamming Moxley onto nails (though at least that was shown in a replay even if we missed the initial impact), or Claudio throwing Matt Jackson down a flight of stairs. Other than that though? This was a pretty damn awesome. The tension and violence is at an all time high, and there are some really great usage of props. Kenny Omega going all Captain America with a trash can lid, or Matt Jackson keeping fireworks in his legs to amplify the force of one of his kicks? Amazing stuff. And it has a pretty damn good Face–Heel Turn from Takeshita to end things off.

2. Adam Cole vs Chris Jericho: Aparently this is a very unpopular opinion based off Twitter and the AEW subreddit. But oh well. This fight was fucking awesome. Cole's hatred towards Jericho is palpable at all times, and the match makes some great usage of the props. The chair duel between Jericho and Sabu at the beginning where you can even notice the vibrations, Adam Cole seemingly going for a futile rope escape only to use it as an opportunity to grab the fire extinguisher and blow it on Jericho, Cole handcuffing Jericho with the chain Jericho used to just handcuff him, and the two using the chain to drag and choke out each other. And even without the props we get some great ringwork, like Cole kicking Jericho the split second Jericho is about to land a lionsault or Jericho catching Cole in the middle of his Panama Sunrise. I see a lot of people who dislike the match being called off for an unsanctioned match, but I'm totally fine with it. When we see Cole beginning to cave in Jericho's eye by the very end, calling it off makes sense, and shows just how brutal Cole can be when he's angered.

1. The Pillars Fatal Four-Way: Well, if it wasn't gonna be the BCC vs The Elite, what else would it be? The choreography is absolutely amazing, all of them bouncing off of and taking advantage of each other's moves near flawlessly, and the upper hand constantly changes from wrestler to wrestler. From Jungle Boy doing a spider suplex on both Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara at the same time which also ended up hitting MJF, Sammy Guevara's leaps to crash down on all Four Pillars at once, Darby Allin knocking MJF and Sammy over the barricade at the same time, MJF knocking Jungle Boy of the ring and confidently strutting in it as all the other Pilalrs are lying out of it exhausted. Add some potent emotional moments like Sammy seemingly agreeing again to lay down for MJF only to use it as an opportunity to nearly pin him, Darby Allin using MJF's own signature hold against him as he promised, or Jungle Boy debating on whether he wants to use the belt as a weapon against Darby Allin only to decide to win it fair and sqaure. And the moment where all four of them hold each other simultaneously is simply legendary. The desperation from all Pillars to get a pin is incredibly powerful, and really adds to the suspense every time there's a count. Add on MJF winning through a really creative usage of cheating, namely laying his belt on top of Jungle Boy as Darby Allin is about to crash down on him before taking down the weakened Darby, and it results in my favorite match of the PPV.

Edited by Awesomekid42 on May 28th 2023 at 1:45:52 PM

In a shocking twist, Battleground seems to be the most popular event from this weekend based on opinions I've been seeing.

Anyway, now that I've gotten some sleep, I am as resolute as ever that Darby vs Max 1v1 is THE match. Sammy and Jack stepped it up in the 4 Way for sure, but it really had that big match feel when Darby and Max were in the ring alone and the crowd was salivating over it. Those two are perfect foils for each other and the ultimate confrontation between the two is the perfect capstone to MJF's reign.

Edited by The_Reptile_ on May 29th 2023 at 7:03:41 AM

Plus, Max has beaten D'Arby twice now (with the same move no less).

A third and final match at All Out feels like an appropriate end.

With Night of Champions come and gone where do you think Raw and Smackdown are going next? Beyond Roman Reigns dealing with the Usos for the next three to six months and the Asuka/Bianca rematch I don't have a lot of solid ideas of where the title scenes will go. Maybe Finn will challenge Seth for the WHC, Judgement Day and Imperium both have set up feuds with KO and Sami, Gunther will keep the IC title for months until he's cleared all close records.

I did see someone a few pages back suggest that Solo would win Money in the Bank but I don't see him as even being in the match. In kayfabe it'd make no sense why he would enter a match to get a shot against Roman Reigns, outside of it Solo shouldn't be rushed into a main event feud. I'd pick him to beat whoever wins the US Title from Theory whenever that happens.

Well since there is another World Title and Roman is gonna be occupied with Bloodline stuff for the foreseeable future, guess they're gonna use the time to build up Seth's reign. It inevitably means that Roman probably isn't gonna be defending his world title outside of any potential match with Jimmy and/or Jey, but Roman's title has all but become a prop for anyone besides Cody at this point, so *shrug*

Hard to say where Asuka does given the real lack of buildup for her win, but we'll see if it actually goes somewhere or its just a stop gap until Charlotte returns and inevitably wins it again... Oh god, that's actually gonna happen, then its gonna be Babyface Charlotte against Heel Bianca...

Rhea...I do not know, especially given Becky seems occupied with Trish and Zoey until at least Mi TB.

I actually forgot about this but I definitely see a Riddle/Gunther fued coming up after the battle royal and 6 man tag matches in recent weeks.

Edited by Shaoken on May 29th 2023 at 8:38:29 PM

Riddle-Gunther is rumored. Tbh I'd rather have Ali win.

Roman could have Solo enter MITB as an insurance policy against outside threats. It's a very commonly run angle to have a stable member hold up the number one contender spot for w champion who is feeling insecure. It also happens that the contender turns on that champ. Think Batista's thumbs down.