Los Ingobernables are faces, hooray! Shame they don't have Andrade with them.
I appreciate how much Toni Storm puts into this character, but I do NOT like it. I'm okay with a cute character twist or anything (Julia Hart - supergood. Abadon - perfectly fine with that.), but this is just ... I don't know. It reeks of backstage vignettes and skits. Maybe that's what I don't like. The in-ring should always be at the centre of attention, right? This also is the difference between say Orange Cassidy and things like Toni Storm's current character (The Fiend suffered from that a LOT for instance) - one is a wrestler with a quirky character, but that's all played out in the ring. What Toni Storm does right now (and it'snot her fault, she gives it her all and that's commendable) is just a bunch of skits and vignettes, but has nothing to do with the in-ring. But that's just me.

I just watched the backstage segment featuring Statlander, Nightingale and Blue. Speaking of whom, I detested that character. Draw some make-up on her face, make her roll her eyes and be "like wha'ever" and I like that charactre a LOT better. Maybe I'm just simple. Either way, these three together are fun. I wanna see them either as a trio or in a tv show, solving crimes in France.

The main event was a slobberknocker, as they say.

.) I hate Logan Paul, even if he saved Rey Mysterio from falling on his head. He's the symptom for a lot of things that are going wrong. A big middle finger to him, his silly matchbox car, the 'hydration business' and youtube stars.

.) Ooooh, there's Kairi Sane again, looking pretty darned cool. Great story unfolding there.

.) Enjoyed the crowd being firmly behind Drew McIntyre for the opening match.

.) Rhea Ripley's entrance was weird, wasn't it? Oh well. She looks cool, the match was a pretty forgone conclusion. I decided that I like Zoey Stark.

.) The Miz TV segment was utterly senseless. Ibrahim seems like a lovely man, but this actually made me pine for the early days of Crown Jewel, where they at least showed try-outs for wrestlers and had them in-ring there. Go Feisal!

.) Cena went from Superman to relateable man. How odd. And he's untiring in putting over younger people. Bless Mr.Cena.

.) People all over the world love shouting "yea!" and the result was as to be expected.

.) Cody is a mega star, should have beaten Reigns last WM.



FLY EMIRATES!

Opener: Trios Match. Sting/Allin/Copeland (with Ric Flair. Flair's signing is still inexplicable to me. I know there's this lemonade deal coming along with him, but I still don't see the benefit) vs. Christian/Luchasaurus/Wayne. Fun entrance for the villains; Christian's character is perhaps the most solid heel in AEW, next to Jay White. Adam Copeland likes to dress like other people he teams with and likes to paint his face. But it's ok, it looked very pretty. Absolutely solid opener, then Sting gets cheered for a bit, which was nice.



Then the whole MJF story is explained. Curiosity is peaked.



Intl.Championship Title Match: Moxley vs. Orange Cassidy. Unbelievable, but I had forgotten all about this match. But it was a good match. Fast-paced, hard-hitting and all that.



Toni Storm vs. Hikaru Shida. Honestly, I haven't watched Toni Storm segments in a while, so I had no idea her butler/manager/hiwi was Luther. Match goes back and forth like this, then Storm pulls out the pan. At first I thought they were doing a Mei Saint-Michel spot, but nope! They're making it a modified Rika Tatsumi spot! Or something like that. It's clear that AEW has become a very butt-heavy promotion lately, but that's perfectly okay. The human bottom is one of the most likeable and funny body parts at the same time after all. Timeless Toni Storm is definitely too "sports entertain-y" for my taste. It was good that she still had the pan in her pants for the victory celebration, but I'm still not happy with the whole thing.



Fortunately, there was an interview that Renee Parquette did with Eddie Kingston to appease humorless people like me right away. I like tournaments. Wrestling should always be a tournament, right? Kingston putting EVERYTHING on the line is a bit of a gamble, but let's see. Maybe there really will be a Triple Crown title and ROH will be integrated into AEW (because this existence as it is now is a bit unsatisfactory. Either a separate promotion, with flying changes of personnel between the rosters, or fully AEW).





Three-Way Tag Team Ladder Match - Chaotic, big spots, so basically a team ladder match. Good winners (I'm digging Big Bill at the moment), good match. Hope everyone is okay. I'm a little worried about the House of Black. They could be more dangerous.



tbs Championship Match Skye Blue vs. Julia Hart vs. Kris Statlander - Totally ok. I love Julia Hart as a character, she's gotten really good as a singles wrestler in such a short time. Was also the correct winner. I think Kris Statlander is a lovely person, but she doesn't seem like a convincing champion or even a bit badass. Maybe it's time for a women's tag title. Team her with Willow Nightingale for a sort of powerhouse babyface team, Athena and Billie Starkz, Saraya and Ruby Soho, then they should bring back the Bunny and team up with Penelope Ford, once Tay Conti is back in action they can reactivate Tay-Kay (especially because I like the entrance), then they can add Riho and Emi Sakura, Hikaru Shida teams up with Jamie Hayter, .... the AEW Women's roster is really big; you just see so little of it. Heck, team Nyla Rose with Abadon or bring in Max the Impaler and Heidi Howitzer for a few mathces.

Britt Baker can try to take the tbs title from Julia Hart and fail 23 times for all I care. Of course, the tbs title is then taken by Yuka Sakazaki at Revolution, who then proceeds to wins the Women's Title from Jamie Hayter (who has long since dethroned Toni Storm by this point) in fairly quick succession. Why I'm not head booker at AEW, I don't understand.


Oh yeah, Ospeay is now All Elite. Cool. I'm glad. Was to be expected, is totally ok, will be a wonderful thing. I'm honestly really tempted to go to the 2024 Wembley show.



Page vs Strickland. Texas Death Match. I'm not a fan of 90% of special entrances, but I liked this one okay because I'm happy each time I see Prince Nana now. Swerve Strickland is great. I think Page is really good in general because he's one of the few babyfaces that really work. And that's insanely valuable, especially in a promotion that has a crazy array of "cool, funny heels". And then the match starts with big moves right away (no entrance for Hangman, and that's another correct choice for a match like this). This doesn't fit well with what I just wrote about Page, but THIS is the Hangman we want to see in a death match. It's a comparatively "small" spot, but when he drinks the blood that's booming out of Strickland's head.... that's probably the most impressive spot of the year. Really absurd. Just like the rest of the match. You can think of death matches what you like, but IF you're going to do one, do it like this. Crazy. Match of the Night.



Golden Jets vs. Young Bucks tag match. I have to admit, I didn't watch this match all the way through. I've seen a lot of Bucks matches, I've seen a lot of storylines about who's friends with who in the Elite, and I've seen a lot of Jericho matches in AEW. They were all great in this match, nothing else was to be expected , but I just wasn't that interested. Also, I don't find the Golden Jets all that interesting. Just seems like they threw two top guys together for an interim program while Omega's next (last?) big thing is being prepared.



Main Event: Adam Cole (standing in for MJF) vs. Jay White. I really like Jay White as a heel. And AEW have a remarkable talent for making their babyfaces look like komplete dweebs, especially Adam Cole. Of course, that certainly has to do with his physique and so on. But that was already too much. And then MJF makes his Cody-esque return, and it's all very story-heavy and MJF is a valiant babyface and outside is Cole with the towel, and in the end everything comes as it always does and then it's over. I'm not crazy confident in the MJF run. If Cole doesn't turn on him soon or vice versa or something I'll be even less interested. You can draw comparisons to Reigns' reign, but of course that's a bit unfair because the Bloodline storyline (at least with Sami Zayn and stuff) was an absolute masterpiece. At Crown Jewel, for the first time in a looooooooooong time, I wasn't convinced by the Reigns match. Anyway, the match was perfectly OK. I assume that Cole's injury delayed everything, and that's why we're floundering a little at the moment, But I'm sure they'll turn it into something good soon.

8 man tag match (Castagnoli, Danielson, Briscoe, Garcia vs. Brody King, White, Lethal, Rush) - was perfectly fine. To be honest I didn't pay that close attention. Somehow I'm a bit down on wrestling lately. Not sure why. Maybe I'm down on everything.

Interesting how there were no tag matches on the card. Two 8 man tag matches. Also: Pac is sorely missed. Where he heck is he??

Miro vs. Andrade: I love Andrade in AEW. Rumour has it he's on his way out, and I'm sure he'll be handled better than before in WWE. He's a star and cool and a really good wrestler and supergood. Miro is great as well of course. I'm having a hard time following the storyline to be honest. .D

Storm vs. Riho: Funny how over Riho is. I was kinda hoping for a Yuka Sakazaki debut (ot at least a Mercedes Moné one), but okay. Toni Storm clearly puts a LOT of effort into her character (I watched her part of the media scrum. She's really good at that character). Her character reminds me of Bray Wyatt. There isn't quite the creative genius behind it, but instead (and that's almost better) a dedicated to details and craft. Either way, why her current version reminds me of Wyatt so much is that I can somewhat appreciate the character outside of the ring, but I can't manage to see this as a wrestling character. Doesn't translate to the ring for me. Maybe it#s better if wrestlers are just wrestlers?

Strickland vs. DUSTIN RHODES!?: Yeah, like 30 minutes before the show it was announced that Keith Lee couldn't compete. Sucks. Strickland made it a really cool part of his character though. He's legitimate and a competitor. I like that. Dustin Rhodes is just really, really good at his job, isn't he.

Jericho, Guevara, Sting, Darby Allin vs. Takeshita, Starks, Big Bill and Powerhouse Hobbs [completely forgot that he's in the match!]: Well, that was weird. I only learned about the Jericho thing after the PPV, so I thought that people just really, really hated Guevara as a babyface (which is a very correct assessment). It all seemed a bit off.

Julia Hart vs. Abadon: These two in a PPV title match. I'm happy. The fans also had fun with their chants, I don't hate Skye Blue any more. Things are OK.

At this point I was warming up to the whole show again.

Copeland vs. Christian: Oh, that was cool, wasn't it. A bit overblown and all, but it fit. And hey, I even think that Nick Wayne could become a really good heel: When he helped christian putting the table on fire, said "hey, this is fun!" to the camera... there was something. And then he did the spot and it worked mostly great and I think they're on to somehthing there. The end was insane. Very Christian in style.

And then they announced that Moxley vs. Kingston was next and I was hooked. Great match. Not too long, not too short, I love both guys, the outcome was the correct one. The BCC is an amazing asset to AEW. Just a group of top-level tweener wrestlers they can use in the face or heel role at will and still make them look legit. Because they are.

On to the main event! For the past few months, if somebody had asked me (and nobody did, because nobody ever asks me about my clever and valuable insights about pro wrestling for some reason. ) if I'd rather watch an MJF main event title match or a Roman Reigns main even title match, I probably would have gone for the latter. And the Roman Reigns matches haven't been all that recently either. But I just don't like face MJF much. I appreciate how little of a twist it required to make his character an uber babyface, but the story with the friendship and so on didn't really grip me. And the effin kangaroo kick. I detest that thing. Then there's the Devil story, which to me wasn't all that interesting either because it's rather spors entertain-y, went on for too long and had a lot of potential to go wrong. Of course they had a ton of back luck as well with the Adam Cole injury, it has to be said, but still.

Anyway, Samoa Joe vs. MJF for the AEW title: This was rather good. I absolutely loved Joe's counter of the kangaroo kick, this to me was the poetic centre of the whole match. "enough with that stuff." Whammo. The outcome was very wisely chosen. The big thing afterwards was correct. Sometimes the obvious way of doing things is the best, and Tony Khan (for all his downsides) knows that and books accordingly. Honestly, I didn't recognize Wardlow at first. When the guys unmasked all I was looking for was Kyle O Reilly. Oh well. But it's a good group, Cole should be a superb heel, I hope they keep Britt Baker away from the whole thing, and I'm looking forward to how they make MJF's life annoying, turning him proper heel again too (which I doubt will happen any time soon, but who knows), OR MJF gets himself a group as well and they'll do a wargames match. Or something.

To be honest i'm not completely fussed, because The Rock was a thing before I started watching wrestling, and I'm not sure how this is going to work in terms of the titles and so on. Does Cody take the titles on night#1, and then The Rock destroys the Bloodline on night#2 or something?

Paul Ellering and the Authors of Pain returned tonight, aligning with Karrion Kross and Scarlett in taking out Bobby Lashley and the Street Profits.

Aw, cool that Ellering with back with them. Makes the AoP much cooler.