AEW Road Rager at the James L Knight Center in Miami Florida, live once more with a hot crowd. To me this was the start of the test to see how AEW can do beyond their COVID-19 base at Daily’s Place. I couldn’t tell 100% but it mostly looked like a full house, but I imagine at this stage, fans are going to be super hungry for live pro-wrestling, despite the variants floating around of COVID-19 and that a good percentage of the population probably still is unvaccinated.
South Beach Strap Match Cody Rhodes vs QT Marshall
Strange match to open the show but fans did seem hot for action. This wasn’t a huge spot match and the announcers frequently referenced Cody’s family being involved in these types of matches with JR and Tony mentioning how they’ve called quite a few as well. There was a lighting equipment failure that seemed odd during the match since communications still continued during the broadcast. Ultimately, Cody hit a big top rope move then tapped each ring post for the victory. Surprisingly, no post match brawl at this point so hopefully this is the last of this feud. I didn’t think much of this match but Cody was pretty over and QT got a few “QT Sucks” chants in.
Shawn Spears Backstage Segment
Just a stupid unending Pinnacle vs Inner Circle piece with Shawn Spears bragging only to somehow not see Sammy Guevara tossing a chair into his head. The only thing missing was Alex Marvez but maybe he’s just a prop for babyface for interruptions. At least, we were subjugated to his worthless presence.
Kenny Omega Interview
Tony Schiavone interviews Kenny Omega actually in the ring with Don Callis accompanying Omega. There’s a humorous “You got fired!” chant to which Callis replied “Real men don’t quit, they get fired.” Huh? Did that make any sense to anyone?
Regardless, the Job World Order come out and once again Evil Uno becomes Hangman Page’s unappointed spokesperson. Kenny makes a bad joke and nails Uno in the junk with the Job World Order attempting to attack but being intercepted by the rest of Kenny’s minions. Hangman Page makes the save for a pretty decent pop. But before they have the chance to collide, Kenny slides out and escapes. Just a sloppy segment. How does Uno get time?
Ethan Page and Darby Allin Sit Down
Poor Jim Ross attempts to moderate and make sense of this feud. It just meanders and oddly Ethan Page sounds almost like a babyface in some warped way because of the “success” Allin has gotten. But to make himself remain a heel, Page says Allin’s success is the result of him following him. They already are doing the Christian Cage vs Matt Hardy “you’re stalking me/success” story. So they’re doing this here too? Either way, this meandered and bored me and I felt it went nowhere.
FTR/Wardlow vs Santana/Ortiz/Jake Hager
Lots of action in this match but very sloppy with a few strange moments like Jake trying to attack all three members of the Pinnacle in their corner and getting the ankle lock on their side with Wardlow standing on the outside as a heel looking dumber than ever. The dumbest part was Jake having Wardlow’s partner tag him in so the two could go toe-to-toe. The announcers were trying to build these two as the next major feud but the biggest match they could have already took place with the wannabe UFC MMA match. Wardlow gets a clean pin with Tully helping to outsmart the Inner Circle, which should hopefully imply FTR can move on. But we know that won’t happen.
Konnan oddly gets involved at the end in what looked like a heel spot in trying to get in Wardlow’s face but Tully chop blocks him. The heels slowly get out of the ring with the faces slowly getting into the ring. It just looked bad with Konnan making it seem like he’s attempting to show he can still do something to contribute. In his condition, he probably should just stay outside from now on because that ending was stupid and did no one besides Konnan any favors (if you can even call it that)
MJF and Chris Jericho Contract Signing
The second best part of the show happened when some fat idiot attempted to enter the ring. Jericho decks the guy while MJF tries to cut Jericho’s music to calm things down. No idea why that moron did what he did except to get his 15 seconds of fame. Saw other fan videos of different angles and basically some dude with sun glasses got to the entrance ramp and was trying to appear bad ass. He got dragged off by security slowly but it was just an embarrassment.
You know what else is an embarrassment? That horrible song. We’re still in Florida so people are singing along. Chris Jericho threatens to leave AEW. At this point, it might actually help the promotion if it means not having to deal with these awful segments, matches and angles that he apparently produces. Most of all we won’t have to listen to that song.
MJF sounds fired up and tries to outsmart Jericho but Jericho gets the last laugh by decking the poor guy. How is MJF not being buried as yet another version of Wile E. Coyote? Just remember that it took Family Guy to give Wile E. Coyote any character growth in his illustrious and sad existence. I’m not going to delve into the stipulations aspect because there really isn’t any outside of 5 matches that Jericho has to go through and we all know he’ll win. And here’s the thing: Jericho isn’t the underdog here. So I can’t see how this will end up helping anyone.
Britt Baker Interview (with Rebel)
And again we have another interview segment. Britt talks well and points out how Rebel got a legit injury, which puts her back on crutches. She talks like a heel but does the DMD thing which gets the crowd behind her, making her a face. And she’s taking on a monster heel with Vickie Guerrero of all people. And I looked at the rankings. Tay Conti should be her next opponent and at least she’s a baby face. I don’t know why they’re giving Nyla Rose this match. Maybe Tay is just still green. Either way, I’m not looking forward to that match when it happens.
Matt Sydal vs Andrade El Idolo
Okay, here’s the part on the show where I became curious. I’ve only seen Andrade in a few matches so I had little to no opinion on what he’s capable of. Many people were excited about seeing him in AEW and praised him in WWE while saying he was misused or this and that.
So here’s the thing: I wasn’t impressed. He did maybe 1-2 moves that looked good such as the double moonsault. But Matt Sydal got quite a bit of offense in rather than Andrade show casing himself. And if the intention was to have these two hold a serious competition, it should have gone longer.
Matt Sydal might be the AEW version of the 1-2-3 Kid back in the WWF during the mid 90s. Felt these two were off, a styles clash and something just didn’t click. Also, I think the fans wanted to cheer Andrade but there was simply nothing available besides the 1-2 moves. His finisher here was very lackluster and did not make an exclamation point saying that he’s going to change the scope of the AEW landscape. If anything, I think El Penta would have been a better starting opponent but he’s lost in a dumb feud later on.
Matt Hardy and Christian Cage Video Package
They’ll finally have a match for next week’s show. I feel this is mostly a nostalgia match that will do nothing for either guy. Christian Cage can still go but Matt Hardy hasn’t been good for ages. I’d prefer Christian to be wrestling Miro or in some form of the title picture.
Arn Anderson Interview
Okay, of everything I read prior to watching the full show, this segment was the exclusive thing I wanted to see. Basically, Tommy End (Malakai Black) made his debut on AEW in punking out both Arn Anderson and Cody Rhodes. I will admit that I was NOT expecting this to happen and I had to double check the results everywhere. I thought it was a bad joke but I managed to find a few early clips and wow that place erupted.
As much as I rip on AEW, Tony Khan and the presentation of the show, I will say that Tommy End’s debut made me pop hard. I was thoroughly hyped up and got serious chills down my back hearing the fans chant “Holy shit!” or “Tommy!” They did the right thing in putting him in front of that hot crowd and got the exact reaction and had him make one hell of a debut on his own. You could tell how happy he was to be there because the fan reaction was sincerely ballistic.
Part of the reason I doubted him being there was just that the first thing in my mind was that his 90 day clause was not over. Apparently, there was a HUGE clerical hole in his contract supposedly that only gave him a 30 day non-compete when they fucked up at the WWE after he moved from NXT to the main roster. That has to be one of the biggest fuck ups I’ve heard in an Office Space styled HR error I’ve heard in a very long time.
On top of that, Tommy End on his Instagram gave a small hint earlier in the day about the evolution of his character. It was an odd thing to divulge and thought honestly he was just practicing for the future. With Zelina Vega returning to the WWE, there was a great deal of speculation that Tommy End would eventually join her again. And it looked like a real possibility too.
There also was the “lighting” malfunction that happened during Cody’s match that also happened as Arn Anderson was about to give his speech (which sadly he was unable to perform). The announcers did fumble a bit in trying to justify the issue but people did remark that it went quite well with Malakai Black’s new gimmick as a possible foreshadowing.
Overall, I really enjoyed this segment. I had to watch it at least 10 times more because it’s one of those rare moments in pro-wrestling that gives you a high and makes you suspend your cynicism and disbelief because it’s such an unexpected thing. Also, the crowd totally made the segment. The execution was a bit off especially with the announcers fumbling his name, not knowing what to call him and a bit of a lack of enthusiasm. But Tommy End to the crowd was super over and you can tell everyone was excited for him to be there and position himself as a top star by directly going after Cody Rhodes. And honestly, for my dislike of Rhodes’ booking of himself and the boring QT Marshall/faction gibberish, this one feud will work really well. I am looking forward to this.
Ricky Starks / FTW Challenge Segment
After the Tommy End segment, I felt this segment was pretty bleh. Don’t really care for the people involved here and hopefully, Ricky Starks and Brian Cage move on.
The Blade/Bunny vs Kris Statlander/Orange Cassidy
Orange Cassidy was the only one over in this match. Felt like filler that belonged more on Dark or Elevation. Cassidy/Statlander won with the Big Bang Theory. Nothing from Matt Hardy’s office so hopefully this match puts that to rest.
Dan Lambert Makes A Speech
I read that Lambert with his two people ruined impact by their presence. This felt like one of those old WWE segments with Santa Clause and Vader coming in to bust him up. Lance Archer makes a cameo but don’t know what they wanted to accomplish with this segment outside of getting a cheap AEW chant going as well as name dropping UFC and Tony Khan in the same sentence.
AEW Tag Team Title Match in a Street Fight
The Young Bucks vs Penta/Eddie Kingston. Since Cody did the opening match for a change, this became the main event. It just was a big garbage match mess. I’m not really a fan of either of these teams. Penta has become pretty big in AEW since I started watching. Good for him. Honestly, I’m hoping he gets into a feud with Andrade since that actually might be a very good lucha match. Young Bucks win, sadly, so I don’t know who really will beat them down the line.
Final Thoughts
Again, for my money, the best thing on AEW was Tommy End’s debut. I’m legitimately excited for him here and to see what they’ll do for him that the WWE wasn’t. I was disappointed in Adrade’s debut match but I don’t know when he’ll be able to go after one of the titles. Since both champions are heels (unless you count Brian Cage as the FTW champion), I have a feeling that he won’t be in the title picture anytime soon.
What is clear to me is that they need to get the world title off of Kenny Omega finally so he can focus on one of the other titles he has like the Impact one. Similarly, the Young Bucks need to lose to a different tag team. The only team that should beat them are FTR but they’re heels as well. I wouldn’t mind Hangman Page being the one to beat Kenny Omega because at least that would present future opponents like Andrade, Miro, Tommy End or MJF. And if Page can’t beat him, then I think Christian Cage should be the one to do it.
Beyond that, just too many interview segments. For a two hour show, they have so little matches. And many interviews ramble on forever. They still have not settled on a TV structure and things remain inconsistent.
The one saving grace during this program besides the Tommy End piece was the fans. Because this still is Florida, it’s hard to say whether AEW will maintain their momentum as they resume touring the country. I looked at their schedule and they have a few very interesting places they will be showing up. I’m guessing at least for the first few months as things open up, they’ll be red hot. They need to capitalize on situations like Tommy End making his debut and push him to the moon with a hot feud as these crowds start gathering back. Also, they need a few more big debuts. What is clear to me is that people are super hungry for live events right now and a lot of the WWE’s lost momentum whether it’s their releases or mismanaging their own red tape and karma striking back, and these guys need to be as sharp as they can when it comes to their booking and avoiding hot shotting everything.
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