AEW Dynamite weekly discussion thread: June 14, 2023
I don't know if I'll do this every week but I figured now is as good a time as any to start. With their new show AEW Collision premiering this Saturday on TNT at 8pm Eastern featuring the return of CM Punk, their upcoming Wembly Stadium All In PPV (which is their equivalent to Wrestlemania), and the Forbidden Door collaboration show with New Japan Pro Wrestling, there has never been a better time to jump into AEW. That being said, welcome to the very first AEW Dynamite tildes discussion thread for June 14, 2023! We're returning to the Capital One Arena in Washington D.C., home of the very first episode of Dynamite that I was fortunate enough to attend.
MATCH CARD
World Title Eliminator: MJF vs Adam Cole
After a break from the spotlight, AEW World Champion MJF is stepping back into the ring to face Adam Cole in a high-stakes World title eliminator. Can Cole seize the moment to secure his title shot, or will MJF demonstrate the truth in his claims of a lack of competition?
Trios Match: Blackpool Combat Club vs The Hung Bucks
Riding the wave of their victory over The Elite at Double or Nothing 2023 PPV, the Blackpool Combat Club—made up of Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, & Wheeler Yuta—are set to square off once again against Hangman Adam Page and The Young Bucks. Can they replicate their previous success, or will The Hung Bucks turn the tables?
Women’s Title Match: Toni Storm (c) vs Skye Blue
In the first defense of her second reign, Toni Storm is up against Skye Blue, the current #1 contender after winning the 4 way last week. Will Skye Blue bring another upset and put an early end to Storm's first "non-interim" reign or will The Outcasts interfere as usual?
TNT Title Match: Wardlow (c) vs Jake Hager
Even as his feud with Christian Cage and Luchasaurus continues, Wardlow has issued an open challenge for his TNT Championship this week on Dynamite. Jake Hager has stepped up to the plate. Can he prove to be more than a practice match for Wardlow or will Wardlow get his win back from their MMA rules match a few years back?
8-man Tag Team Match: Mogul Embassy vs Sting, Darby Allin, Keith Lee, and Orange Cassidy
The Mogul Embassy, led by Swerve Strickland, is set to confront their rivals in a massive 8-man tag team match. Can they overcome the combined forces of Sting, Allin, Lee, and 'Freshly Squeezed' Orange Cassidy?
Additional Information
- Venue: Capital One Arena, Washington D.C.
- Airing Live On: TBS at 8pm Eastern Time
HELL YES, Happy to see some AEW talk here. I got back into wresting for the first time since the early 90's in 2019 when AEW started up. I've since seen every episode of dynamite & rampage and every PPV. I used to even do Dark & Elevation until they got to be so long and entirely squashes. I'm a total CM Punk mark.
I'm almost the exact same as you, minus being the Punk mark. There you and I disagree, 😅. Like you I watched when I was younger in the 90's, but as a teenager and on I stopped watching. It wasn't until a heard about AEW and started taking notice of the product that I realised that it wasn't that I didn't like wrestling, I just didn't like the WWE style of wrestling, which was all I knew of. I've been a fan of AEW ever since I caught wind of it.
This is fair, Punk is polarizing af - I watched with and without Punk and would continue to watch regardless, I just feel Punk adds something that I didn't initially realize was missing.
How do you think Collision is going to go? I am nervous that it is going to be a total train wreck, based on CM Punk in AEW so far.
I don't know but I'm excited to find out! The first show in Chicago is going to be an outlier so we won't know how the average crowd is going to react to him until it happens but the boos he got for his announcement makes me think it's going to be a Cena like reaction in a lot of cities. He certainly rubbed me the wrong way for driving AEW off the rails and starting this never ending drama but I'll be happy to see him back and can't wait to see how they address it all. Heel Punk was always the best Punk so it could be great.
Punk leading Bullet Club Gold could be interesting but I don't think he and Jay White could coexist. Besides, I can hear the Bullet Club Nexus jokes already with the colors being similar and all.
I'm going to be at the Toronto Collision show, where I am planning to boo Punk until my face turns red. He burned a lot of Canadians by making us miss out on Omega for the first Canadian show of AEW back in October.
Personally, I'm hoping the Canadian showings with Punk all have him booed so bad that he has to turn heel.
I'm hopeful - I didn't think punk was that bad, beyond that insane hangman match where he botched the buckshot lariat twice. His value to me is largely his work on the mic and the t-shirts he wears into hostile territories. If he can re-create the MJF feud a few times, the sky is the limit.
Oh his matches were all really good. The MJF dog collar match was awesome. All the drama from the brawl out really ruined what could have been a legacy defining moment for MJF, not to mention him burying the company + the elite.
I am hoping that this goes a lot better but I have my doubts due to the nature of Tony Khanman.
I thought "gripe bomb" was HILARIOUS. Khan's blank stare was amazing.
I don't disagree that the gripe bomb was funny to watch live, but the after math was really unfortunate.
It was - We missed out on like 9 months of punk on commentary!
Tonight should be a great show! Feel free to drop any questions you have here if this at all interests you. I'll be dropping in throughout the show to give my thoughts. One thing I will miss from r/squaredcircle is the highlights that would get posted by people recording the show but I can't see myself doing that.
Thanks for posting this thread, I hope this can become a regular thing with an actual interest and weekly discussions
No problem. If I see enough interest I'll keep it up. At least until someone else wants to volunteer. While it was daunting at first, I ended up asking chatgpt to make a stencil for me and then just filled it in based on the card that was announced on twitter and it didn't take all that much time. I figured that was the best way to get the ball rolling until someone who is used to making megathreads takes over.
Hung Bucks huh?
Going to be a fantastic show tonight, I’m always down for some trios action.
Thought about posting this myself. Happy to see wrestling fans here!
Thanks for putting this together. This month is going to be amazing with Collision, Forbidden Door and Fight Forever!
I wonder how the titles will work for Dynamite and Collision. From what I've read there won't be a hard brand split.
It sounds like the champions are going to be on all brands but I'd prefer it if they split the belts somehow. I can't think of a solution that doesn't have its share of major problems. The TNT and TBS titles were always supposed to be the 1b to the world championships and not on the level of an IC/US title so I think this could be a good way to break it down.
Dynamite
Collision
My thinking here is you can't have the men and women's 'world' titles on one show and the TBS/TNT titles as the collision belts or it makes collision the B show. The TBS title should be on dynamite since it airs on TBS and the TNT on Collision since that's what it'll be on. The All Atlantic can't be on the same show as the TNT as it's been booked better than the TNT since Cody left and it will make it so there's no chance people will see the TNT belt as the World Championship of the brand. The TNT is still clearly in a league above the FTW title (as much as I love HOOK) so there will be no confusion on which one is the secondary title there. The AAC works perfectly as the workhorse belt fir Dynamite since they seemed to drop the whole traveling champion aspect Pac had going on. I was split on which show should get the tag and which should get the trios but either way works tbh. You could have CMFTR as the Trios or have Punk get the TNT while FTR get the tag. The same applies for the elite on Dynamite with the tag/trios titles.
Personally I love the idea of the titles being available across the board. I've never enjoyed the idea of a brand split, be it 'soft' or 'hard'. The show is AEW, and it shouldn't matter what night you see it on, they should all bleed together. Every time I hear that some wrestlers will be on Collision and others won't I get annoyed.
The problem with a hard split is that one show will always feel inferior if it doesn't have the "main" belt.
I feel like my personal ranking of the belts in terms of importance goes like this
So my personal split would go like this:
Both
Women's World Championship
AEW World Championship
Dynamite
AEW International
TBS Championship
AEW Tag Championship
Collision
TNT Championship
Trios Titles
FTW Championship
Have people forgotten that the AEW All-Atlantic title has LEVELED UP to become the AEW International title because of Shazam: Fury of the Gods ? 🤣
How could we have forgotten?
That trios match is going to be absolutely insane and I can’t wait, a lot of history between Moxley and Hangman too which I hope is acknowledged
Here we go! Starting the show off hot with the world champion MJF facing Adam Cole BAYBAY!
This feud has the potential to be incredible.
Yeah, especially if it isn't the same old thing of making him go through different trials. It was nice the first couple of times but it'll be played out if they do it while he's champion.
My god that could have been terrible if they fell backwards off the ring doing that tombstone!
A good tombstone is so satisfying.
OHH YEAAHH MJF LOOKING LIKE A MACHO MAN.
That was a really good match. Both guys put everything into it and the crowd was HOT.
Sanada open challenge?! I wonder who he'll face.
Who better than the international champion??
Jungle boy is an interesting choice. Could be cool.
Yeah it feels like he's being thrown into the deep end lately to see if he can sink or swim. I was a big fan of his during the Jurassic Express days but haven't been impressed or felt invested in him since going single. The four pillars storyline didn't do him many favors. I can't explain it but there was one match of his when I noticed how choreographed his sequences looked. He reminds me of Lars Sullivan in the way that you could play multiple clips of him doing his sequence that ends with him flipping up and looking at the camera and all of the clips would look EXACTLY the same. It looks amazing at first and is great to get him over but after seeing it literally a hundred time it gets old quick.
I haven't even been able to finish this comment because I've been glued to the screen with this ending! This last 10 minutes is going to be remembered for years!
Did anyone else see the big gray NO in the middle of the screen or was that just on FITE?
I also saw that. Very odd.
It showed up on the TSN feed for Canada too.
That’s an interesting thing for MJF to say.
I like the build to forbidden door.
Same here! This one on paper is looking to be even better than last years. Sadly I will be on vacation during Forbidden Door so I probably won't get to watch it until that Tuesday. At least with squaredcircle being down it'll be east enough to avoid spoilers.
Overall I would say that was a really good Dynamite. The crowd in DC was great and AEW really shines when the crowd is into the show. I thought that most of the matches were really high energy. Adam Cole (BABY!) vs MJF set a great tone for the whole show. I mean they really put on a crazy good 30 minute draw match. The ending for it was insane, but I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a trials of Jericho situation.
The build to forbidden door 2 has been better than the first one. I’m interested to see what’s going on with the MJF/Tanahashi match. It sounded like MJF said he wasn’t going to do it. He didn’t bail on his match with Wardlow, but you never know with him. The other matches all seem pretty cool too.
Another stand out moment from the show for me was seeing Jericho and Sting in the same ring. Two wrestling legends meeting for the first time. On top of that you have a layer of juxtaposition with the young talent of Darby and Sammy.
Also, I’m pretty the House of Black was right in saying Jericho is a cult leader. He has an entire society dedicated to him, he tries to lure people in with charm, a religion of sports entertainment, he claims to have magical powers.
Good episode.
I don't think I can ever buy Sammy as a babyface again. This feels too forced for me.
I like Sting and Jericho in the same ring. Darby and Sammy offer a nice juxtaposition in terms of history.
"Speaking of cat" Taz better not remind Keith Lee about that terrible bearcat gimmick.
Broader question for my fellow tilderinos: does Pro Wrestling fit under TV (as it’s a scripted show) or Sports (as it’s based ON a traditional sport?).
I’m a fan of the scene, so don’t think this is a “AKSHULLY it’s fake” Kayfabe based argument I’m making here, just more a “where on Tildes does this unique edge case of entertainment live”?
As you’re obviously a fan, this may further my question: where would Lucha Underground live in this site as it’s “more scripted” than the fed or AEW etc?
All
wrestlingtopics can currently be found in ~sports.Great question, I was torn between the two myself but when I did a search for wrestling, everything was part of ~sports so I figured I should just stick with that. I would absolutely put LU In TV over sports though since it was more of a show that happened to be about wrestlers than a wrestling show itself. It was made by Robert Rodriguez and was full of cinematic scenes instead of backstage promo segments. It's closer to the Netflix series GLOW with Alison Brie than to WWE/AEW.
As a new Tilde user and Wrestling fan on here I've been concerned with how to start doing Wrestling related things as it could be ~tv or ~sports, but then I thought it could also be under ~arts as it is a performance art live show. I'm so very happy that you created this discussion thread. I didn't realise how much I used r/squaredcircle until it was gone.
I've enjoyed my time on Tilde, but I also have been questioning if I belong in the community as my interests tend to not fit into the groupings that there are here.
I'm into comic books and wrestling, and for comics there's not space for them here. You could say they should be under ~books, but to me it should be its own medium, in the same sense that ~anime isn't a part of ~tv, even though all it is is animated television. Comic books are books, but they're different enough that I wouldn't classify them the same content as what you should be seeing under ~books.
I feel (OG Tilderinos correct me below) that it would likely live like....Comics collecting / collections / news / DC / Marvel should probably go into ~hobbies (where more 'fans' would engage, ~Anime / Manga in its own quarantine world as always, and more "high brow" ahem "graphic novels" a la MAUS would be in ~books.
I would put wrestling in the same category as anime as well. The tv people would understandable be annoyed if they have to ignore every other post because it has to do with anime. I'm not even following ~sports because I don't have any interest in sports in general and don't want my feed flooded with unnecessary football, basketball, soccer, etc posts I'll never interact with. That means I don't even see my own wrestling posts on my feed without searching for wrestling.
I guess we just use ~sports until the community is big enough that they filter us into our own thing and in the mean time make sure to use wrestling tags so others can filter it out.
Currently I haven't unsubbed from any of the groups on Tildes, but as it expands that might end up changing. Right now I like to see how the whole community at large post and comment on things, but I feel the same way you do with regards to Wrestling. Like you, I don't follow any sports, Wrestling is the only thing sports-adjacent that I do enjoy, so it is a bit annoying having to follow a whole category when IMO it doesn't truly feel like it belongs in it to begin. I don't personally consider Wrestling to be a sport, it's an athletic stunt performing live play in the guise of being a combat sport in my eyes.
Yeah historically it's living in sports so even LU would go there to be "on topic".
Thanks to @mycketforvirrad for the above heads up.