I want to stress: still enjoyed it, by and large, and not in the least because it was another daylight-hour show, meaning, I wasn’t up into the early-morning hours Eastern Time trying to stay awake for the main event at the end of a five-hour-plus show.
I’ll be honest here: if the main event to the Sunday PPV, the lights out cage match with too many guys in too small a space, and too much gratuitous blood, had come on the air around 11:30 p.m., I probably would’ve skipped it and gone to bed early.
Unfortunately for AEW, what should have been the main event, the world title match between “Hangman” Adam Page and former champ MJF, also fell flat.
As did the world tag title match, which saw The Hurt Syndicate get its way, dropping the belts not to the logical choice, FTR, but rather to the makeshift team of Brody King and Bandido.
Going an entire PPV with only a secondary title changing hands made this one feel like a WWE Saudi Arabia show, to me.
Again, want to stress: the action in the matches was fine, good, above-average.
But when the show goes largely the way you expect it to go, and ends with a guy sticking a fork in another guy’s ear, I dunno.
Winners and Losers
Winner: Brody King and Bandido are the new tag champs
I’m going to try to put a positive spin on this clusterf**k: we leave “Forbidden Door” with The Hurts set up for a feud with Gates of Agony and Ricochet.
Other than that …
It seemed logical that an FTR win would set up a title defense at “All Out” next month against Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, who won their match at “Forbidden Door,” a disjointed main-show curtain-jerker with Killswitch and Kip Sabian.
Maybe Tony Khan figures out a way to get Copeland and Cage into a face-vs.-face match with the new champs, to put the belts on them ahead of the inevitable feud with FTR.
The loss kills the recent push for FTR, which is inexplicable.
Loser: MJF
Khan should have gone with somebody else – a mid-carder, preferably – for Page’s first title defense, but as it was, he put MJF into the match, and then had the former champ throw everything almost literally including the kitchen sink at trying to win.
Losing after using everything short of a flame-thrower makes MJF into a feckless loser heel going forward.
So much for the guy who was, before whatever that was nonsense with Adam Cole, the rocket ship.
Winner: The ‘Timeless’ One
Toni Storm has, in the past four weeks, vanquished Mercedes Mone and Athena, her top two possible challengers.
I don’t know where you go from here, except for, giving her a month or two where she is used to elevate a couple of mid-carders to at least the top of the mid-card.
Idea time for long-term storytelling: ahem, Alex Windsor, in the role made famous by Mariah May.
Loser: AEW fans
Pro wrestling is a tough sport, worked or not, and injuries are a part of the game.
That said, the pending shelf time for two top AEW stars, former champ Swerve Strickland, and future mainstay Will Ospreay, man, bad timing, to have both down at the same time.
Credit to both for gutting out matches on Sunday, and for not pulling punches, in a manner of speaking.
I can only imagine me needing surgery for herniated disks or a meniscus issue and being asked to do more than walk to the ring, much less what they did – dives through ropes, off the top of a cage, the rest.
It’s time for other guys to step forward to fill the void.
Big Loser: Darby Allin
Seriously, the kid has made it clear he doesn’t care if he lives past 35.
I was in Greensboro for the “Revolution” PPV last year that saw Allin jump from a ladder in the ring through glass, and thought the guy was dead.
The fork-in-the-ear spot yesterday was several steps too far – for Allin, for Jon Moxley, who wielded the fork, for whoever produced the match, for TK, who had to sign off on the spot.
Somebody needs to tell all involved: enough.
That whole lights-out match was an embarrassment to all involved, but if I never have to see aggravated assault in the guise of scripted competition, good.
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Chris Graham
