That’s a better idea.

Here is the best way I think you can set up this thing using main talent. It’s not perfect, but it can’t be.

I guess you can just not have Edge and Christian in it and let them wrestle for the TNT Title. Takes out two top guys so you don’t need to make room for that. But then what’s the point?

What is the purpose of the tournament? Does the winner get anything? Is it going to be like Owen where somebody wins and they mention it like 3 times over the next year and literally nothing else?

Isn't every single AEW show just random matchups already? Do they really need a tournament to come up with randomly paired matches?

Also, they should ripoff Impact and do a shoot Feast or Fired tournament, where Tiny fires half the roster.

He should just fire himself.

Wait that would make the Elite in charge...


Fire the Elite then himself.

They’ll probably get a title shot or something, but I’m not sure why a wrestler needs to go to those extremes to earn a title shot. Like, why not just ask?

And last point is exactly the problem. Nothing from this tournament is actually novel. Lock Jaw’s idea of using underneath guys is actually a good one, because then at least there’s the promise of on-screen commitment.

Bring back the six-sided ring

If his recent tweets are anything to go off of you can add Danhausen to the list of people who seem unhappy(hausen). Granted he always tweets in character so it's easy to construe his tweets as joking around but he does sometimes pepper in stuff that even in character is clearly venting/passive aggressive (his friendship with Punk, the perception that he's injury prone etc). Most recently though he's been strongly hinting that his return to television has gotten bumped multiple weeks in a row and he's taken pretty clear swipes at TK.

First and foremost - if the dude actually has been getting bumped then that's just shit in general. That'll piss off anyone. But I actually think he might've been given a disservice by being off-screen the entire time. The Danhausen character feels like the kind of one that would arguably be better when he has an excuse to not wrestle.

I've actually never seen a "normal" Danhausen match. His AEW matches on TV have been 2 minutes or less and pretty much every ROH/indy match I'd seen since he got popular was short and gimmicky. I have no idea if he's capable of going the Orange Cassidy route of "evolving" beyond wrestling strictly a comedy style. If he can do that more power to him but his body's betrayed him quite a bit and maybe the company should've found a workaround to keep him involved somehow.

I don't think the injury prone accusations for him are too off base. He first got popular online when he started his YouTube show at a time he was injured in ROH. He was injured when he signed with AEW. He's been injured twice more since he got there. But his character is one that could've been used without wrestling. Even if it was just him popping up once or twice an episode from his "lair" to riff on whoever was in the ring at the time, kinda like those old Shane Helms pop-ups from 2008 SmackDown.

You also have to keep in mind what Tony and his team are telling talent to encourage them to sign. Broken promises can very quickly make talent miserable. Malakai Black has references those. If Danhausen was brought in under the impression he would be able to appear on television injured, because he is such a goofy character, or if he keeps being told “yes” when the reality is no, that can really fry someone.

Tony Khan seems like the sort of person who has all these positive opinions and ideas until it comes time to put them into practice.

MJF’s mystery partner at Full Gear vs Ass Boys?

Blessing in disguise. Keeping Reddithausen off TV is a win in my books

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bryan Alvarez says that the last thing AEW needs right now is for their fans to say everything is alright <a href="https://t.co/lLiWbCiuYl">pic.twitter.com/lLiWbCiuYl</a></p>&mdash; Vick (@Vick_8122) <a href="https://twitter.com/Vick_8122/status/1724811156374585353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So I don't disagree with his point but I do find it funny that Bryan, Vinny, and Meltzer all being lock-step in calling things like this out seems to directly line up with them getting a bit flustered with Tony's booking. And clearly they see a lot of their readers are getting annoyed with Tony's worst booking tendencies as well.

If they were enjoying the show as much as they did a couple years ago they probably would've been singing a different tune. No different than a lot of the fanbase. Even the AEW subreddit is FAR more critical of the show now than it ever was before. Any booking critiques circa 2021 would get you downvoted.

Anyway it's been long-clear that the "new car smell" wore off and really it did sometime in summer/fall 2022 or so.

If anything, COVID helped stretch the new car smell out longer because most people view the pandemic era as being its own weird kind of bubble and the re-opening in summer 2021 was still the first time a lot of audiences ever got to go out and see AEW. They're clearly having a tough time drawing gates for repeat markets and are only in the green for these shows because they've had to raise ticket prices to make up for it.

It's been said amongst the AEW subreddit that AEW feels a lot more like WWE Lite than ever before. In terms of how they book the fed, the number of hours on TV etc - it certainly doesn't feel like some new and exciting project anymore, it's just another wrestling company. Tony's booking alternates from scatterbrained to incredibly repetitive and his worst booking tendencies are an obvious turnoff when there's little signs of it getting better.

The lapsed fans who started watching AEW because they had given up/grown tired of WWE are lapsing back out. And there are others who are like "OK well this feels like WWE Lite now so I may as well go back to WWE". Not that you have to pick and choose a promotion BUT we only have so much free time and there's only so much we can watch in a week.

If the whole business were on a downturn it would be one thing. But WWE is obejctively churning out the best numbers they ever have and they're drawing the most fans they have since the Attitude Era. AEW's probably doing fine with their TV deals and shit so it's not like they'll go under, but they're getting largely bitch slapped right now and have done little to combat this perception.

Praising AEW was always a marketing decision. It wasn’t helpful to AEW to pretend it was good then. But now subscribers to the dirt sheets are like “This is pretty bad isn’t it?” and now the dirt sheets are better served being honest and saying “Yeah it’s kinda trash.”

Quote:

BUY OUR PPV IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE CONTRACT SIGNING OF THIS WORLD FAMOUS WRESTLER THAT AEW FANS ARE FAMILIAR WITH!!!!!!!!

That is how you are hyping the PPV, to see the official signing of probably Will Asspray, because it is really historic that they are finally signing a guy who has already been on AEW TV a bunch of times!

lol watch it be someone like Mace or Elias

My money is on Ziggles

There is legit nobody available to sign that will mean anything, especially not anybody who has already been on their shows. That Forbidden Door shit means there is no shock when somebody who has already been there signs.

I suppose it could be Sasha Banks, but it is not like she can do anything to help their horrible division.

They should just say fuck it, sign Enzo, and let him verbally eviscerate everybody. Consequences be damned!

Kevin Nash will watch if they sign Enzo so they just might.

I will preface this comment by saying Kevin Nash is my favorite rassler ever. However he is one of the worst bookers ever and I can admit that. So here goes: I just realized that Kevin Nash was probably better with the book than TK is and that's fucking sad.

Andrew Zarian posted a picture of a bird in reference to the signing. Tony said it was an elephant in the room or something. That made me think of Marty Scurll, but there’s no way it’d be him. Then I remembered there is a wrestler named Robbie Eagles.

If the signing was going to be someone people cared about, they’d have told you who it was.

The way Tony Khan worded his statement and the show being in LA makes me think Ronda Rousey. I’d have guessed she’d be under some sort of no-compete with WWE though, but maybe they just don’t give a fuck.

She made her "in-ring" return at some tag match a couple weeks ago. It was an indy fed I think? I just remember seeing a "headline" about it.

She’s worked a couple of indy dates in the California scene. The more I think about it, the more I’m pretty sure WWE would have her contract frozen/be approving who she works for. Unless they REALLY wanted her off the books. But hey, maybe they let Tony buy out her contract or something, knowing the groans it will get from AEW faithful.

The front-runner for me now is Matt Cardona. Something about TK’s wording is just pitiful enough that I could imagine it being Cardona as a “troll.” Sure, he’s respected, right?

It’s not going to be Sasha Banks or Will Ospreay. TK will be pretty desperate to bring in Goldberg, but if that was official then we’d know about it. It can’t be any of the WWE releases because the no-competes aren’t up.

Someone like Chris Hero, Timothy Thatcher or Sami Callihan are too small time to be given the PPV treatment, even if TK is a moron. Matt Cardona kind of ticks every box with it not hurting him to get the heat for being disappointing.

I cant see it being Ronda now that WWE and UFC merged. The UFC side would likely be more pissed about it than WWE.

It would make sense for there to be some sort of licensing agreement there too.

Christian is coming up to 3 years in AEW. I wonder when his deal is up.

Talking the other day about Danhausen seemingly venting about his return being delayed. The more I think of it the more I think he'd be a perfect choice for MJF's partner in the ROH Tag Title match at Full Gear.

They obviously are wanting you to think MJF is gonna pick Samoa Joe, finally caving to his offer for help. But if it was gonna be Joe there's really no need to book a mystery partner around it. Also, Joe's offer comes with the contingency that he'd get another AEW World Title match. Yes most expect MJF to retain the belt in the main event but setting up another program like this kinda makes the main event more of a foregone conclusion.

MJF should be smart enough to not pick Joe because he doesn't trust him, and knows his ass is gonna get choked out the second they win. At the same time, Adam Cole and The Acclaimed are hurt and most of the rest of the locker room probably told MJF to fuck himself as they're still mad about the times he wronged them in the past. So Danhausen would be a choice that signifies that MJF had to really scrape the barrel.

As for Danhausen himself, this finally gets him back after a month of vignettes. He's popular and would probably get a good reception. It's OK for MJF to have a goofy partner because The Gunns themselves are goofy. And there's actual history there - Danhausen is the reason the "Ass Boys" chant started in the first place, so him showing up would have the Gunns on tilt.

They can have a fun little tag match to open the card. Post-match you can either get Samoa Joe some easy heat by having him come after MJF anyway or just have him choke out Danhausen. Alternatively you can have Danhausen get laid out by a Devil goon backstage to carry on the idea that MJF's associates are being targeted.

Oh man. The bird reference to the signing makes me think it really is Goldberg lol. He was an Atlanta Falcon after all.

Isnt the bird the journo posted an Osprey?

Goldberg in an AEW ring would probably pop me but I dont see who he works with in any longterm way with his limited style and probably looking much bigger than so many members of the roster.

If they hinted at Goldberg by using a bird because he played for the Atlanta Falcons 30 years ago, well that would be on par with every other stupid thing Tiny Khan books :rofl:

Doubt it. The only opinion that matters in the UFC is Dana's and Dana is very close with Ronda.

Well, the big surprise signing isn’t Ronda, BUT…

They really debuted Ronda Rousey at a ROH taping??? Wow, just wow lol. I cannot even think of a good comparison to a similar waste.

Im now wondering why Ronda left WWE.