AEW - All Elite Wrestling (*Spoilers for Latest Show*)

randomspud

That was easily the worst episode of Dynamite so far.

Butcher and Blade went over like a wet fart because no one knew who they were, the crowd was fairly dead for most of the show and the main event was WWE as **** with Hager and SCU coming out during it despite there being no one allowed at ringside.

They are sort of making a balls of introducing new characters to the audience. Hangman got a title shot on their first show but he is only getting over now, the Dark Order are only now getting promo videos after two months which should have been shown before they debuted them in the first place, a lot of the new women are just sort of showing up with no backstory or their character changes completely between shows and they seem to overestimate the smarkiness of the audience with the Butcher and Blade/Wardlow debuts.

There is no point having a "shocking debut" if the first thing out of people's mouths is "who?".

Chuck Noland

I don’t get the hole “omg look who it is” but unless they are a huge name!

Should have had them come, nail Cody with the double team with the commentary like “who are they” then the two lads grab a mic “I’m butcher, I’m blade, and this..... is the bunny” and lift her out of the trap door to close the segment. People may have cared then instead of acting like they were a big deal

Monokne

ERG89 wrote: »

Nah JR just doesn't give a flying f**k about his work the last decade basically. Granted Excalibur was OTT but at least he wasn't basically saying "U wot m8" about them like Jim did.
A real shame that Jim didn't miss the show instead of Tony. I genuinely think Jim hasn't taken the time to get to know the talent in AEW never mind people only joining the company. He's only employed through a dated reputation & is a turn off for me as a viewer because it's clear he's not trying.

Strongly disagree. Ross' reaction mirrored the vast majority of the live audience in not knowing who they were, and if they didn't, then the TV audience would have had NO idea. To me the play was to sell it exactly like that and we can find out who they are later, leave it on a cliffhanger.

I love Excalibur but I think there must have been a miscommunication in a production meeting for him to sell that like he did. It made zero sense.

Either way, having one announcer immediately know who they were, and the other have no idea was really bad. That's a production snafu.

CastorTroy

I thought the guy with the monocle was Silas Young at first.
Google tells me they're Braxton Sutter (aka Mr. Allie), who I didn't recognise and Andy Williams who's a guitarist from a band called "Every Time I Die" as The Blade and The Butcher respectively.

And looks like this is the first time they've used these names so there's no reason for Excaliber to know the names. They should at least have gone the Impact method of "Is that... that's the man we know as Braxton Sutter".

And when I think of someone wearing a black bunny mask in wrestling, I think of Pieter.


Edit: Further googling shows they've been using the names at least a year.

sky88

its the kinda thing were if they had a few vignettes before they debuted it would at least give the fans a chance to react and it would be a bigger deal for them attacking a big star not just like who the hell is these guys

Agent Coulson

Really liking the Dark Order vignettes.


I wonder will they team BBB with MJF and Wardlow.

Neil3030

The production mishap is having Excalibur on comms in any capacity.

Main problem with him in every show, is that when calling matches, he focuses almost all his time speaking into calling every. ****ing. move. by name, which leaves hardly any time or space (for him or anyone else) to do the actual job of a comms, i.e., telling the story of the match and getting the talent or the angle over. I'm guessing this is because the spot fests in PWG never had to consider anything other than move, move, move, but this style is just not going to work with a product that sells longer term angles to a wider audience of various types of fans.

"MONGOLIAN CHOP into the STEP UP GAMENGIRI and now the TOPE CON GIROOOO"

At no point are you being verbally conditioned that these moves had any immediate impact, or that they may have a lasting impact, say, on a body part that will feature later in the match, or that the move took athleticism, power, speed, technique, on behalf of the wrestler etc. etc. It's just him showing you how many move names he knows.

So that segment when the Blade and the Butcher showed up, it was just business as usual for me. Excalibur marking out and showing off that he knew their names, and offering no context, no story, no help to the wider audience, 99.9% of whom will not know them from the indies. JR, in my mind, was not misfed a script, but was instead giving him prompts to expand on who the hell they were, and the goof just kept shouting their names. It was excruciating to watch.

sky88

I didn’t really like the match but god this is so stupid


https://twitter.com/fightfulwrestle/status/1200504978294620161?s=21

Monokne

Neil3030 wrote: »

The production mishap is having Excalibur on comms in any capacity.

Main problem with him in every show, is that when calling matches, he focuses almost all his time speaking into calling every. ****ing. move. by name, which leaves hardly any time or space (for him or anyone else) to do the actual job of a comms, i.e., telling the story of the match and getting the talent or the angle over. I'm guessing this is because the spot fests in PWG never had to consider anything other than move, move, move, but this style is just not going to work with a product that sells longer term angles to a wider audience of various types of fans.

"MONGOLIAN CHOP into the STEP UP GAMENGIRI and now the TOPE CON GIROOOO"

At no point are you being verbally conditioned that these moves had any immediate impact, or that they may have a lasting impact, say, on a body part that will feature later in the match, or that the move took athleticism, power, speed, technique, on behalf of the wrestler etc. etc. It's just him showing you how many move names he knows.

So that segment when the Blade and the Butcher showed up, it was just business as usual for me. Excalibur marking out and showing off that he knew their names, and offering no context, no story, no help to the wider audience, 99.9% of whom will not know them from the indies. JR, in my mind, was not misfed a script, but was instead giving him prompts to expand on who the hell they were, and the goof just kept shouting their names. It was excruciating to watch.

Appears both were guided by production, if JR's tweet is anything to go by.

I would not have heat with either for how it was handled. Whoever laid it out or was in the headsets takes responsibility.




Assume the "JR doesn't give a s**t" crowd will think next time.

Neil3030

Monokne wrote: »

Appears both were guided by production, if JR's tweet is anything to go by.

I would not have heat with either for how it was handled. Whoever laid it out or was in the headsets takes responsibility.




Assume the "JR doesn't give a s**t" crowd will think next time.

I find that extremely unlikely.

"Ok here's how we do this, JR, when they come up out of the ring, you act totally dumb, Excalibur, just keep shouting their names, got it?"

riffmongous

Just saw that Butcher+Blade bit now, god it was terrible. Would have been slightly better if Excal had also pretended he didn't know who these guys were

ERG89

Monokne wrote: »

Appears both were guided by production, if JR's tweet is anything to go by.

I would not have heat with either for how it was handled. Whoever laid it out or was in the headsets takes responsibility.




Assume the "JR doesn't give a s**t" crowd will think next time.

Call me a cynic but I doubt JR's is getting paid well to play the role of a Bill O'Herlihy where he supposedly does not know what's going on.
If he is he's been masterful at being utterly clueless & uninvested for quite some time including anytime people had to suffer with him calling New Japan shows.

Neil3030

JR has been woeful at times for NJPW there's no denying.

Here's the scene in question, if anyone hasn't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKU3i7FpwhY

JR is off the hook on this one for me. Comms playing dumb to a sudden arrival is a fairly old trick, the fault with that sketch was 100% with Excalibur, either in how he was produced, or how he carried out his instructions.

JR, if you listen carefully, actually still tries to weave some story telling into proceedings:

JR: "They're picking their spot, that's for sure, Cody is already wounded, who sent these people?"

Meanwhile, Excalibur: "THE BLADE AND THE BUTCHER, THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE, THE BLAAAAADE!!"

As someone above said, either they both need to be dumb, or Excalibur needs to do a much, much better job here.

Also, JR getting **** on social media for not knowing two guys who have been on the indies for what, a year? Just sums up the kind of one-eyed loolahs that are out there in wrestling land these days.

CastorTroy

Just out of curiosity, how many here knew who they were outside of knowing their names from Excalibur shouting them?

I don't watch everything but have seen various NJPW shows, most recent RoH and Impact yet I didn't know them. Sutter hasn't been on Impact in a long time.

Neil3030

Wouldn't have known them from Adam.

Monokne

I had no idea who they were and couldn't understand why Excalibur was going nuts.

Look at the live audience. Those people are the hardcores, and they reacted as puzzled as the rest of us.

Cornette is gonna have a conniption at that introduction hahaha.

Neil3030

So reading around some fan theories online, all may not be lost with this BBB thing; apparently

Allie and Brandi have history, which explains them attacking Cody

. Also their attire are leading many to believe that

a certain villain may soon emerge as their ring leader. This could be setting up any combination of Cody/The Elite to feud with them, which could be fun

.

In any event, they've enough credit in the bank to explain their way out of this, and I trust they will.

But dear lord Excalibur will continue to do my head in regardless :pac:

randomspud

I'd heard the name before because people had assumed that they were AEW-bound so it was all over the wrestling news sites but i had no idea what they looked like because they are a couple of random indie guys that i'd never seen before.


Allie being allied with them completely went against the plucky white-bread face character she has been playing on AEW TV for the past couple of months.


They need to stop assuming that they are solely playing to an audience of super-smarks. A lot of the people watching/attending their events are just sick of the utter ****e that WWE produces but it doesn't mean that they know every single guy/girl that is currently working the indies.


They are the alternative but the are trying to cater to the people who already know about the alternatives.

Neil3030

randomspud wrote: »

I'd heard the name before because people had assumed that they were AEW-bound so it was all over the wrestling news sites but i had no idea what they looked like because they are a couple of random indie guys that i'd never seen before.


Allie being allied with them completely went against the plucky white-bread face character she has been playing on AEW TV for the past couple of months.


They need to stop assuming that they are solely playing to an audience of super-smarks. A lot of the people watching/attending their events are just sick of the utter ****e that WWE produces but it doesn't mean that they know every single guy/girl that is currently working the indies.


They are the alternative but the are trying to cater to the people who already know about the alternatives.

Well said. Every AEW employee should recite this, every morning, as if it were some kind of prayer or pledge of allegiance. Excalibur needs to do this hourly.

CastorTroy

I agree about Allie. Her being aligned with them comes from nowhere. She was Dark Allie in Impact but came to AEW and was her upbeat self then suddenly this. I'd see through it if there was a slow turn or if she had left tv for a while, but I think we saw her within the last 2 weeks.
It all just feels rushed, to be honest.

But if we're going by Excalibur "it's The Blade and The Butcher, you idiots! How can you not know The Blade and The Butcher?! Everyone knows The Blade and The Butcher!"

riffmongous

I still don't know who they are.. just some indie guys it seems?

Omackeral

riffmongous wrote: »

I still don't know who they are.. just some indie guys it seems?

IT'S THE BLADE AND THE BUTCHER!!!

sky88

So Brandi had kong attack aille so all they had to say was that aillie got some revenge on Brandi by having her husband attack if they explained that initially it would have made sense instead we got a clueless jr and Excalibur just shouting it’s the butcher and the blade

Officer999

Neil3030 wrote: »

So reading around some fan theories online, all may not be lost with this BBB thing; apparently

Allie and Brandi have history, which explains them attacking Cody

. Also their attire are leading many to believe that

a certain villain may soon emerge as their ring leader. This could be setting up any combination of Cody/The Elite to feud with them, which could be fun

.

In any event, they've enough credit in the bank to explain their way out of this, and I trust they will.

But dear lord Excalibur will continue to do my head in regardless :pac:

Think your right regarding a certain villain who will emerge as their leader.

Especially the JR line of ‘who sent them here’ suggests that

riffmongous

Omackeral wrote: »

IT'S THE BLADE AND THE BUTCHER!!!

Yeah but like actually, who are they?

THE BLADE AND THE BUTCHER!!!!

Cherry_Cola

riffmongous wrote: »

Yeah but like actually, who are they?

THE BLADE AND THE BUTCHER!!!!

Well if it counts for anything the Blade is Andy Williams, guitarist for one of the best known hardcore/metal bands there is, called Everytime I Die.

Monokne

sky88 wrote: »

So Brandi had kong attack aille so all they had to say was that aillie got some revenge on Brandi by having her husband attack if they explained that initially it would have made sense instead we got a clueless jr and Excalibur just shouting it’s the butcher and the blade

They have made a point to part Brandi & Cody for now in storyline, and Brandi is doing her Kharma thing with Kong. It certainly doesn't feel like that angle is going to intersect with this one.

CastorTroy

Meant to say as well while NXT showed Britt Baker at their show, AEW got to show Brock Lesnar guy at theirs.

The White Wolf

Just read up on them....smaller bloke is Allie's husband. Was in impact same time as her apparently. :pac