LogFAQs > #928284413

- The best comment I saw on the Lucha Bros/SCU segment was "They just did in 2 minutes what would've taken WWE 10 or 15." I don't think an angle like this is necessary to build heat for the tournament - the tournament itself should be heat enough - but if you're gonna do it, keep it short like this.
- Page/PAC was on its way to being a damn awesome match, and then PAC squared Page in the balls off a ref distraction. People are going to tell me that PAC is "THE BASTARD" and it's well within his gimmick to win matches this way. I would tend to agree. But if that's the case, maybe you shouldn't have all the shenanigans in the opening match. It was at this point in the Discord that Whiskey Nick, who watches only WWE and who presumably is the kind of fan AEW wants to convert, said "Yeah, this seems a lot like WWE so far." That is a terrible, terrible sign.
- Again, to recap, there have been three matches on this show. Two had shenanigans and a screwy finish. The other was essentially a squash.
- Nyla Rose vs Riho... was tough. There's definitely things I liked about it, bur Rose doesn't impress me at all, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I watched an Ice Ribbon match a couple weeks back that was pretty much exactly what this match was trying to be, but better. That's on me, though. Usually I can judge a match in a vacuum without comparing it to a similar one, but for whatever reason I couldn't do that here. What isn't on me is that I probably checked out mentally as soon as Nyla started trying to swing the chair. The heel is dominating the match and yet is apparently willing to risk a DQ in the first ever women's title match. Can we just have wrestlers not be morons, please? That'd be a really easy way to separate yourself from the competition.
- Britt Baker on commentary was the worst thing on the show. It's more WWE bullshit to have someone only tangentially related to the match join commentary and then contribute nothing. I was willing to accept it since I figured she'd be involved in an angle afterwards, but then Omega makes the save instead. So what was the point?
- This is admittedly a nitpick, but Omega's involvement irritated me a bit. His match is next. Don't you want to save his first appearance for that entrance to get the biggest pop possible?
- The main event was the most entertaining match on the show, and I don't even have a problem with the whole Mox thing. I do wish the commentary had at least tried to explain away why it wasn't a DQ, but unless I missed it, they didn't. I don't need much. "Well, Omega wasn't the legal man at the time." "Well, Rick Knox is the ref for this match, and he doesn't like to call for DQs." Anything.
- I don't have the words to adequately describe the feeling of disappointment when, during the big show-closing brawl, I get a tiny voice in the back of my head saying "How incredible would it be if the lights went out and we got Super Dragon?" only for the big surprise to indeed be Jack Swagger, who I just have no use for.
- Those personal issues aside, I think the angle was good. It's refreshing to see a brawl where friends of the guys involved actually show up instead of just watching them get beat down backstage. I really hope they don't make a habit of ending shows with some big angle, but for the debut show and for what it was meant to accomplish I get it.

Here's the bottom line: were it not for the tag tournament starting next week, I don't think I'd be looking forward to the second episode very much. I don't think this was a bad debut, but I had enough big problems with it that I also can't say I liked it much. This may have been "WWE, but better," but I don't believe AEW can succeed to its true potential by being WWE, but better. They need to be a true alternative. We'll know for sure when ratings come out, but it won't shock me if there were big drops in viewership after, like, PAC/Page. I hope I'm wrong.
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