LogFAQs > #951788603

Continuing PotD's wrassling topic...

I watched the first episode of AEW Elevate -- or, at least, a good chunk of it (among other things, I'm not sitting through a Marko Runt match), and let me just say... what the hell? >_>

Why is Kenny Omega starting a feud with a pre-lim guy? And good gracious, was that Tony Khan talking down to him? And did he do a few lines of coke before he came out there? That guy shouldn't be on tv.

I don't get any of that shit. iirc, they'd claimed that the Sydal Brothers had only been in the business for a few months so they can't be planning on doing much with them just yet. And they're intro'd as a tag where you logically can't break the tag up for a while. So how is this supposed to help them anyway?

And wtf was with that main event? Riho vs Maki Itoh? Why? If you're putting a new wrestler in the main event against like that, they shouldn't be losing clean. Fucking "Booker of the Year" Tony Khan. Instead of calling the show Elevate, they might as well call it Bury with that approach. Maki Itoh has been with AEW like a month now and her record is already 1-4. (Thanks for the ranking system, "Booker of the Year" Tony Khan -- it just underscores when a wrestler is a jobber. #SportsBasedWrestling)

Riho v Maki Itoh is a novelty act. It might work as an undercard, but why would you put it as a main event? Maki Itoh isn't good enough for the spotlight (certainly not yet, and I'm not sure she ever will be -- although, again, her gimmick is great) and Riho is something of a joke. The ONLY thing that made sense about the match is pairing two of AEW's tiniest wrestlers together. (Of course, Maki isn't the second-shortest wrestler on AEW's active roster, that title actually belongs to Marko Stunt, who they insist on matching with average-sized men so all of those matches look like crap. EDIT: I was watching AEW Dark right now and, I'm not sure how active Leyla Hirsh is, but she's only 4'11" making her shorter than both Riho and Marko. And, for whatever reason, they have her matched against a woman who seems to be twice her height. Ugh.)

As much as I hate to say it, that second Sydal match would have worked much better to close out the night because, even though it was a goofy mess, at least it had some narrative stakes. However, it's not something you can advertise beforehand

Also Big Show is awful on commentary. I love how he completely mispronounced Maki's name at the end ("Makagi"). In general, the announcers on *all* of these shows (AEW Dark is the closest to being unobtrusive) just really ruin the matches. It's made a lot of it hard to watch at times. It's doubly annoying in the case of NXT since I *think* I recognize one of the voices as belonging to Rockstar Spud who used to cut some great promos.

I might watch Elevate from time to time simply because it's on YT rather than Hulu which means it's easier to jump through it (and, at 2 hours long with maybe 20-25 minutes of stuff worth watching, that skip is pretty valuable).

Oh, and speaking of wrestling on YT, I wound up trying MLW Fusion (#124). The whole thing looks and feels very budget. The recaps were a bit much. The interview segment that got interrupted where you had 3 wrestlers where not one of them could keep a straight face while talking was crap.

First match of that was Gringo Loco vs Medina. There was a moment when the announcer says, "What an arm drag" which really should have been "What, an arm drag?" given how sloppy it looked. I'm enacting a 3-minute rule with this. I'll watch the first 3 minutes of each match, but that's it.

I like that MLW does a LOT of promos... I just wish that the guys doing them for any good.

Ooh, Stephen P. New advertisement. I know him as one of Cornette's sponsors who they've brought on the show at times, including to discuss Joey Ryan's many lawsuits.

Kevin Ku v ACH. At least these guys look like fighters, unlike the last two. Little slow, but a pretty decent match. Had a bit of a nice, old-time feel to it. And I loved how the announcer set up the ringside ambush. That was great. I was less happy about the stupid dive outside the ring. Wtf?

LA Park vs Alex Hammerstone. Not super happy to only see 3 matches in a 1-hour broadcast. Several of those fights ran long, though. LA Park's physique looks like shit, but the body suit is neat. Doesn't seem like much of a wrestler, either. Hammerstone was decent enough, though.

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