AEW Double or Nothing (5.26.24) review 

 

We’re in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand for a show that’s essentially AEW’s five-year anniversary. I must admit, I’ve never been the biggest AEW fan. My main hope when AEW started was that it would make WWE try harder. Which it has. My biggest concern with AEW starting out was that between them and the Fed, they would hoover up all the Indie stars and make my beloved Independent Wrestling scene a shadow of its former self. That has definitely happened. I don’t blame Tony Khan for this. Eventually a ‘second promotion’ would spring up to compete with WWE. It’s just sad that I had this entire alternate universe of little promotions I enjoyed, and WWE would only take the very top guys from there. Wrestling has changed, for the worse, in the last five years.  

 

AEW International Championship 

Roderick Strong (c) vs. Will Ospreay 

This is strange one because a) Ospreay hasn’t lost at all and b) surely, he’s too good for this title? They’ve booked themselves into a strange corner. Strong’s crappy stable seems the logical solution. Taven and Bennett immediately get involved in the dumbest fucking way possible. A totally mistimed Doomsday Device on the floor, where Taven, the moron, runs the ropes right next to the referee who’s supposed to be distracted by Strong. Brain dead spot. 

“Matt Taven”.  

 

Doing a lot of bad spots early, to incorporate and introduce the threat of Bennett & Taven, hurts the pacing of the match right out of the gate. The continued interference merely stops the match ever getting going. The whole thing feels like a complete waste of not only Ospreay but also Strong. They get the match back, only for Ospreay to run a badly executed knee injury. At one point doing a flip, for no reason, and ‘injuring’ himself.  

 

The match does have some cool stuff in it. Strong goes for his running boot only to get caught in mid-air into a sit-out powerbomb. That’s the level I expect the match to be at. Ospreay finding unique counters to Strong’s reliable offence. All too often they struggle to get on the same page and it’s one of the most awkward Ospreay matches I’ve seen in years.  

Don Callis decides to give Ospreay some advice. “Break his neck, he’s going to the hospital anyway”. HE REALLY SAID THAT. Ospreay ‘acting’ conflicted is horrendous. Acting is not his strength. Ospreay ends up winning anyway, flipping out of End of Heartache, blasting Roddy with Hidden Blade and the Stormbreaker finishes. This was not very good but had a couple of awesome moments, which just makes me hate the match even more. They were capable of having an absolute banger and failed. As an addition to that, Ospreay is now stuck with a midcard title belt. Presumably to keep him away from the main events…but why would you do that?  

 

Post Match: Adam Cole shows up, after Ospreay has already left. Cole hasn’t wrestled since injuring his foot in September. He rambles a bit and the lights go out. A video kicks in and MJeff is back.  

Storytelling, brrrrrother. MJF arrives with a lot of spray tan on. Like, holy shit. He’s more tan than man. MJF hasn’t been seen since losing the world title to Samoa Joe in December. I hated these two as a tag team because it was all so melodramatic. The main event at Wembley was GARBAGE. MJF treats Cole as a complete afterthought. This should be in blood-feud territory. He’s just brushed aside BAY-BAY. MJF promises no more friendships or kangaroo kicks. Oh, thank christ.  

MJF has gotten an AEW tattoo to demonstrate his commitment to the company. “I ain’t fucking leaving”. Triple H didn’t return your calls? Tough break, kid. 

 

AEW World Trios Championship 

ROH World Six Man Tag Team Championship 

Bang Bang Gang (Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn & Jay White) (c) vs. Death Triangle (PAC, Penta El Zero Miedo & Rey Fenix) 

Is Bang Bang Gang the most embarrassing stable name you’ve ever heard? It has to be up there. They also have terrible music. I love Death Triangle wearing the same colours. It’s proper Dragon Gate behaviour. Penta is in one of those moods where all his worst ideas float to the surface. Lots of thigh slapping. Really obvious ones. That said, Death Triangle do some cool spots. Given their collective talent, it’s not a surprise.  

 

What does surprise me is that these gentlemen contain their base urges and work heat on Pac. Unfortunately, that means the match is quite dull. Which is not what people are hoping for, I’d suggest. Then the Lucha Bros come in and do a bunch of spots. Pac has it won but Juice Robinson interferes and Bladerunner finishes for Jay. This was heavily disjointed with a very sluggish middle act. You could have shaved 3-4 minutes off this and had a much nicer time.  

 

AEW Women’s World Championship 

Toni Storm (c) vs. Serena Deeb  

Deeb is perfectly fine, but I can’t escape the feeling she has no shot at winning here.  

Toni’s act has been sensational and presumably it’s heading towards Storm vs. Mariah May, eventually. The match is nicely put together. Establishing Deeb as a mat technician before using Toni’s timing and striking to create a sense of parity.  

Toni Storm’s career fascinates me. At 18 years old, she decided to move to the UK because it would be easier to get noticed and promptly ground away at the UK scene from her debut in 2014 (for Total Action Wrestling), going to Germany at 19, spending four years being an absolute star in BritWres before going to the WWE in 2018. While they, somehow, dropped the ball on her it shows the benefit of having two major North American promotions. Now, she’s the star she was always meant to be. Proof that the grind pays off.  

 

The match makes sense at every turn. While Deeb goes after mat holds, Toni has a power advantage and can use that to get out of submissions. The only issue I have with this, as a match, is that they’re clearly not that familiar with each other. Which leads to some slow-motion countering when something quicker would look a lot better. There’s another issue; Toni has gotten over as a face and Deeb finds herself the villain, which rather ruins the dynamic.  

 

At this point in the show my kitchen ceiling collapsed, so I had to take a couple of hours to clear out the plasterboard. In all fairness, I knew the shower base had been leaking for a while and I should have done something about it. Put this one down to laziness. Anyway, it cost me two hours. I’m now back and can’t remember how the match was going. 

 

“Toni Storm came out of that corner very, very slowly” – Nigel. That about sums the match up, sadly. Too much stuff happening at half pace. There’s storytelling on the floor as Mariah tries to throw the towel in and Luther stops her. Toni blames Luther for it and lobs the towel into the fans. “YOU BARSTARD”. They shoot for epic here with both guys kicking out of each other’s finishers. The structure of this match has been excellent, honestly. If the execution had matched the plan, it would be four stars. Toni gets a piledriver off the ropes and finishes with Storm Zero. Easily best match of the night so far, if only they’d been able to nail it at the correct pace. *** 

 

Trent Baretta vs. Orange Cassidy 

Trent is such a dull worker. He’s competent but that’s it. A career 6/10.  

Cassidy doesn’t quite sell this on me as a blood feud either. I love him as a worker because he’s so different. Sometimes being different makes it hard to tell traditional stories. As soon as it’s underway, it’s abundantly clear they’ve got it wrong. Cassidy should be either more aggressive or wanting to make Trent look stupid. Instead, they just have a match. Honestly, it’s pretty boring and heatless. To reduce one of the company’s top acts, in OC, to this is sad.  

 

Cassidy eventually finds the tone but by then, it’s too late. The issues continue too. There’s lots of spots and none of it clicks. It’s in the storyline that the match just fails. And then Cassidy wins out of nowhere. A poor match all round. Baretta’s failure here reminds me of other ‘blood feud’ splits like Edge and Christian, where the eventual blow off just didn’t work. This didn’t work at all. 

 

Post Match: Trent refuses an interview and says he’s done. Bye then.  

 

FTW Championship 

Chris Jericho (c) vs. Hook vs. Katsuyori Shibata 

What on god’s green earth is this?  

“The Learning Tree”. I’ve always appreciated Jericho’s ability to reinvent himself and change with the times. Nigel tells us Jericho has something to teach everyone in the arena tonight. It sure isn’t when to retire. Or how to get younger wrestlers over. Compare what Jericho is doing now to what Mick Foley did for Triple H or Randy Orton. There’s a degree of selfishness akin to Hulk Hogan.  

The big gimmick here is dice. 2024 and Shibata is throwing dice at Chris Jericho. What are we doing here? If you have Shibata, why would you waste him in shit like this? They do a stupid top rope/table spot, which doesn’t work at all. Katsuyori, mate, what are they doing to you? The dice gimmick should have been left until later in the match. Their presence becomes distracting and makes the most simple of bumps needlessly painful.  

Speaking of unnecessary; look at how close Big Bill came to nearly dying. He lands on the legs and he is fucked. Bryan Keith runs in too and Shibata ends up inside a trash can. A metaphor for the match. This was AWFUL. Just a terrible idea.  

 

Jon Moxley vs. Konosuke Takeshita 

This isn’t for the IWGP title because Takeshita is from DDT and New Japan isn’t keen on the idea of a DDT guy getting a title shot. Mox comes in with his entire left arm and shoulder taped. Mox does a good job of selling the arm and Takeshita goes after it. The trouble I have with the match is it follows some real crud, and they could have had a banger if they’d done a straight up match.  

 

Takeshita does impress sometimes here. He pulls out power moves that don’t seem possible. The deadlift brainbuster where he pulls Mox up from his knees is sick. He makes it look so easy. I have to assume Mox gave him a little boost when they switched camera angles, but it looked amazing. Takeshita also does a bang-up job of nailing Mox with forearms and stuff.  

 

Mox has to work around the arm, and he does so. Credit to him for finding ways around his moves without using the damaged arm. I really appreciate that. They do a great job of setting up the finish with Takeshita bringing a chair in, Mox stomping his face into it and then hitting the Death Rider. This was actually good. About time! ***¼ 

 

Barbed Wire Cage Match 

AEW TNT Championship 

Adam Copeland (c) vs. Malakai Black 

TAFKA Edge gets a cool entrance where he rises through a ring of fire.  

Yes, that does say “The Brood”. Please bring Gangrel in for a guest spot. Cope doesn’t have a good record in matches like this. I’m reminded of his cage match with Christian way back in 2002 and his Finn Balor match at Mania a few years back.  

The barbed wire gives us immediate claret, which the match needs. If you advertise cage match and then add in barbed wire, you NEED blood. They do a good job of concealing Black’s cut but Cope has to blade face down on the mat. The match slowly degenerates into bleeding and the odd big spot.  

 

Cope wakes me up by tying Black to a table with barbed wire and diving onto him off the top of the cage. Dude is 50 years old. Cope at least lands feet first and barely connects. Like all cage matches, with plunder, the match is messy. The ring ends up a complete mess. They do an interesting spot where Cope gets kicked through the door. I appreciate them not doing ‘escape rules’ but that would have been a neat finish if they did.  

The rest of Black’s cronies come out here, tease siding with Edge, and then don’t. What a strange thing to do. We get some Jesus allegories and GANGREL IS HERE. Oh shit! I didn’t realise he would be here.  

They do an awkward finish where Cope tries a Crown of Thorns crossface and they can’t get it to work. Black passes out and Copeland wins. This was drab until Gangrel showed up. Tony Khan is such a mark. I love him. When you’re dealing with stuff like barbed wire, you need absolute nutters who don’t give a fuck. Another reminder that Mick Foley was perfect for stuff like this. 

 

AEW TBS Championship 

Willow Nightingale (c) vs. Mercedes Mone  

Mercedes is making her in-ring debut for AEW here. She gets an entrance that includes a percussion group from Tron and a can-can line. Mercedes has missed an entire year since getting hurt in a match with Willow. What a year it’s been for Willow too. A year of contrasts.  

Mercedes has always struggled to hide her emotions and she’s clearly emotional at returning to wrestling. She initially looks very smooth, but they have some communication issues. They get past that and establish a nice story of Willow’s power vs Mercedes going after Willow’s leg. This is then undone by Willow’s silly bump out of the anklelock spot.  

 

Mercedes has always been an incredible bumper and the one she takes off the Pounce is fantastic. Maybe being out for a year wasn’t so bad. She’ll be healed up. I know she missed six months waiting out her WWE non-compete but hopefully she’s now good as new. I know she had a lot of niggling injuries. Willow does a good job in selling the leg here. She’s not hobbling around but she shows it in pauses and failed bridges.  

 

They do a spot on the apron where Mercedes gets driven knee first into it. It’s sick enough to pop me, in a bad way. It doesn’t go anywhere, and Mercedes gets caught doing some stupid thigh slaps. The match is frustrating on so many levels. It feels like it has another level to go to and it never quite gets there. Mercedes hitting a Meteora off the apron is very cool, for example. There are bits in between the good stuff that doesn’t land. The finish is a prime example as Mercedes gets the MoneMaker for the pin and it just doesn’t look good. But Willow did a sick looking Doctorbomb a few minutes earlier. I would have bought that as a finish. The actual finish? Less so.  

 

Post Match: Kris Stad turns on Willow and Big Stoke laughs about it. That answers the ‘what’s next for Willow? question at least. Presumably Mercedes (or Toni) is heading for a showdown with Jamie Hayter at Wembley. 

 

AEW World Championship  

Swerve Strickland (c) vs. Christian Cage  

Despite his ability on the microphone and his stellar character work, I do not buy Cage as a title contender. And when your first big title defence is against a guy you should be beating easily, it makes your new champion look weak. Also making your champion look bad is by having matches nobody cares about. There’s nothing to this. Strickland wants to show he can go at a certain level, and it’s up to Cage to hang with that, which he can. But it’s just a match. It needs a big story to get it over the midcard bump. It doesn’t have it. 

 

After ten minutes of very little Mother Wayne sets up Prince Nana to get thrown out. That leaves Swerve to get beaten up by all the jobbers in Christian’s entourage. Imagine getting beaten up by Nick Wayne. It looks like a strong gust of wind would kick his ass. Strickland is a good wrestler. His sense of how to put together a match and what beats to hit are fine. Cage, considering he’s from a different generation, does a good job of keeping up. And that’s it. It’s fine. **½ fine. Swerve retains.  

 

Strickland is facing an uphill battle to get to the next level in this company. Just holding the belt doesn’t do it. Ask Hangman Page.  

 

Anarchy in the Arena 

The Elite (Young Bucks, Kazuchika Okada & Jack Perry) vs. Team AEW (Bryan Danielson, Darby Allin & FTR) 

A big brawl to start and Danielson calls for the “best music in wrestling history” so we get the Final Countdown playing while they’re brawling around the place. As the first “final countdown” kicks in Darby does the Coffin Drop off the balcony. *Chefs kiss*. This just reinforces what I’ve always wanted wrestling to be. Play bangers during the fucking matches. Turn it into a rock concert kinda vibe. People singing along. What’s not to love? Some Indie promotion should surely have figured this out by now. 

 

Anarchy in the Arena, as a concept, is a sensational idea. You get to explore the building. It’s only limited by your own creativity. In this one, Perry tries to kill Allin by running him over with a truck with SCAPEGOAT written on the front of it.  

Kaz Okada does a lot of heavy lifting in the ring while everyone else pisses around. There’s a lot of brawling around. FTR Bald bleeds. Danielson bleeds. This isn’t really my thing, if I’m really honest. To make it worse Perry goes after Tony Khan. I was sick of the idea of Khan being involved in physical action the second it happened. Let’s not see that again.  

 

Then Darby Allin sets Jack Perry on fire.  

 

Haha.  

 

Wrestling knows no limits. Fire should be the limit. If you’re using fire, you’re over a line. Someone should tell you not to. This is the trouble with having a mark as your boss. We get dumber as Matt Jackson uses an exploding chair, which looks as stupid as it sounds. Okada then puts on a thumbtack sleeve for the Rainmaker, which is also stupid. It looks terrible. This is a collection of some of the dumbest ideas in wrestling. The absolute dumbest though is letting Jack Perry pin Bryan Danielson. The same night Chris Jericho pinned Shibata. Two of the worst decisions in the entire history of the business. 

 

The 411: 

The worst AEW I’ve ever seen.