Centre Videotron, Quebec City Canada
Commentary – Tony Schiavone, Excalibur, Taz
Singles Match
Will Ospreay vs Katsuyori Shibata
The mentality of this match up just screams predictable, Bryan Danielson beat Shibata last week so now Will Ospreay who is facing Danielson at the next Pay Per View faces Shibata to prove he is on Danielson’s level.
I did appreciate that they showed a package of these two guys fighting in Japan 7 years ago which gave the match some backstory.
This match started out with all ground grappling and was a lot slower than I expected.
Constant forearms were thrown from both men which don’t look anywhere near as good as a punch but a punch seems like something those from NJPW don’t seem to use and it’s carried over to AEW.
Shibata sat up on the mat, instead of of sitting next to him like Danielson did last for a forearm contest, Ospreay had enough and did his back elbow dive to pin Shibata.
If Will Ospreay is going to be the man in AEW you got to give this guy more than just long matches and promo’s telling his opponent he is going to beat them.
Winner – Will Ospreay
A package played of Bryan Danielson with lots of footage from his ROH and NJPW days and documenting his last year in the wrestling buisness.
Renee is backstage with The Young Bucks, they talk about thier restructuring of “the Elite” by bringing in Okada.
They continue to be condescending and sarcastic to Renee and tell her to smile more.
Okada is shown arriving to the building in a red Ferrari, he comes out with his newly acquired Continental Championship which he won from Eddie Kingston last week.
Tag Team Match
The Young Bucks vs Private Party
Private Party hasn’t really gelled for me since returning, I have found their backstage segments quite corny as bd there is just something missing with them.
I found The Bucks having different colored attire quite off putting as they generally match.
This match started off a lot different to the last with plenty of high flying action.
Brother Zay took both of The Bucks out with his high flying assault, back flipping over the top rope onto the floor hitting Matt Jackson and diving back in to take out Nick Jackson.
Private Party almost won the match on several occasions but The Bucks managed to escape at the last second.
Behind the referees back Matt Jackson low blowed Brother Zay.
Marq Quinn went for a 360 off the top rope but missed, The Bucks double teamed Quinn and nailed the EVP trigger to pin him and win the match.
Winner – The Young Bucks
A package plays hyping Konosuke Takeshita and his match tonight against Swerve Strickland with Don Callis narrating the clip
The CEO Mercedes Mone is seen arriving at the arena.
Renee is backstage with Chris Jericho and Hook. Jericho praises Hook after their match last week. Jericho makes an offer that if Hook wants any guidance or advice he is there for him. Hook accepts the offer and they both fist bump.
4 Way Match for a title shot at the TBS Women’s Title.
Fatal Four Way Match
Willow Nightingale vs Anna Jay vs Kris Starlander vs Skye Blue
Mercedes Mone joins the commentary team at ringside.
Anna Jay seems like the odd women out in this match as she hasn’t had a lot of television time recently, the rest of the women’s seem to have a weaving feud going on with one another and with Mercedes on commentary.
Anna Jay to me seems like she has been inserted into this match to take the pin.
Willow shined in this match and hit a devastating DVD driver on Skye Blue on the hard part of the apron on the outside.
Back in the ring Willow fired up once again and was left alone in the ring with Anna Jay, Willow hit her Gutwrench powerbomb and pinned Anna Jay to now receive a title shot for the TBS Women’s title.
Winner – Willow Nightingale
After the match Julia Hart attacked Willow from behind with Mercedes Mone getting out of her seat as Heart and Sky Blue retreated to the back with Kris Statlander comforting her friend Willow.
My suspicions were correct that Anna Jay being inserted into the match just to take the pin, it’s criminal that AEW doesn’t seem to see anything in her and constantly have her pinned and have nothing going for her storyline wise.
Renee is backstage with Dustin Rhodes who talks about how at 55 he is still as passionate as ever. The Butcher comes in the scene and starts some trouble, issuing a challenge for Rampage to face him with Dustin accepting.
Why? Butcher hasn’t been presented as a threat or has had anything to do on the show, once again this is just constructed to get a win for Dustin Rhodes. Lazy
“Timeless” Tony Storm is with Ben Mankiewicz who is the host of Turner Classic Movies. This was a little lighthearted segment with Storm pretending she doesn’t know who Ben is and asked him to repeat after her “chin up, tits out, watch out for the shoe” catchphrase.
Quarter Final AEW Tag Team Title Tournament
Best Friends (Orange Cassidy and Trent Beretta) with Chuck Taylor vs The Undisputed Kingdom (Mike Bennett and Matt Taven) with Roderick Strong
It seems like Wardlow has just disappeared again, after Adam Cole said that his job would be to help The Undisputed Kingdom keep the titles you would have thought he would have returned but we still haven’t seen him return from losing to Samoa Joe.
The Undisputed Kingdom played the role of double teaming Beretta, distracting the referee to cheat and keeping Beretta in their corner for a lot of this match.
Mike Bennett hit a piledriver on the outside apron with the crowd showing little to know reaction to it. This is the second time tonight we have seen this spot used, the crowd sees it on a weekly occurrence in AEW that they are desensitized to the impact as a danger of it.
Finally Beretta made the hot tag to Cassidy who cleaned house but it was short lived as The Undisputed Kingdom once again cut him off with the double team.
The Undisputed Kingdom went for a double team piledriver off the ropes on Trent Beretta but Chuck Taylor on the outside pushed Matt Taven off the apron which the referee didn’t see, Beretta then reversed Mike Bennett into a pin for the win.
Winner – Best Friends (Orange Cassidy and Trent Beretta)
The Young Bucks came out after the match for a stare down with The Best Friends as they will face them next week.
Renee is backstage with Kyle O Riley, she asked the question if he thought about being with The Undisputed Kingdom, he said he is still going to continue to do it on his own even though he loves those guys.
AEW World Heavyweight Championship Number 1 Contenders Match
Swerve Strickland (with Prince Nana) vs Konosuke Takeshita
Don Callis joins the commentary team.
Another pretty obvious match to main event tonight. Both of these performers came off as polished in this match.
Swerve hit a devastating neck breaker on the ropes this started a good flurry of moves but was cut off when Takeshita reversed into a brainbuster.
The brain buster put Swerve on the back foot for a while with Takeshita capitalizing on Swerve appearing like his bell was rung.
Once again Takeshita done multiple forearms just like the opening match, I’m going to chalk this up as a NJPW thing, I don’t think forearms look good but Swerve sold them a lot better than the earlier match.
It looked like Takeshita was trying for a top rope brain buster but Swerve reversed this into a DDT off the ropes into a corkscrew dive on Takeshita.
Swerve done some pretty innovative offense to get back into this match. He set up Takeshita for his stomp but Takeshita crawled out the ring with Swerve then diving to the outside and hitting the Swerve Stomp to Takeshita on the outside apron.
I felt this should have been the finish but Takeshita reversed Swerves next Stomp like the last one was nothing.
After a bunch of reversals, Swerve hit his Swerve Stomp with Takeshita kicking out of that. Swerve hit another mini stomp out of a reversal then did his modified driver to finally put Takeshita away.
Winner – Swerve Strickland
I find AEW do this regularly where they have a devastating finish for the match and instead of ending it there, it’s a kick out and the eventual finish isn’t as devastating as the point where it should have wrapped up.
Good match but was just obvious Swerve was going over in this one.
Backstage Renee is with Samoa Joe who was shown watching the match backstage on a monitor, he says that Swerve isn’t the guy and he is going to take him out.
Kev’s Thoughts –
After Monday night RAW receiving a lot of praise this week for it being one of the best in recent memory this is the response by AEW?
If you look from start to finish, absolutely nothing happened on this show, it was pretty much wrestling matches and nothing else.
On a weekly basis there is just too many of your main players missing from the show or guys that just disappear with no explanation. There is no writing going on with this show tonight, it’s just Tony Kahn writing a bunch of matches on a piece of paper and that’s what we are seeing on TV.
Not only is there no writing or thought put into this show but the matches aren’t even compelling as they are obvious who is going to win.
I don’t know when or how this show is ever going to get out of this stale formula it has found itself into.
