AEW Double or Nothing 5/24/2020

AEW Double or Nothing 5/24/2020

I had some other things going on during this, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the parts of the show I saw.

Best Friends vs Private Party
15 minute pre-show openers are not good. These are supposed to be quick samples, not lengthy affairs. Private Party's stock really has only gone down since the first few episodes of AEW Dynamite and while they aren't a finished product, they had room to grow. Unfortunately, as you will see later in the show and as we see often in AEW, people like them have gotten shafted in favor of The Elite and their friends. This match would have been really helped by fans being there.

Casino Ladder Match
I missed most of this. I'm over ladder matches. Everything you could do in them has been done. And this isn't 1993 or even 2001 where a great showing gets you places. These matches now just scream as being dangerous filler. The comedy stuff with Marko Stunt was stupid and like always Darby Allin took some reckless bumps. There was a bunch of sloppiness here including a botched finish.

MJF vs Jungle Boy
A good outing for both guys. This went too long and they did too much like always. Jungle Boy showed he can go here and is ready soon for bigger and better things. MJF was good but would have been better with a crowd to work with.

I didn't bother with either the women's or pretending to be a woman's matches, nor will I ever with the latter.

Dustin Rhodes vs Shawn Spears
Man has Shawn Spears fallen. This dude got a semi-main spot when he first arrived and is now a complete joke. They completely jobbed him out here and made him out to be a fool. And the highlight of his gimmick with having a legend as a manager means little because Jake and Arn are also managers now too. Tully, you would never go for this if it was you. Don't let this happen to your boy either.

Cody vs Lance Archer
Like a lot of Cody matches, it was long, they did too much and it was slow. The nonsense with Arn didn't help the match, though Mike Tyson stole the show.  As someone else put it, AEW is "Where the big boys lay", going off on WCW's "Where the big boys play" as AEW has had hosses like Cobb, Wardlow, Archer and Lee lose. You don't have hosses or monsters lose because then they are less threatening which defeats the whole purpose of their existence. Where does Archer go from here and how does this benefit him in anyway? Meanwhile if Cody lost, he could have challenged again down the line and not lost too much momentum.

Jon Moxley vs Brodie Lee
Brodie's booking and gimmick has not been good at all so far and it has really exposed him. The whole "definitely not Vince McMahon" gimmick has really been lousy. All common sense would tell you that he wins tonight, yet AEW went against the grain. There was no reason for him to lose this and I fail to see what he gained from this. Moxley, after years of main event work is still not a great wrestler nor is he a real intriguing personality. Like everything else, this was too long.

Stadium Stampede - The Elite vs The Inner Circle
I've always been intrigued by wrestling matches in non-wrestling settings, as I've mentioned here before. This was entertaining and funny, but so are comedians. The difference is, they don't take powerbombs through guardrails or get slammed on pool tables.  As the saying goes, they were "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should". The more you think about this one, the less sense it makes, but the marks in the ring were much more concerned about getting their laughs in than protecting the business. Make sure to care and believe in their serious angles though like an on/off switch because The Elite said so.

Overall thoughts: This was a really long show. Everything went too long and everyone did too much as usual. The booking was questionable and their decisions to expose the business were also questionable. I did about four other things while watching this show and I still didn't really miss that much.