AEW Grand Slam went down this week and we got another fantastic performance from Jon Moxley. Peter Klein explains why he likes this character so much and why it sets up a great Main Event at AEW Wrestle Dream against Bryan Danielson. Peter goes over everything else he liked and didn't like about AEW Grand Slam.
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00:00Now, let's get to AEW. It was Grand Slam.
00:03First, we have Daniel...
00:05Brian Danielson against Nigel McGuinness. It was fun.
00:08It wasn't one of the epics that they've had before in Ring of Honor, but to expect that would be insane.
00:13But it was just... it was cool to see them in there again,
00:15doing their thing on a big stage that was quite frankly worthy of their talents,
00:20more so than Ring of Honor was at that time.
00:23But I'm interested to see what they do with Nigel now. Is he an every now and then character?
00:27I think that is something that AEW would benefit from.
00:30Um, I know that when AEW was starting, WWE was getting shit on a lot for part-time performers,
00:37and specifically part-time performers in major roles, right?
00:40Like, Brock Lesnar's the champion and he's defending it four times a year,
00:43which I was okay with, if that meant it elevated the Intercontinental Championship, and it didn't.
00:48But now, like, I feel like AEW has kind of abused it the other way, where Jericho's an every week performer.
00:55Well, he doesn't feel special. Adam Copeland was an every week performer.
00:58Well, he didn't feel special.
00:59And then he broke his leg. Like, you have all of these different things that, like, Mercedes Monet, every week,
01:04we're seeing her, doesn't feel special.
01:06There's nothing that feels overly different and overly special right now in AEW.
01:11And I think if you were to have a Nigel McGuinness who would come back two, three, four, five times a year,
01:16that would be... that would be fun, and make him feel important, and quite frankly, kind of make him...
01:21Treat him like a legend when he comes out, which he is, I think, deserving of that status, given his work in the wrestling world.
01:26I thought it was a cool moment retiring the FTW Championship.
01:30Neat. It was a neat thing for Hook, but it's absolutely run its course.
01:34And so to retire it in New York with Taz there on commentary, it's just perfect.
01:38I'm interested to see where Hook goes from here.
01:40I do think, obviously, the cold-hearted handsome devil that he is. There's a look to him that is great.
01:45There is a style that is really interesting, but there is a lot that needs to be kind of rounded out in his game.
01:51And I think they would tell you that.
01:52And I think he just needs in-ring time.
01:54And so he would benefit from a house show schedule, or from being able to work on other
02:00promotions, and just get those reps, and get that repetition, instead of just doing it every week on
02:05AEW. And this is where the relationship with Ring of Honor is a little bit frustrating, where ROH is just a TV taping at the
02:11beginning of the thing. If ROH was its own separate touring brand,
02:15you could do a full set of TV tapings with Hook, with them,
02:19and build that up, instead of, well,
02:21we can't have him on ROH, because then he's wrestling two times in the night, and that doesn't help anyone.
02:24Like, have him go out and do like a month and a half's worth of TV tapings with them, and just get more of that
02:29in-ring experience. He just needs more reps right now, is
02:32basically what he needs. Tag Team match was a blast.
02:35It's great seeing Kyle Fletcher kind of get bumped up in
02:38these matches a little bit, and get taken a little bit more seriously in these opportunities.
02:42It feels like he is kind of the next strong prospect.
02:46The one thing I didn't like is that this is starting to feel predictable when it comes to the Callis family.
02:54You have a match, it's highly competitive,
02:57it's really fun, Don Callis gets involved,
02:59he gives him the screwdriver, and then there is this inner conflict of do I or don't I?
03:03And I guess there wasn't a whole lot of that look like Fletcher was just gonna just
03:07stab motherfucker with it, but
03:10you have Osprey come out and stop him from doing that, and it's always right in the world.
03:13But then they lose the match off of it, and that just that happens a lot in
03:18these big Callis family matches. Like, it just it becomes a little bit repetitive, and it was just a little bit like, oh my god.
03:24We get it.
03:26Because there's been so much of that in Ring of Honor right now.
03:28Oh, I don't want to hit him with the tiger driver or whatever. Oh, I don't want to hit her with this kendo stick.
03:32Oh, I don't want to hit this guy with a screwdriver. Like, there there is so much inner conflict going on.
03:36Oh, don't go to the dark side. How could you?
03:38It gets a little bit repetitive.
03:40But I do think that we are going to see a Kyle Fletcher turn, and he's gonna go fully to the dark side,
03:46and I would assume Mark Davis gets back soon, and we get a full-on Ozzy Open type of a thing. And maybe even there's a
03:53mutual respect with Ricochet and Osprey, and they team up to face
03:57Ozzy Open going forward. That's kind of where I see that kind of going, and then them kind of branching off from there.
04:02MVP in AEW is interesting that it's it's kind of a back-and-forth with Swerve,
04:06that there is some talk about who might be coming with MVP. I think there are some interesting notes.
04:13Yeah, I think it'd be fun. Mariah May, Mina Shirakawa, Willow Nightingale, that could be interesting.
04:18I am a big Mina Shirakawa fan. I'm a big Willow Nightingale fan, and Mariah May is certainly something.
04:23But we need to get the celebration thing over with. Like, no one is taking a championship match seriously
04:30before she is able to do this title celebration thing. And so, like, we just...
04:36I think we need to put the old stuff to bed before we're doing this new thing.
04:40And so I hope that kind of gets figured out. And then, Mox against Darby Allin was great.
04:45I've said before, but Darby Allin feels like a star. Like, he is a little undersized, for sure, but his style, his recklessness,
04:52that the fans love him, the whole presentation makes him feel a little bit more legitimate.
04:56And then him landing on the hardwood looked painful as fuck.
05:00And then, like, Mox has this reaction to, you can't kill him. That was just perfect.
05:05And then he does eventually end up getting the win. I love this BCC with Mox.
05:09It feels like a Batman type of a villain, where it just feels like everyone at any time is in danger of
05:17just an extreme level of violence. He carries himself perfectly.
05:21So does everyone else in this crew. Like, everything fits this so
05:26perfectly. They do such a good job with it.
05:29It is the seriousness that you want out of these type of characters. Danielson coming out and choking him with a tie is amazing.
05:36Private Party coming out after was a bit of a fart in church, so to speak. Just a bit of a...
05:41Okay, that's it. All right.
05:43But I do, like, that match is going to be an ass-kicking.
05:46And I think now Mox being the number one contender makes for an interesting night
05:53for Wrestle Dream. How they got there was weird.
05:55I did not like how we did this roundabout way to get Jon Moxley in this with
06:00Darby Allin having already earned the shot. We're getting into
06:04wins don't matter and
06:06stakes don't matter. When, oh, this guy won a championship opportunity at All-In. Actually, it's gonna be at All-Out.
06:12So just don't don't worry about that.
06:14Even though I know he got on the mic and said this is he's gonna have finally have his All-In moment.
06:18It was just in a different thing and just forget about that. And now Darby Allin,
06:20yeah, he wins this thing so that he can be the number one contender for Grand Slam, but
06:25he's gonna put it on the line against Jon Moxley because the champion's not gonna wrestle. Oh, okay, that makes sense.
06:30Just kidding. The champion's gonna wrestle.
06:32Huh? So the booking was weird.
06:35But we get to a very interesting spot now where you have Daniel Bryan against Jon Moxley at Wrestle Dream and
06:42the
06:44stakes attached to Bryan Danielson
06:48certainly didn't make for a more dramatic night against
06:51Jack Perry, but it does against Moxley because you can very easily talk yourself into
06:57Bryan's last match being in his home state against a guy who
07:01he has a tie with in the company and from a storyline standpoint for Mox to retire him after how the
07:06BCC started with them being rivals and all of that.
07:10I think like storyline wise it works. He's had the match with
07:15He's had the match with Nigel, so you kind of cut that like there isn't the oh he has so many more whatever so like well
07:23Like there's a couple other ones he could have and he's not again retiring full-time. It's or all the time
07:27He's just retiring from being a full-time guy
07:29So there's still a couple dream matchy things you can do, but I do think you can kind of like okay
07:34This is this is a legitimate opportunity that he could lose
07:38But you're right Deeds the ADD of the booking staff is very frustrating. It is like
07:43It just kind of feels like all right. This is the way we're going and we have this idea. Oh, but wait
07:47What if we did this and then you kind of like try to?
07:51They equal parts over explain and under explain and just nothing really clicks
07:56And so I don't I don't want to go to negative on AEW because this show was fantastic
08:01And there's been a lot of very fun stuff in AEW lately, and I think they have tightened some of it up
08:07but
08:08It is still like you said it's just it is all over the place
08:13with all of these things and then
08:15Another part of it that I didn't love was like Christian
08:19He has that their version of money in the bank now
08:21and so he has to physically sign the contract to go out and cash it in on Bryan Danielson and
08:27It was thwarted by Kip Sabian stealing his pen like
08:32What and you do even contract like just so in case you didn't have it
08:38Beat over your head that this is so much less serious than all the other stuff that's going on you had them run by
08:44Cesaro, sorry Claudio and
08:47Pac and it's like oh shit
08:49And you just like you see the guys who are supposed to be serious there
08:51And then this goofball of a thing in a world title picture was annoying
08:55But I do think a lot of that deeds is getting tightened up, but it's just it's not
08:59perfect in the way that it needs to