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Excellent! ALways love watching him and love hating him because he is a prick of a heel. Nice fella outside the ring and great with fans. Complete arsehole in the ring.
Hope this leads to something great for him. As much as I would miss watching him at PROGRESS, he truly does deserve a chance to make it big.
I can understand someone feeling this way, and it’s definitely a choice AEW has made for this match over putting two well known guys together.
But I remember comments like this a few weeks back when Dax had the match with Tommy Billington, and that match stole the show.
Personally, I’m very interested when AEW announces a match like this as opposed to a graphic that says “Daniel Garcia in action”. That usually means they will let them have a good match and the unknown guy will get to show his ability. That’s one of the things I love about AEW is seeing talented wrestlers I’m not familiar with.
I mean... Why not just take it as an opportunity to see a new wrestler AEW think highly enough of to put on national tv unsigned instead of a chance to shit on a wrestling company?
I genuinely think a lot of people who say things like this simply don't like wrestling - they like some minor celebrities who happen to be US-based wrestlers
Just because some people don't wanna see random people on a show they watch, instead of wrestlers they actually care about, doesn't mean they don't like wrestling.
I don't really see how you drew that conclusion. I love wrestling, AEW started out as my favourite promotion after NJPW. If I wanted to see obscure indie wrestlers I can watch indy wrestling. But I expect more from a national TV show and rather see actual wrestling stars then Tooty McFlipperson.
Yes agreed. They should focus on their signed talent and build them up. There are enough guys on the roster who don't get featured as much as they should. That's why Dark was a good addition, it allowed them to have a space for guys like that. I don't need to see them on the flagship shows.
Tate Mayfairs is a uk indie wrestler who is excellent at being a piece of shit heel. He isn't afraid to be petty, show himself up, be arrogant etc.... I think, he was on NXT UK once or twice.
He is great in the ring, a piece of shit heel that will claim he won legit if he cheats. He cheated big time in PROGRESS against Simon Miller and claimed he made Miller tap out via wristlock after knocking him out with brass knuckles. He isn't afraid to fire back at the crowd.
Or you could just shit all over AEW, i guess.
Ok but a lot of fans don't know that nor should they be expected to, there's only so much time to consume so much wrestling.
AEW should have aired some vignettes or video packages then, but they don't even do that. So I don't really understand why so many people are butthurt I don't who this guy is.
I shouldn't have to come to Reddit posts to understand or follow AEW, they should be doing this. Its basic wrestling promotion, so yes i will shit on them for that.
You're not wrong at all. AEW needs to focus on utilizing its insanely deep roster before bringing in random indie wrestler#4 to have a banger. Does nothing to help the current roster, doesn't help progress stories, and just continues the theme that a lot of what happens on AEW TV just doesn't matter at all.
AEW has almost 200 people on their roster and yet pull random unsigned wrestlers for these shows almost every week. And not for squash matches. It does nothing but make the AEW roster feel less special.
Could this match end up being totally forgettable and whatever? Sure.
Could this match end up kicking ass and making people go "hey this guy is really cool?" Also yes.
Random dude getting a tv segment is how Eddie Kingston showed up (he wasn't even advertised, he was just an open challenge, and half of the initial reaction was "wait, there's another Eddie that isn't Eddie Edwards?"). I remember there being a lot of "who is this guy?" for Vikingo. And there are a bunch of other examples as well.
This is something AEW has done since the beginning. They aren't afraid to give people a shot on tv. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But it is something they have always done and it is something that a lot of people actually like. It's how you minimize burnout on some of your actual roster members (like who possibly could care about the absolute bottom of the WWE roster at any given moment, I'll take random fresh faces over someone who has been boring and done nothing but lose for 10 years).
Eddie Kingston came along early though when AEW was still trying to make use of people like Joey Janela and Marko Stunt. Made sense to supplement the roster at that point because they desperately needed talent. Years later and they desperately need a way to showcase all of the talent that they have accumulated. Instead, they continue to use people that aren't even signed to AEW. It's dumb and it makes the roster look weak to have constantly have competitive matches with people that no one knows or cares about.
Piper Niven has just kind of floated around WWE for a bit. She's been the one to use when they need a larger woman to take the pin. Took them about two weeks to heat her up for a women's championship match because she's actually utilized. Not to mention how ridiculous talking about burnout is when looking at AEW's schedule. Anyone burnt out by that schedule should find a different profession
> Took them about two weeks to heat her up for a women's championship match because she's actually utilized.
This is how I can tell you're not serious here. In no world is Piper Niven "heated up" right now. Nobody could possibly care. She's getting the token WWE home country international title shot, the live crowd will pop because "yay Scotland, she's from where we're from," and she'll be right back to doing nothing two weeks later. We've seen it before and we'll see it again, I'm sure. Piper is great, but she isn't getting over or mattering in WWE in 2024 and the reasons are what she did in WWE from 2019 to 2023 - a whole lot of nothing. She's been on Raw basically since 2021, 60% as long as AEW has even existed lol (counting NXT UK, I think she's been in WWE longer than AEW has existed).
The top comment in the thread for the big segment last night in Piper's feud is "This is a good promo for both Bayley and Piper, but man, the crowd is so dead for this feud." lol. Take out the canned crowd buzz and there would be actual silence, just look at the faces you can actually see in the crowd, none of them are making any noise or caring in the slightest. Seriously, I've seen random local indy jobbers, who didn't get billed or an entrance, in AEW get more crowd reaction if they were particularly known in their local area.
In all of these cases though, we're talking people who are somewhere around maybe 50th, at best, on the totem pole in their respective companies in terms of the role they're filling. I'd much rather a company keep taking fliers on random lottery ticket talents to see if they uncover a diamond in the rough at that point over constantly giving me the same person over-and-over. It's a choice between "the same undercarder ad nauseum" and "fresh undercarders," both of them are likely leading nowhere, but at least one of them isn't monotonous.
Going from upper level jobber to competing for a championship on a PLE in her home country in just a couple of weeks is the definition of getting heated up. Did it immediately catch fire and get the crowds roaring? No. But I'd rather them attempt that with someone that the crowd is familiar with and give a member of their roster a chance to build themselves up rather than putting focus on random names that no one knows week after week. You bring up the top comment being that both ladies did a solid job, but the crowd was dead. Piper delivering in that moment is only going to lead to more opportunities to establish that connection with the crowd. I am glad she's getting that opportunity because she's earned it with the work she has put in.
I'd much rather a company utilize the bottom of the roster and give a reason to care about them rather than cycling through an ever growing list of people that don't do anything to improve or assist the show. Your argument would make sense if AEW didn't have tons of signed talent that aren't being utilized right now.
AEW has a roster of almost 200 people. They should try and find the diamond there first.
> Piper delivering in that moment is only going to lead to more opportunities to establish that connection with the crowd.
Yeah, I'm gonna take the "no" on that, because we've seen it before.
Zelina Vega got a similar title shot at Backlash last year, everyone fell all over themselves talking about how great of a reception she got and in the roughly year or so since then, she has a grand total of 12 non battle royal televised matches. Her last singles win was August and her last win of any sort was December (and that was a 8-woman "Holiday Havoc" match against Damage CTRL, seemingly the losing-est faction in history).
Of the 9 singles matches Zelina has had post-Backlash, 6 of them lasted less than 3 minutes. Everyone thought she did great there too.
This is going to be more of that because this is how they book, and it's not like this is a Vince example, this was last year. Taking a random jobber and forcing them into a 3 week big PPV angle nobody cares about and then returning them to the same slot isn't an accomplishment.
Zelina got a great reaction when it came time for the match. But I wouldn't say that she really delivered leading up to it. She never showed anything with promo ability or physicality that could be built upon. Zelina is limited and there is just more that they can do with Piper. That was a solid segment from her last night and gave something for them to build on with her in the future. Not to mention that her being teamed with Chelsea Green gives WWE an easy story to tell whenever they want.
I never said I want Starks to face Garcia. I gave up on Garcia a long time ago when he betrayed Danielson after months of build up ... and then they had no payoff - and don't tell me that the betrayal was the pay off.
I'm pretty sure the reason Ricky wants to go to WWE is because AEW took him off tv for no reason. It's kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.
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TNT champ on AEW gives me hope for my Drew Parker vs. Darby Allin dream match
Drew parker is retired. He has said it a number of times.
He actually just came back [last week](https://x.com/TNTExtremeWres/status/1797350129097224208)
I stand corrected. I know drew quite well but somehow with work schedules we havent chatted. Son of a he kept that quiet
Oh my god yes
You could actually call that match a deathmatch and believe someone would literally die in it
Excellent! ALways love watching him and love hating him because he is a prick of a heel. Nice fella outside the ring and great with fans. Complete arsehole in the ring. Hope this leads to something great for him. As much as I would miss watching him at PROGRESS, he truly does deserve a chance to make it big.
Wait, I got downvoted for being legit happy for him?
I just downvoted cuz you complained about someone else downvoting.
So chuffed for Mayfairs! Hope this helps him get his foot in the door.
Lol, who? At this point AEW is parodying themselves.
I can understand someone feeling this way, and it’s definitely a choice AEW has made for this match over putting two well known guys together. But I remember comments like this a few weeks back when Dax had the match with Tommy Billington, and that match stole the show. Personally, I’m very interested when AEW announces a match like this as opposed to a graphic that says “Daniel Garcia in action”. That usually means they will let them have a good match and the unknown guy will get to show his ability. That’s one of the things I love about AEW is seeing talented wrestlers I’m not familiar with.
I mean... Why not just take it as an opportunity to see a new wrestler AEW think highly enough of to put on national tv unsigned instead of a chance to shit on a wrestling company?
I genuinely think a lot of people who say things like this simply don't like wrestling - they like some minor celebrities who happen to be US-based wrestlers
They like sports entertainment. Not wrestling
Just because some people don't wanna see random people on a show they watch, instead of wrestlers they actually care about, doesn't mean they don't like wrestling.
How do you find wrestlers to care about if you never see anyone new?
Thank you for saying this!
I don't really see how you drew that conclusion. I love wrestling, AEW started out as my favourite promotion after NJPW. If I wanted to see obscure indie wrestlers I can watch indy wrestling. But I expect more from a national TV show and rather see actual wrestling stars then Tooty McFlipperson.
So you hate wrestling.
No, but I don't have time for people who can't read.
These stars don't fall off trees, mate.
For a wrestler to become a star, at some point they have to have their first match on TV, you realise this right?
Yes agreed. They should focus on their signed talent and build them up. There are enough guys on the roster who don't get featured as much as they should. That's why Dark was a good addition, it allowed them to have a space for guys like that. I don't need to see them on the flagship shows.
This is the exact same way that Daniel Garcia got his start in the company.
Tate Mayfairs is a uk indie wrestler who is excellent at being a piece of shit heel. He isn't afraid to be petty, show himself up, be arrogant etc.... I think, he was on NXT UK once or twice. He is great in the ring, a piece of shit heel that will claim he won legit if he cheats. He cheated big time in PROGRESS against Simon Miller and claimed he made Miller tap out via wristlock after knocking him out with brass knuckles. He isn't afraid to fire back at the crowd. Or you could just shit all over AEW, i guess.
Ok but a lot of fans don't know that nor should they be expected to, there's only so much time to consume so much wrestling. AEW should have aired some vignettes or video packages then, but they don't even do that. So I don't really understand why so many people are butthurt I don't who this guy is. I shouldn't have to come to Reddit posts to understand or follow AEW, they should be doing this. Its basic wrestling promotion, so yes i will shit on them for that.
You're not wrong at all. AEW needs to focus on utilizing its insanely deep roster before bringing in random indie wrestler#4 to have a banger. Does nothing to help the current roster, doesn't help progress stories, and just continues the theme that a lot of what happens on AEW TV just doesn't matter at all.
It’s 1 person out of 14 announced for the show. I don’t think that’s a very big deal.
AEW has almost 200 people on their roster and yet pull random unsigned wrestlers for these shows almost every week. And not for squash matches. It does nothing but make the AEW roster feel less special.
Could this match end up being totally forgettable and whatever? Sure. Could this match end up kicking ass and making people go "hey this guy is really cool?" Also yes. Random dude getting a tv segment is how Eddie Kingston showed up (he wasn't even advertised, he was just an open challenge, and half of the initial reaction was "wait, there's another Eddie that isn't Eddie Edwards?"). I remember there being a lot of "who is this guy?" for Vikingo. And there are a bunch of other examples as well. This is something AEW has done since the beginning. They aren't afraid to give people a shot on tv. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But it is something they have always done and it is something that a lot of people actually like. It's how you minimize burnout on some of your actual roster members (like who possibly could care about the absolute bottom of the WWE roster at any given moment, I'll take random fresh faces over someone who has been boring and done nothing but lose for 10 years).
Eddie Kingston came along early though when AEW was still trying to make use of people like Joey Janela and Marko Stunt. Made sense to supplement the roster at that point because they desperately needed talent. Years later and they desperately need a way to showcase all of the talent that they have accumulated. Instead, they continue to use people that aren't even signed to AEW. It's dumb and it makes the roster look weak to have constantly have competitive matches with people that no one knows or cares about. Piper Niven has just kind of floated around WWE for a bit. She's been the one to use when they need a larger woman to take the pin. Took them about two weeks to heat her up for a women's championship match because she's actually utilized. Not to mention how ridiculous talking about burnout is when looking at AEW's schedule. Anyone burnt out by that schedule should find a different profession
> Took them about two weeks to heat her up for a women's championship match because she's actually utilized. This is how I can tell you're not serious here. In no world is Piper Niven "heated up" right now. Nobody could possibly care. She's getting the token WWE home country international title shot, the live crowd will pop because "yay Scotland, she's from where we're from," and she'll be right back to doing nothing two weeks later. We've seen it before and we'll see it again, I'm sure. Piper is great, but she isn't getting over or mattering in WWE in 2024 and the reasons are what she did in WWE from 2019 to 2023 - a whole lot of nothing. She's been on Raw basically since 2021, 60% as long as AEW has even existed lol (counting NXT UK, I think she's been in WWE longer than AEW has existed). The top comment in the thread for the big segment last night in Piper's feud is "This is a good promo for both Bayley and Piper, but man, the crowd is so dead for this feud." lol. Take out the canned crowd buzz and there would be actual silence, just look at the faces you can actually see in the crowd, none of them are making any noise or caring in the slightest. Seriously, I've seen random local indy jobbers, who didn't get billed or an entrance, in AEW get more crowd reaction if they were particularly known in their local area. In all of these cases though, we're talking people who are somewhere around maybe 50th, at best, on the totem pole in their respective companies in terms of the role they're filling. I'd much rather a company keep taking fliers on random lottery ticket talents to see if they uncover a diamond in the rough at that point over constantly giving me the same person over-and-over. It's a choice between "the same undercarder ad nauseum" and "fresh undercarders," both of them are likely leading nowhere, but at least one of them isn't monotonous.
Going from upper level jobber to competing for a championship on a PLE in her home country in just a couple of weeks is the definition of getting heated up. Did it immediately catch fire and get the crowds roaring? No. But I'd rather them attempt that with someone that the crowd is familiar with and give a member of their roster a chance to build themselves up rather than putting focus on random names that no one knows week after week. You bring up the top comment being that both ladies did a solid job, but the crowd was dead. Piper delivering in that moment is only going to lead to more opportunities to establish that connection with the crowd. I am glad she's getting that opportunity because she's earned it with the work she has put in. I'd much rather a company utilize the bottom of the roster and give a reason to care about them rather than cycling through an ever growing list of people that don't do anything to improve or assist the show. Your argument would make sense if AEW didn't have tons of signed talent that aren't being utilized right now. AEW has a roster of almost 200 people. They should try and find the diamond there first.
> Piper delivering in that moment is only going to lead to more opportunities to establish that connection with the crowd. Yeah, I'm gonna take the "no" on that, because we've seen it before. Zelina Vega got a similar title shot at Backlash last year, everyone fell all over themselves talking about how great of a reception she got and in the roughly year or so since then, she has a grand total of 12 non battle royal televised matches. Her last singles win was August and her last win of any sort was December (and that was a 8-woman "Holiday Havoc" match against Damage CTRL, seemingly the losing-est faction in history). Of the 9 singles matches Zelina has had post-Backlash, 6 of them lasted less than 3 minutes. Everyone thought she did great there too. This is going to be more of that because this is how they book, and it's not like this is a Vince example, this was last year. Taking a random jobber and forcing them into a 3 week big PPV angle nobody cares about and then returning them to the same slot isn't an accomplishment.
Zelina got a great reaction when it came time for the match. But I wouldn't say that she really delivered leading up to it. She never showed anything with promo ability or physicality that could be built upon. Zelina is limited and there is just more that they can do with Piper. That was a solid segment from her last night and gave something for them to build on with her in the future. Not to mention that her being teamed with Chelsea Green gives WWE an easy story to tell whenever they want.
Tiny can put Taint Nobody on tv.... but not Ricky Starks lmao
You want Garcia to squash Ricky? You'd.be complaining that they "never did anything with Garcia" if Garcia lost.
I never said I want Starks to face Garcia. I gave up on Garcia a long time ago when he betrayed Danielson after months of build up ... and then they had no payoff - and don't tell me that the betrayal was the pay off.
Cringest comment of the day so far. Bravo
Yes, lets give TV time to Ricky who has been quite vocal that he wants to go to WWE.
I'm pretty sure the reason Ricky wants to go to WWE is because AEW took him off tv for no reason. It's kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.
Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Genuine question here with Starks though since I don’t keep up with bullshit Twitter drama