Damascus in AEW, is it "good"?

[Jordan]

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The massively polarizing feedback created by my AEW confrontation with Jericho has been great.<br><br>It’s been praised by many as the most brilliant &amp; fun segment of the empty arena era. It’s also been criticized for being too out of the box- <a href="https://t.co/ZRhhnyVVhN">https://t.co/ZRhhnyVVhN</a><br><br>What’s your take?</p>&mdash; #BROKEN Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) <a href="https://twitter.com/MATTHARDYBRAND/status/1243721919112843266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

How did you feel about Matt Hardy's debut and first segment in AEW? You feelin' this? Was it funny to you? Is there sustainable depth in storytelling with a character like this? Is it too late for this gimmick? Will it be changed or abandoned sooner than later? Do you want to see Matt Hardy in NJPW? Does it fit right in? What do you think about Damascus in AEW? Would we even be talking about this if there was a crowd present?

I found it quite odd that Hardy posted the above Tweet. Essentially asking if his performance worked or not. While I certainly laughed a few times during the segment I was mostly kinda not digging it. Jericho yelling at the drone was funny yes, but it all started to feel very WWE. More WWE than AEW has ever felt. So let us know how you feel about this gimmick in AEW so far.

[Damian Rey 2.0]

Undecided for a few reasons; it's only been 2 weeks, and there's time to save it or correct course on the goofy stuff.

[drave]

Was never a fan of it any other time he did it...... but at the same time can kinda see its place in the wrasslin world.


Let's see how it plays out. AEW has been very entertaining to watch so far.

[xrodmuc316]

I'll wait until the out of the arena segments happen. The stuff at the compound is always far better than the arena stuff.

[Triple A]

Undecided... feel like they will probably "refine" it to make it better and hopefully not have him do many or any long in-ring promos in the future

Seems like they already are trying to "tone it down" a bit, explaining away that the "teleporting" wasn't actually supposed to be teleporting

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Teleportation? No, <a href="https://twitter.com/MATTHARDYBRAND?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MATTHARDYBRAND</a> explains how Vanguard 1 and his fleet of Aerial Assault Drones projected an array of images of The Broken One to confuse <a href="https://twitter.com/IAmJericho?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IAmJericho</a> and hasten the Painmaker’s descent into madness during last week’s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWDynamite?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWDynamite</a>. <a href="https://t.co/MpMPLFDM9a">https://t.co/MpMPLFDM9a</a></p>&mdash; All Elite Wrestling (@AEWrestling) <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWrestling/status/1244057480814104579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[drave]

I'll wait until the out of the arena segments happen. The stuff at the compound is always far better than the arena stuff.




Eh, this always felt like Impact being desperate to do something so new it felt..... low quality, I dunno.

[Sepholio]

This is no way feels more WWE than anything AEW has done. WWE didn't even want to touch this stuff, finally gave in to a massively toned version, and then when Hardy got hurt they just scrapped it completely.

This is AEW feeling like lolTNA. But I don't particularly mind it. One of those so bad its good things.

[Emperor Smeat]

Leaning towards Thumbs Up mainly because I enjoyed the gimmick when he was doing it in Impact.

Like with Impact, its the type of gimmick that is hard to judge right away and just needs time to flesh out or get used to it. As is, can see why some would think its terrible or way too corny for AEW.

[Damian Rey 2.0]

Undecided... feel like they will probably "refine" it to make it better and hopefully not have him do many or any long in-ring promos in the future

Seems like they already are trying to "tone it down" a bit, explaining away that the "teleporting" wasn't actually supposed to be teleporting

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Teleportation? No, <a href="https://twitter.com/MATTHARDYBRAND?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MATTHARDYBRAND</a> explains how Vanguard 1 and his fleet of Aerial Assault Drones projected an array of images of The Broken One to confuse <a href="https://twitter.com/IAmJericho?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IAmJericho</a> and hasten the Painmaker’s descent into madness during last week’s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWDynamite?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWDynamite</a>. <a href="https://t.co/MpMPLFDM9a">https://t.co/MpMPLFDM9a</a></p>&mdash; All Elite Wrestling (@AEWrestling) <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWrestling/status/1244057480814104579?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

This is good that they're already trying to explain away

[Jordan]

It's good but it likely won't reach a certain amount of people who decided to try AEW that night only to see David Blaine gone Tim & Eric.

[Jordan]

I still halfway liked it so I voted undecided. But I will make a point. AEW did initially promise to be more sports like and I think I assumed there wouldn't be stupid shit on the show. Well I think quickly we found out that when you have Kenny & The Bucks coming up with ideas you are going to get some stupid shit. Orange Cassidy and The Jurassic Express isn't sci-fi or anything but its a stretch, but it works for sure. The Dark Order angle has gone from bad to good and back again and once more over.

While I laughed I hope that this isn't lowering Jericho's heat from raging hot to a simmer.

[teamXtremist]

This is no way feels more WWE than anything AEW has done. WWE didn't even want to touch this stuff, finally gave in to a massively toned version, and then when Hardy got hurt they just scrapped it completely.

This is AEW feeling like lolTNA. But I don't particularly mind it. One of those so bad its good things.

Exactly! Thats just aew bias because matt is seen more as a wwe guy. Its a love or hate gimmick, and there is no in between.Atleast aew is giving matt hardy a shot as a top guy,tbh. Its sink or swim for damascus now

[Damian Rey 2.0]

I still halfway liked it so I voted undecided. But I will make a point. AEW did initially promise to be more sports like and I think I assumed there wouldn't be stupid shit on the show. Well I think quickly we found out that when you have Kenny & The Bucks coming up with ideas you are going to get some stupid shit. Orange Cassidy and The Jurassic Express isn't sci-fi or anything but its a stretch, but it works for sure. The Dark Order angle has gone from bad to good and back again and once more over.

While I laughed I hope that this isn't lowering Jericho's heat from raging hot to a simmer.

Orange Cassidy is fine. I don't care for Marco Stunt at all. But as under card guys they're fine.

The Dark Order started turning around when they went with the whole cult recruiting gimmick. I wanna see what they do now that they've moved from Evil Uno to Brody Lee.

The Matt stuff wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't pretending to be Damascus. If he said he believes in him, or that's what he's inspired by, fine. But they need to badly tone down the goofy shit down. Especially if this is going to be a main event/upper card programwith a red hot Jericho.

Wrestling is no different than movies or TV or sports in that some levity is needed. And Orange Cassidy and the Jurassic Express are fine for those roles. But the broken Matt Hardy stuff is too much if they keep going with the current direction or let Matt do the same nonsense he was pulling in TNA.

Cornette is right in that there needs to be a backbone in place to tell these guys "no" when they come up with a shitty idea that makes the company look dumb

[Triple A]

What did Cornette say about the Hardy angle

[Mr. Nerfect]

What did Cornette say about the Hardy angle

He likes Hardy and Jericho, so he's stayed away from Hardy's stuff in the past because he's heard it's "out there." He switched it off so he doesn't hate either guy going forward after the teleporting and Brian had to recap everything after that to get Cornette's live take. It was mostly anguish, then Cornette interrupted, scrunched up his notes and said it would be the last time they ever do an AEW review.

[Damian Rey 2.0]

What did Cornette say about the Hardy angle

He turned it off when he see the teleporting shit outta respect for Matt and Jericho and liking them as performers. But when his co-host filled him in he was irate and went back to his usual "I knew it was gonna be stupid mud wrestling" schtick he does when something pisses him off or is dumb.

[Mr. Nerfect]

He's right though. What's the point of doing wrestling like this? Who is it for?

AEW have to do so much damage control. Why don't they just stay away from the obviously shitty ideas in the first place?

[Triple A]

Meltzer says that they originally taped the segment on Tuesday but had to retape it the next day because Jericho "absolutely hated it"

They had taped that segment on Tuesday and Jericho hated it. He absolutely hated it. So they were gonna go and re-tape it on Wednesday. They didn't want to do it live, cause you can't do it live. They were gonna do it before the show then they realized because it's like, outdoors, that it was light out and you couldn't tape in the afternoon and then put it in the show because it's like 9:45 at night and all of a sudden it's light out. So you had to wait until it's dark to do this.

So what happened was on the show that aired on Wednesday, everything was live except for the Kip Sabian match with Darby Allin, which was taped the day before. So what they did was as the Kip Sabian and Darby match was playing, they redid the segment that we saw and rushed into editing and they edited the whole segment in 15 minutes and made it on the air with 15 minutes to spare or something like that. They liked the second version better than the first.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Oh wow. Imagine how awful the original one must have been.

[#1-norm-fan]

Cornette is right in that there needs to be a backbone in place to tell these guys "no" when they come up with a shitty idea that makes the company look dumb

Yeah, WWE took the ability for the wrestlers to build their own character and stand out out of the wrestlers hands. It seems like AEW strives to go the other way to a fault. It sucks because Cody definitely has a mind for the business but I think he’s just too nice to interfere with his friends’ “creativity”.

[#1-norm-fan]

And for the record, I kinda liked the Matt Hardy stuff in TNA. Though granted I didn’t watch the rest of the shows and didn’t care how it clashed.

I haven’t watched this full segment but if they’re doing supernatural shit, it clashes with the old school “real sport” idea the company was built on. They need to commit to what they wanna be. Trying to have something for every type of wrestling fan is what WWE does and it turns things into a creative mess.

[Corporate CockSnogger]

I didn’t like it. Not sure what it was because I’ve seen some of this broken hardy stuff in the past and thought it was alright/quite funny.

It might’ve been because when I watched those clips I wasn’t invested in any wrestling at that point so didn’t really care and just found it funny. But I’ve been watching AEW each week and really enjoying it. I think if it wasn’t in the main event maybe it’d be better? I dunno. As a mid card act it’d probably be okay, but inserting this weird supernatural character into a mostly serious and intense faction feud seems a bit off.