AEW Fight for the Fallen - 7/15/20

[Evil Vito]

Thinking about the finish some more RE: them painting themselves into a corner.

It felt like the storyline had been written backwards.

The FTW belt shouldn't have just been a vanity belt introduced for no reason - it should have been brought in after a screwy finish to Moxley vs. Cage. Cage effectively saying that the champ couldn't really beat him, so the FTW title is his way of saying that he's the deserving champion, and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

That way you get Moxley able to move on to the next challenger, while giving Cage and Taz reason to stay in his rear-view mirror for a future rematch. At the moment, it's a one and done.

Moxley and Cody's programs have followed the same type of pattern where it feels like they're booking like Jerry Lawler in Memphis fighting a revolving door of heels who will move to another territory after. But Cage/Archer/Brodie/Hager are all under contract and not going anywhere. Yet they all struck out in their first opportunity (and in Hager's case, his first opportunity at two separate belts).

At least they sent Cage straight into his next program with Darby so that's an improvement from the others, but still. For as much as I enjoy AEW they still haven't yet mastered booking a longer-term program between two wrestlers.

[Jordan]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito Thinking about the finish some more RE: them painting themselves into a corner. It felt like the storyline had been written backwards. The FTW belt shouldn't have just been a vanity belt introduced for no reason - it should have been brought in after a screwy finish to Moxley vs. Cage. Cage effectively saying that the champ couldn't really beat him, so the FTW title is his way of saying that he's the deserving champion, and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise. That way you get Moxley able to move on to the next challenger, while giving Cage and Taz reason to stay in his rear-view mirror for a future rematch. At the moment, it's a one and done. Moxley and Cody's programs have followed the same type of pattern where it feels like they're booking like Jerry Lawler in Memphis fighting a revolving door of heels who will move to another territory after. But Cage/Archer/Brodie/Hager are all under contract and not going anywhere. Yet they all struck out in their first opportunity (and in Hager's case, his first opportunity at two separate belts). At least they sent Cage straight into his next program with Darby so that's an improvement from the others, but still. For as much as I enjoy AEW they still haven't yet mastered booking a longer-term program between two wrestlers.

Great post. 100% agree with you.

What I think is going to happen is we are going to get a big 3 Way on Dynamite where Mox pinns Darby leaving Cage still with the argument that Mox has never pinned Cage so they will do another but bigger blow off match with Mox and Cage maybe on TV but probably at All Out 2.

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito At least they sent Cage straight into his next program with Darby so that's an improvement from the others, but still. For as much as I enjoy AEW they still haven't yet mastered booking a longer-term program between two wrestlers.

Yeah that is one area in their booking that could use some tweaking. Would make some of their notable feuds feel a bit less disjointed in the end.

Seems they have a real fear of running feuds quickly into the ground like WWE which was also something NXT usually shied away from until around 2 years ago. The other option is to pull off NJPW's style for feud hoping and keeping feuds in an entangled web but they've been hit-or-miss trying to pull that off.