Biased Thoughts: AEW Double Or Nothing 2023
T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas. Nevada. +10k Tickets Distributed. May 28th 2023
BlackJack Battle Royale for the International Championship (***1/2) One of the best AEW Battle Royale and even with the stuff that comes with the stip (Dead Time to let other people do his spots and story advancements) but the finish was amazing.
Adam Cole vs Chris Jericho in an Unsactioned match (**1/2) Vibes were off and the structure sucks because Adam Cole after NXT is one of the most underwhelming wrestlers I have ever seen. Hopefully this ends right here because this match sucked and to be honest Cole needs to change a lot of things in his matches if he wants to be a definitive top player in this promotion. Really bad.
FTR vs Jarrett & Lethal for the AEW Tag Team Championships (***) Got the crowd back at least but I just had enough of Jarrett and Lethal. Meh.
Christian Cage vs Wardlow in a Ladders match for the TNT Championship (***1/4) Really fun ladder match, with the ladder used as a weapon more than spots and that felt fresh. Better than expected.
Toni Storm vs Jamie Hayter for the AEW Women´s World Championship (**1/2) Good way to take the belt off an injured Jamie Hayter and set up the main storyline of the Women´s Division that is Hayter getting the belt back in Wembley. A shame but I prefer this than Interim route.
House Of Black vs The Acclaimed for the Trios Championships (NR) I went to the bathroom but I heard it was a solid affair.
Jade Cargill vs Taya Valkyrie for the TBS Championship (***) This match overdelivered. Statlander winning this way is personally bizarre and I think I would have put it on Wednesday but at least got some reaction and energy.
MJF vs Jack Perry vs Sammy Guevara vs Darby Allin for the AEW World Championship (****1/4) I love flips, I love callbacks, I love stupid secuences and what is my limit on spotfest matches. This was amazing and show me that this guys if they book them at their strenghts they can be even more important for AEW.
BCC vs The Elite in a Anarchy In The Arena match (****3/4) This feud deserved to had this stipulation and the creativity was again there to create one of the best matches of the year with an excellent angle that had Takeshita turning on The Elite and specifically Kenny Omega. This feud will continue delivering top tier wrestling.
Rating of the Show: 6/10
Is the weakest PPV from AEW since Revolution 2021, the undercard was from bad to decent and this promotion, the “workrate” promotion has showed us some of the best in ring PPV´s and this wasn´t one. Statlander win onwards the show leveled up to the usual quality of AEW shows but yeah, this wasn´t great. Now that DoN is out of the way, AEW is set for a huge and important summer, a PPV cycle like this one cannot be repeated. They need to kill it and I think putting the focus on The Elite vs BCC would be the right way specially when the Cole experiment is not off a great start and a feud of him vs MJF would be weak and really uninteresting.
I expect things to get much better specially with Collision coming that will let people been featured in a better way.
Extra Notes:
- Jay White treatment has been awful but I still believe he will be a main eventer in the coming months, specially if he is featured in Collision and specially with a lot of promo time because he is one of the best talkers out there.
- Can´t be happier for Takeshita. He was the main angle for the main event attacking Kenny FUCKING Omega. Can´t wait for their match whenever happens.
- Some people featured in this PPV cycle will be depushed but I think that´s important because everyone deserves an opportunity.
