I will be covering the event live here in the blog, on the RWB Facebook page, and in the PWD group. Coverage begins soon, and feel free to ask me any last second questions you have if needed.
THE BUY IN
You can watch The Buy In for free in several places. Here's one, for example.
Less than 30 minutes away.
I see Orange Cassidy has officially been announced. I mentioned him a few weeks ago for a reason, but didn't expect him for the battle royal. With three spots left I say one goes to a legend (Mike Tyson is apparently now an rumor but check the blog for past entrees for other names), one goes to a big surprise, and one goes to an indie star like Darby.
Moxley, KENTA, Punk. In that order of likeliness of being the surprise entree and probable winner of the Casino Battle Royale.
The YouTube stream is running behind. Fite is live.
CASINO BATTLE ROYALE
Nakazawa, Cutler, MJF, Sunny Daze, and Dustin Thomas to start.
So much baby oil.
Dustin will be saved for some big spot later. MJF will likely toss him out.
Havoc, Janela, Spears, Pillman, and Isiah out next.
Spears is OVER!
Gunn, Glacier, Jungle Boy, Quinn, Ace next.
Glacier using the frozen mist. MJF smoking a cig.
Luchasaurus, Stunt, Kiss, Dreamer are next. Looks like Stunt is the indie name surprise and Dreamer the legend.
Dreamer cleaning house ECW style.
Page is the wildcard. I was hoping they wouldn't go that way, but it makes sense now why this match opened the preshow.
Spears should win. Page will.
That chokeslam was awesome.
Orange is number 22 it seems.
Some minor production issues imo.
Page wins. Not the direction I would hava gone. Good match overall, even though I tend to dislike battle royals.
RATING: ***
Afterwards, a librarian segment of rival shhhhhhhhhhhh's and a video promoting the Rhodes match air. Both worked well.
GUEVARA vs KIP
I dig Sammy's entrance.
Love that they have a female ref. She looks familiar.
Oh...it's Hebner's daughter.
Good cruiserweight action, as expected.
The suplex spot was well done. Only a few production flaws this time.
The shooting star guardrail spot was sick and what followed was fun.
Kip wins.
RATING: ***1/4
Good Gibbs promo vid shown next and JR then joins the commentary team.
Cody and Brandi show up (with pup) in a pickup truck.
We see Kenny acting silly and Matt run into Nakazawa.
Superkick party for an arena worker.
The ELITE come out to the BTE music. They joke about who deserves to welcome the fans.
I love hearing the fans chanting, "A E DUB".
They joke about WWE boosting attendance records. They claim to have set the record at 20k. Good shit.
The Fite stream of the preshow fucked up here during their promo and I checked YouTube to find out the same thing. The Fite stream of the actual show isn't streaming anything outside of a hold screen.
Two minutes of dead time before it starts with the national anthem. I'm sure the segment that was cut short was just general pandering and pumping things up, but it still sucks a bit.
Oh well...growing pains.
The anthem was well done.
SCU vs STRONG HEARTS
SCU are pretty over. Makes sense.
They start with a promo shitting on Vegas, of course.
Seeing as most of the fans are likely from elsewhere I'm sure they don't mind.
CIMA getting no love when coming out, sadly.
CIMA and Daniels starting the match off is a nice choice.
I expect JR to say a lot of names wrong tonight.
I love how much they are mentioning DG.
The Strong Hearts are winning new fans tonight, that's for sure.
Honestly, this was exactly what it should have been and a great showcase match.
Production issues are largely gone now that the show proper has started, it seems.
SCU wins.
RATING: ***3/4
Allie joins the commentary crew to call the first women's match.
AWESOME KONG has been added to the match!!!! Nice tease from Brandi, too.
How long before Nyla and Kong are a team? I give it a year.
Brandi looks overjoyed.
There's a lull, perhaps from a missed spot.
Brandi no longer looked overjoyed.
Still a good match but there was certainly some lost steam here and a slight failure in execution.
I think Kong might have gotten a bit shaken up.
Kenny and Jericho are shown backstage getting ready.
BEST FRIENDS vs GUEROS DEL CIELO
Loud mouth Evans is the best thing and I'm glad he's back on TV.
Pretty good tag match but not as good as I had hoped it would be. More like a something for TV than a big PPV for the first half if that makes sense but the last few minutes in particular were nice and picked the whole thing up a bit.
I'm glad the falcon arrow PWG joke is going to cross over into AEW.
RATING: ***1/2
After the match, the SUPER SMASH BROS and minions arrive and destroy everyone.
Fans chant "who are you" and boo.
That's disappointing.
AJA, YUKA, EMI vs SHIDA, RIHO, RYO
Weak support for the talents, but that happens a lot with international talent.
Like when ROH brings in CMLL workers.
They'll win the fans over, I'm sure.
Another P(W)G reference here, minus the, "fucking".
They're not watering down the joshi style here and I love than.
The fucked up finish was funny but this was a true showcase and a great match.
The fans were certainly on their side by the end.
RATING: ***3/4
CODY vs DUSTIN
Clear HHH references during Cody's entrance.
I hope someone is enjoying this little ramble style coverage. I'll be posting a normal style review later and remember to check out the FB page for tons of pics.
The Natural, Dustin Rhodes...
I love the look. Redust.
This has old school written all over it, which could work out perfectly as that's what Cody tends to do best.
This is awesome chants to start.
Who keeps coughing on commentary? I'm listening with headphones and it keeps making me feel that someone is right behind me.
The fans are very receptive to the style which helps.
Cody showing heel tendencies was a nice sign.
I knew Goldy would get "you've still got it" chants.
Brandi getting involved is expected. Will we get an ejection and "na na na na" chant?
Earl working ref here was funny. This reminded me a lot of the WWF I watched as a kid.
Hey, look. I was right about the ejection and chant (some fans did it at least).
DDP coming out to literally carry Brandi back was funny. Served well to cover the blade job.
They're using every 90's trope.
Low blow, signature, finisher, false finish.
Several fans in shock.
More false finishes.
Seriously, this is insane.
If you love this style, you'll love this match. It's not for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed the hell out of it.
This was just fucking awesome!
That's one nasty crimson mask. After seeing Havoc nearly bleed out while watching SSS16 a few days ago might have lessened this a tad but Dustin was literally staining the entire ring.
You know what...
This might have been more blood than that SSS16 death match, actually.
Dustin spanking Cody was...interesting.
Cody as top heel of AEW all but confirmed, by the way.
CLASSIC, MUST-SEE WRESTLING.
If you know me, you know I rarely give five stars. Very rarely.
This is one of those rare times I'm doing exactly that.
You need to see this.
RATING: *****
Cody refuses to let his brother retire here.
Bucks vs Rhodes Brothers announced!!!
We're about to get our first sight on the new championship and BRET HART is the one to bring it out!
He messed up a bit, but he's fucking Bret Hart so whatever.
Seeing Page in the ring with Bret for the segment further showed me that this was a missed chance, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
MJF comes out.
Entertaining enough stuff.
I knew AEW will have some sports entertainment stuff and MJF will do very well in that spot. Very Miz style talker and worker.
Jungle Boy coming out was interesting.
Now Havoc is coming out.
Page, Havoc, and Jungle Boy beat MJF down.
We get back to the belt presentation but Bret basically just popped it out a bit randomly to close things.
Beautiful looking belt, either way.
AAA TAG TITLES: BUCKS(c) vs LUCHA BROS
These promo vids are great and I like the tale of the tape stuff.
Awesome entrance from the Lucha Bros.
I hope this isn't supposed to end at 11.
The Bucks' entrance is pretty sweet, too. I hope they promote AAA a bit here such as the rematch coming up and AAA's MSG show.
They mentioned that Pentagon and Fenix worked the CRASH the night before without mentioning the promotion itself.
That's fair, since it's a CMLL partner as was the swan song for the Lucha Bros there.
I loved that Knox had that prematch call out.
My feed is starting to buffer. Boo.
Ring rust on the Bucks is the story here. What's the new move?
Nice exchanges, as expected.
I might need to rewatch this one tonight before giving it a rating if it keeps having these issues.
I'm using Fite, unsure if this issue is also on B/R or if this is just my internet.
Fingers crossed, but it seems better now.
I spoke too soon.
I'll indeed rewatch this before scoring it.
They're teasing partner tensions as well as back issues with Matt. I've said that I think they might split the Bucks for a while soon and using some back issues is a nice reference to recent Bucks matches.
The story stuff worked, but did arguably hurt the quality a tad. My rating will actually be seen first/instead in my review post that I'll make either tonight or in the morning. Just wanted to clarify.
I like the callbacks.
Clearly this is not ending at 11.
Sick spots are increasing!
RATING: Check the review I'll post ASAP. (streaming issues)
More buffering. I missed something big it sounds like.
I hope this doesn't continue in the main event but I think it might.
What I'm getting to see is fantastic but I'm admittedly frustrated.
No new move...but the Bucks win with the Meltzer Driver.
No mention of the rematch or MSG show that I heard.
OMEGA vs JERICHO
Cool stages of Jericho style stuff.
Cracker Barrel with a big sponsor spotlight.
Now I want pancakes but I can't have that many carbs.
I like Omega's music.
I still expect a run in of some form after the match.
Same issues again with streaming. I'll rewatch this one to rate it, too. One of my kids also just started screaming and throwing a circus so...
Good mixture of minor comedy spots and intensity like their first encounter.
Too many issues caused me to miss most of this, but Jericho gets the win with his new finisher.
RATING: Rating will be given on review post.
Jericho cutting a promo afterwards. Good time for an appearance from a surprise name.
MOXLEY is here!
He takes out Jericho and the ref.
Omega and Moxley fight into the crowd.
Omega is destroyed. Mox stands (sits) tall as we go off.
I'll rewatch the last two asap but this was one hell of a show.
Like when ROH brings in CMLL workers.
They'll win the fans over, I'm sure.
Another P(W)G reference here, minus the, "fucking".
They're not watering down the joshi style here and I love than.
The fucked up finish was funny but this was a true showcase and a great match.
The fans were certainly on their side by the end.
RATING: ***3/4
CODY vs DUSTIN
Clear HHH references during Cody's entrance.
I hope someone is enjoying this little ramble style coverage. I'll be posting a normal style review later and remember to check out the FB page for tons of pics.
The Natural, Dustin Rhodes...
I love the look. Redust.
This has old school written all over it, which could work out perfectly as that's what Cody tends to do best.
This is awesome chants to start.
Who keeps coughing on commentary? I'm listening with headphones and it keeps making me feel that someone is right behind me.
The fans are very receptive to the style which helps.
Cody showing heel tendencies was a nice sign.
I knew Goldy would get "you've still got it" chants.
Brandi getting involved is expected. Will we get an ejection and "na na na na" chant?
Earl working ref here was funny. This reminded me a lot of the WWF I watched as a kid.
Hey, look. I was right about the ejection and chant (some fans did it at least).
DDP coming out to literally carry Brandi back was funny. Served well to cover the blade job.
They're using every 90's trope.
Low blow, signature, finisher, false finish.
Several fans in shock.
More false finishes.
Seriously, this is insane.
If you love this style, you'll love this match. It's not for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed the hell out of it.
This was just fucking awesome!
That's one nasty crimson mask. After seeing Havoc nearly bleed out while watching SSS16 a few days ago might have lessened this a tad but Dustin was literally staining the entire ring.
You know what...
This might have been more blood than that SSS16 death match, actually.
Dustin spanking Cody was...interesting.
Cody as top heel of AEW all but confirmed, by the way.
CLASSIC, MUST-SEE WRESTLING.
If you know me, you know I rarely give five stars. Very rarely.
This is one of those rare times I'm doing exactly that.
You need to see this.
RATING: *****
Cody refuses to let his brother retire here.
Bucks vs Rhodes Brothers announced!!!
We're about to get our first sight on the new championship and BRET HART is the one to bring it out!
He messed up a bit, but he's fucking Bret Hart so whatever.
Seeing Page in the ring with Bret for the segment further showed me that this was a missed chance, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
MJF comes out.
Entertaining enough stuff.
I knew AEW will have some sports entertainment stuff and MJF will do very well in that spot. Very Miz style talker and worker.
Jungle Boy coming out was interesting.
Now Havoc is coming out.
Page, Havoc, and Jungle Boy beat MJF down.
We get back to the belt presentation but Bret basically just popped it out a bit randomly to close things.
Beautiful looking belt, either way.
AAA TAG TITLES: BUCKS(c) vs LUCHA BROS
These promo vids are great and I like the tale of the tape stuff.
Awesome entrance from the Lucha Bros.
I hope this isn't supposed to end at 11.
The Bucks' entrance is pretty sweet, too. I hope they promote AAA a bit here such as the rematch coming up and AAA's MSG show.
They mentioned that Pentagon and Fenix worked the CRASH the night before without mentioning the promotion itself.
That's fair, since it's a CMLL partner as was the swan song for the Lucha Bros there.
I loved that Knox had that prematch call out.
My feed is starting to buffer. Boo.
Ring rust on the Bucks is the story here. What's the new move?
Nice exchanges, as expected.
I might need to rewatch this one tonight before giving it a rating if it keeps having these issues.
I'm using Fite, unsure if this issue is also on B/R or if this is just my internet.
Fingers crossed, but it seems better now.
I spoke too soon.
I'll indeed rewatch this before scoring it.
They're teasing partner tensions as well as back issues with Matt. I've said that I think they might split the Bucks for a while soon and using some back issues is a nice reference to recent Bucks matches.
The story stuff worked, but did arguably hurt the quality a tad. My rating will actually be seen first/instead in my review post that I'll make either tonight or in the morning. Just wanted to clarify.
I like the callbacks.
Clearly this is not ending at 11.
Sick spots are increasing!
RATING: Check the review I'll post ASAP. (streaming issues)
More buffering. I missed something big it sounds like.
I hope this doesn't continue in the main event but I think it might.
What I'm getting to see is fantastic but I'm admittedly frustrated.
No new move...but the Bucks win with the Meltzer Driver.
No mention of the rematch or MSG show that I heard.
OMEGA vs JERICHO
Cool stages of Jericho style stuff.
Cracker Barrel with a big sponsor spotlight.
Now I want pancakes but I can't have that many carbs.
I like Omega's music.
I still expect a run in of some form after the match.
Same issues again with streaming. I'll rewatch this one to rate it, too. One of my kids also just started screaming and throwing a circus so...
Good mixture of minor comedy spots and intensity like their first encounter.
Too many issues caused me to miss most of this, but Jericho gets the win with his new finisher.
RATING: Rating will be given on review post.
Jericho cutting a promo afterwards. Good time for an appearance from a surprise name.
MOXLEY is here!
He takes out Jericho and the ref.
Omega and Moxley fight into the crowd.
Omega is destroyed. Mox stands (sits) tall as we go off.
If you missed it, fix that mistake NOW!
Thanks to those who joined me tonight.
Thanks to those who joined me tonight.
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