Edge DEFECTS To AEW! AEW Show of the Year?! AEW WrestleDream 2023 Review! | WrestleTalk - video Dailymotion

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00:00 Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I'm Luke Owen and this is my review of AEW

00:11 Wrestle Dream in about as long as this video takes. Probably about 10 or so minutes, maybe

00:18 just slightly over 10 minutes because there's a lot to unpack. Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland

00:23 had an AEW Match of the Year contender, Bryan Danielson and Zack Sabre Jr. had an overall

00:29 Match of the Year contender and Edge debuted for All Elite Wrestling. At least I think

00:36 it's Edge, I can't quite see him through all that smoke. It's like Rob Van Dam was

00:40 producing this segment. The pre-show hilariously and perhaps unnecessarily had 4 matches and

00:46 18 wrestlers on it. The team of Satoshi Kojima, Keith Lee, Athena and Billy Starks beat Shane

00:51 Taylor Promotions, Mercedes Martinez and Diamante. Athena's act is too good to be restricted

00:56 to just Ring of Honor. Claudio Castagnoli beat Josh Barnett in the best match of the

01:01 Zero Hour. Luchasaurus beat Nick Wayne and The Acclaimed retained their trio's titles

01:05 over the Mighty Don't Kneel with Max Caster, making a reference to Shane Haste being Slapjack

01:10 in Retribution. That's Slapjack, who was made famous by his incredible main event rivalry

01:16 with Tucker on the Monday Night War over on PartsFUNknown. The real ones, get that reference.

01:21 But the show kicked off proper with MJF defending the Ring of Honor Tag Team Championships in

01:26 a two-on-one handicap match against The Righteous. The crowd never really bought into Vincent

01:31 and Dutch winning the belt, but were fantastically into all of Max's gimmicks. He promised

01:36 the crowd that he would body slam Dutch and shove Vincent's dreadlocks up Dutch's

01:40 bum and achieve both of those things - finally hitting the Heat Seeker for the win. Max put

01:45 his feet on the ropes for that all-important leverage in a fun opener. This was missing

01:49 the Adam Cole dynamic, but the crowd were a rather suitable replacement tag partner.

01:53 Eddie Kingston retained the ROH and Strong Openweight Championships over Katsuri Shibata

01:58 in a great little 11 minute match which felt like a thank you dream match for Eddie from

02:03 Tony Khan after resigning for another four years. The crowd were again hot for this one

02:06 and particularly enjoyed the Fighting Spirit Strong Style aspect.

02:10 Julie Hart is perhaps the most improved wrestler of all of 2023, certainly in AEW, and that

02:16 was on display in a superb TBS Championship match against Chris Statlander. It even got

02:22 a 'This is Awesome' chant from the Seattle crowd, who popped big when Hart teased and

02:27 hit the Moonsault - which really shows you a) how much of a hardcore crowd this was,

02:32 and b) the power of Twitter to get people and moves over, as Hart's Moonsault was

02:37 a big talking point over the weekend. Statlander powered out of the end of Hard Egg to hit

02:42 a Tombstone and Sunday Night Fever for the win. A fantastic match.

02:47 In our first - that probably could have been on Dynamite or Collision - match of the night,

02:51 The Young Bucks beat The Lucha Bros, The Guns and Orange Cassidy and Hook to earn the number

02:55 one contendership to the AEW Tag Titles. This was a pretty surprising win considering Hook

03:00 and Cassidy were going in with all the momentum of a Franken team, and we just sort of did

03:05 the third in a trilogy of matches between Bucks and FTR at All In, and it seems quite

03:09 soon to be going back to that. But there was that angle at All Out where the Bucks refused

03:13 to shake hands with FTR, so that sort of foreshadowed this win. And I think that says a lot about

03:19 AEW's lack of follow up on some of their stories on TV.

03:22 But speaking of stories playing out well on TV, Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland

03:28 tore the house down in their highly anticipated clash, which really put a huge amount of momentum

03:34 behind Swerve. The Seattle crowd was so hot for Strickland, even chanting "Defy Adam"

03:40 the name of the local promotion he wrestled for, and they booed "Forever Babyface"

03:45 Hangman Adam Page. And because these two are exceptionally smart, Page worked heel in the

03:51 match but was never a heel, and Swerve worked at the Babyface without ever turning face.

03:56 The two went to war with each other, but the match kicked into a fifth gear when Swerve

04:01 broke the arm of Page, giving him the Swerve Stomp on the apron while he was being checked

04:06 on by the doctor and hitting a 450 splash to the now injured arm. It meant that Page's

04:11 biggest arsenal, the Buckshot Lariat, was more or less neutralised. He finally hit the

04:16 move but could not capitalise, and Prince NaNa put Swerve's foot on the ropes for

04:20 a great nearfall. Page went for it again while the ref was distracted, ejecting NaNa, but

04:26 Swerve cracked Hanger with the crown for another amazing nearfall. It took two house calls

04:32 and a JML driver to put Page away. Honestly, an incredible match, and one that should be

04:37 the first step in a long road for Big Push Swerve. I can see him being the Winter is

04:43 Coming challenger to MJF's World Title.

04:47 Ricky Starks beat Wheelie Utip in the other - probably could have been on Dynamite - match,

04:50 which really was used as a backdrop to set up Starks vs. Mox for when John is back and

04:55 healthily. You see, Moxley was on commentary and remained there for the next match, which

04:58 was easily the match of the night and will likely get a lot of nominations for Match

05:02 of the Year.

05:03 Now, here's a fun fact for you, in the Wrestling Observer the Best Technical Wrestler Award

05:10 is called the Bryan Danielson Award. It's called that because Danielson first won it

05:14 in 2005 and went unbeaten until 2013. And the man to beat him for it? Zack Sabre Jr.

05:22 He first won it in 2014, then won it again in 2015, and then again in 2016, 2017, 2018,

05:28 2019, and 2020. The man who finally dethroned that incredible 7 year run? Bryan Danielson.

05:36 So as you can imagine, Dave Meltzer rather enjoyed this match. And he's not alone,

05:40 because - and I'm going to apologise to the editor for a bit of extra editing work

05:44 here, because you're going to have to censor my potty mouth - but I f***ing loved this

05:47 match. It was put over perfectly from the outset by Mox. Zack Sabre Jr. plans out combinations

05:53 and executes them. So he'll start at your ankle, then work his way up to your wrist

05:58 exactly as he planned. Bryan Danielson, on the other hand, is more reactive. He has things

06:03 plotted out, but he can change and pivot when he needs to if it isn't working out. But

06:07 sometimes that can backfire. For example, Danielson isn't using his right arm at the

06:12 moment because that's the army hunt in the Okada match at Forbidden Door. So he was giving

06:17 Zack some uppercuts with his left arm which were less effective. So Zack baited him into

06:22 using his right arm because of fighting spirit and such, and Danielson reacted in doing so,

06:29 which Zack planned for and took advantage of. He then targeted that arm for the majority

06:34 of the match, which was a brilliant technical display. The Seattle crowd gave this the reception

06:40 it deserved. Huge pops for the near falls, and polite applause for the technical wrestling

06:45 on display. It was such a good technical display that at one point, Nigel McGuinness and Jon

06:50 Moxley got out of their seats from commentary so they could see a submission a little bit

06:55 closer. Finally Danielson hit two knee plusses for the win, and McGuinness pointed out that

06:59 Danielson had to use a strike to put Zack down. So ZSJ is still the best technical wrestler

07:07 on the planet. Look, this won't be for everyone. I get that. If anything, the people who are

07:12 going to enjoy this match the most are me, Oli Davis, Dave Meltzer and Kate Elizabeth

07:17 from Fightful. But for me, this was pure magic, and I hope we get to see more of it.

07:23 The same sadly cannot be said for the trios match of Chris Jericho and The Golden Lovers

07:28 taking on the Don Callis Family. The action was good and frantic, but it wasn't as good

07:32 as the sum of its parts. Like, this match featured Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, Kota

07:38 Ibushi, Kanosuke Takeshita and Will Freakin' Ospreay. Sammy Guevara was also there. Omega

07:45 and Ospreay have shown time and time again why they are the best wrestlers on the planet.

07:50 Jericho can still bust out main event level quality, and Takeshita is just incredible.

07:57 And while Ibushi has lost somewhat of a step in his AEW run, he still has that Ibushi aura

08:03 around him. And while his character never really clicks, Sammy is an exceptionally crisp

08:09 talent.

08:10 So why was this only a three and a half star match? Honestly I don't know, and it was

08:15 a bit messy in parts I guess. But the focus was all around Jericho and Sammy, when all

08:19 of the builders have been focused on Callis and Kenny for the past six months. Callis

08:24 hit Jericho with the bat, and Sammy pinned him. Eh.

08:27 FTR retained the AEW Tag Team Championships against Aussie Open in what should have felt

08:32 like a dream rematch, but Fletcher and Davis haven't been given enough momentum on TV

08:37 to make the crowd think they were going to walk away with the titles. The hype for this

08:41 match worked if you saw Royal Quest last year, but if you didn't then this was the same

08:46 level of anticipation of MJF and The Righteous. The match was very good, do not get me wrong,

08:52 but it wasn't a patch on last year. The crowd gave it a half-hearted "this is awesome"

08:57 and FTR won with a Super Shadow Machine.

08:59 Which brings us to our main event of Christian Cage defending the TNT Championship against

09:04 local boy Darby Allin - who also got the 5 chance - in a 2 out of 3 falls match. Allin

09:09 got the first fall by hooking Cage's turtleneck over his face, making him look like Cornholio

09:14 in search of TP for his bunghole, and the second fall was all built around Nick Wayne's

09:18 mum at ringside. She threw a drink in the face of an advancing Cage, which led to a

09:22 series of great near-fall moments with the Coffin Drop, but in the end Cage slammed Darby

09:28 into the step bits of the steel steps from the ring apron to get a count-out win. One

09:33 word for that spot, f***ing ow.

09:37 The final fall saw Christian take apart the ring to expose the boards and did a Frog Splash

09:41 onto Darby while he was on the stretcher. Allin then took a brutal Unpretty on the boards

09:48 for an amazing near-fall, and the two exchanged sting-based moves until Cage took out the

09:52 referee with a spear. Nick Wayne came down to stop Christian using the TNT Championship,

09:57 but then turned heel by cracking his mentor Darby Allin in a shocking moment. Cage covered

10:06 and retained the championship. It was an awesome match with an incredible finish, but hang

10:12 on a tick, there's ten minutes left of this show so we're not done here. Sting came

10:16 out for the save, but Luchasaurus also made his presence known and the numbers were too

10:20 much. Cage set up for the concerto, but the lights went out and Edge - now Adam Copeland

10:26 - made his debut for All Elite Wrestling.

10:31 Remember when Cody Rhodes returned to WWE at Mania last year and it was so weird seeing

10:36 AEW Cody, and it was AEW Cody with the same entrance music, the same pyro, the same gear,

10:43 the same everything he had in AEW. Remember how weird it was seeing AEW Cody in WWE? Well,

10:51 this was WWE Edge in AEW, and it was just as weird. Same music, same entrance, same

10:56 pyro, same everything. A proper ctrl-c, ctrl-v job. He's even called the Rated R Superstar

11:02 because WWE didn't renew the copyrighted term after it expired in 2020. Edge came out

11:07 to a monster pop, teased joining the Christian Coalition, but cracked them with chairs and

11:13 took out Luchasaurus and Nick with spears. He shook hands with Sting and Darby and has

11:18 his eyes set on Christian's TNT Championship. An all-timer moment for the company. It was

11:24 so awesome that I nearly didn't spot this support WrestleTalk sign in the crowd. Shout

11:28 out to that person, you rule.

11:30 And this show ruled. Even with two skippable matches, there was a huge amount to enjoy

11:37 about them. Every match either delivered or over-delivered, and it had two match of the

11:43 year contenders and an awesome debut. AEW Wrestle Dream is easily 5 out of 5.

11:50 But there's more PPV action coming this weekend with WWE's Fastlane and Pete Quinnell

11:55 counting down some fantasy pitches for what could happen. Go and check that out while

11:59 I re-watch Edge's AEW debut with British Wrestling Legend Kendo Nagasaki.

12:04 You think you know him, huh? What do you mean you don't know him? What do you mean you

12:10 don't know who Edge is? Sorry, Adam Copeland. I understand if you didn't know who Adam

12:15 Copeland was, but you know Edge, right? No, that's from U2. What are you talking about?

12:21 It's Edge! What do you mean you don't know what AEW is?

12:26 [music ends]

Edge DEFECTS To AEW! AEW Show of the Year?! AEW WrestleDream 2023 Review! | WrestleTalk

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