WrestleDream 2024 - The Good, The Bad, and the Sad

Having been back home for a few days after traveling to Tacoma for WrestleDream and taking some time to think about the show, I still have mixed feelings about how it all went down. There were things they did right with this show, but there are some things I feel like could have been done a lot better. Before I get to talking about the show though, let's talk about the trip first.

The trip itself was short and mostly uneventful. Aside from the WrestleDream ppv itself, we only did one other thing, but it was fantastic. This was the first time my wife traveled with me to an AEW ppv. We've been to AEW ppvs this year, just separately. She attended Forbidden Door in July while I went to All Out in September (another blog on that later). We made the decision to drive to Denver to fly out of DIA since it was much cheaper and a direct flight to Seattle. Everything went smoothly other than the fact that I realized I had my work shoes on when we got to security, which I only ever use when I'm doing yard work. I had put them on to take our dogs out before we left and just forgot to change shoes. Oh well, at least I could still walk in them.

We got to Seattle and had to quickly check into our hotel and head back out, because we had tickets to see Nigel McGuiness' magic show. The show was held at the Lariat Bar in White Center. If you haven't been there and find yourself in the Seattle area, check it out. It's a cool dive bar full of wrestling art and memorabilia and there's always wrestling on the tv. Nigel's show is fantastic. He truly is a showman who can just draw your attention in talking about anything. I won't go into the details of his show so I don't spoil anything for those that want to check it out, but he created the show as a tribute to Jay Briscoe and I really feel like he does a great job honoring him.

The next day we headed down to Tacoma to meet some friends for brunch before the show. However, the night before I remembered we had a VIP Experience package for the show and knew we had to arrive earlier than the general audience. Checked my email for a confirmation and itinerary. Good thing I did because it was routed to my spam folder and after reviewing the schedule we realized he had to be there by 1:25 pm, so this would cut down on any plans we had before the show.

Getting into the venue was a nightmare. All I'll say is whatever security company was hired for this event was the worst I've ever seen. Literally patted down a guy in a wheelchair who was barely mobile. Sometimes I just think some people become security guards because they wanted to order people around but couldn't make it as a cop. I get that they are just doing their jobs, but they could show some kindness while getting it done.

The VIP experience was awesome. I recommend everyone try to get it at least once. They start you off by giving you a tote bag with some goodies including a Micro Brawler figure (I got Cash Wheeler), a hat, and a turnbuckle pad. Then you go into a room for a Q&A with some of the talent. The talent differs between each show. A couple of my friends attended Dynamite in Spokane, WA a few days earlier and their experience was with Will Ospreay, Max Caster, Harley Cameron, and Colt Cabana. Our experience was with Tony Schiavone, Ricochet, and Dustin Rhodes.

Tony is always a delight to listen to. He's great at keeping the audience entertained and always shows his gratitude for the fans coming out to see the show. Meeting Ricochet was cool, he's been one of my favorites for years. The photo op was quick, but he laughed when I said sorry as I covered my Will Ospreay shirt. Meeting Dustin was an honor. I've been a fan since way back in the WCW days before he became Golddust. He joked about starting a podcast someday, which I would really enjoy. Someone asked about his friendship with Owen Hart and he had some great stories about the pranks Owen would pull on the road.

The experience concluded with taking pictures on the entrance ramp with an AEW belt and a picture next to the ring. This was honestly the coolest part of the experience for me. It was also funny because when it was Kelley's (my wife) turn, she asked to hold the men's title instead of the women's. She did this because she thinks the men's title looks cooler and she already has a picture with the women's title when she met Britt Baker a couple of years back. After we got our pictures, we were able to get over to the merch booth where we spent entirely too much money but I did get a cool Bryan Danielson autographed turnbuckle. I'm never going to financially recover from this.

Now to the show. Kelley and I had first and second row seats, one right behind the other, so we agreed to trade places throughout the show. I took the front row for the preshow. This was really cool because I was literally sitting behind both the English and Spanish announce tables. The Zero Hour was decent. Happy to see AEW finally put a singles title on Brian Cage. He's one of the guys who stood by the company when he wasn't getting a push and it's paying off now. MxM Collection vs The Acclaimed was entertaining, especially with the addition of Rico who I never imagined I'd see again. Billy Gunn addressing the Billy and Chuck wedding story from years ago was a nice touch. MxM is one of my favorite teams right now because they are just so damn entertaining. Harley Cameron and Anna Jay put on a good match. Anna has vastly improved since her tour in Japan, not that she was bad before. Hope to see her as a legit contender for the TBS or Womens Championship sometime soon. Harley just seems to get better with each match, I just hope they have her split from Saraya as I feel like it is holding her back.

The main card had some great matches while putting the fans through an emotional rollercoaster. Hologram vs Mortos was an interesting but welcome addition to the card. Naturally, they put on an exciting lucha libre match and while Hologram came out on top, he did take his first pinfall in AEW. However, I don't think that pin isn't going to affect his momentum. Hangman Adam Page vs Jay White was great to see. Jay was back in form like he never left and I'm looking forward to seeing where his story goes after taking down Page, especially after Hangman's brutal win at All Out.

Mariah May vs Willow Nightingale and Jack Perry vs Shibata were the matches I was least interested in only for the fact that it was highly unlikely we would see any title changes here. Both Mariah and Perry are still early on in their reigns, and I just don't see Mariah dropping the title to anyone other than Mina Shirakawa or back to Toni Storm. Plus, the booking of this match was confusing and kinda annoying. Willow lost to Kris Statlander at All Out, only for Willow to be in the world title match while Kris was forced to turn babyface again, drop Stokley, and now feud with Kamille and Mercedes. In my opinion, Kris should have been in Willow's spot, not to mention Willow has had more world title shots than I can remember and they did nothing to build her up like she legitimately had a chance to win it this time.

As for Perry and Shibata, they had a decent match it feels like all roads are pointing to Perry vs Daniel Garcia for the TNT Championship with Garcia possibly going over this time. The post-match run-ins were great. Garcia coming out to help Shibata only for MJF to return to attack Garcia, which then led to Adam Cole officially returning had the crowd going nuts. And how crazy is it that last time we saw Cole and MJF in the ring together, Cole was the heel and MJF was the babyface? And now the roles are reversed with Cole not doing anything different since we last saw him. This is how good MJF is at being a heel.

Chris Jericho vs Mark Briscoe felt rather pointless and was only booked to get Jericho on the card. Briscoe put on a great match though and I always enjoy seeing him, but I didn't see any chance that the belt was changing hands that night. Going into the week of the show, I thought there was no chance that the belts in the Young Bucks vs Private Party match were changing either, but I think AEW did a good job building up the hype around Private Party and getting the fans believing that they had a legit shot of going over. The match was way better than I was expecting and while they didn't get the win that night, I believe Private Party are going to be real contenders going forward.

I think two of the biggest moments for the Washington fans that night were the match between Darby Allin and Brody King, and the return of Swerve Strickland. Darby and Brody have such great chemistry that there was no doubt they'd have a great match. Throw in the fact that Darby is from Seattle and Brody was a regular at Defy Wrestling, the crowd was going wild for this one. Darby going over was the right call and I believe this is the start of his path towards the world title and becoming the face of AEW. Swerve's return got the crowd excited too with being from Tacoma. I think everyone expected him to stick with Prince Nana, but there were a lot of people thinking we'd see Bobby Lashley debut here which didn't happen. However, we definitely witnessed the start of a Swerve and Hurt Syndicate feud.

Then there were the two big matches I think everyone was excited for, Bryan Danielson vs Jon Moxley and Ospreay vs Ricochet vs Takeshita. Personally, I felt like after All Out we were going to get Takeshita vs Okada for the Continental Crown, but it sounds like Okada might be injured so this was a good backup plan. I've always loved watching old Ospreay vs Ricochet matches and felt like we were cheated a bit out of them going all out on Dynamite, so I was psyched to get to see them go at it in person. I knew this match was going to go two ways, either Kyle Fletcher helps Ospreay win or costs him the match. As much as I didn't want to see Kyle turn or Will drop the title, Takeshita winning a singles title in AEW has been a long time coming. The match was phenomenal from start to finish and in my opinion, the match of the night by far.

As for the main event, I don't think a single person was expecting Moxley to go over the way he did. But I think that's where Moxley shines the most, being in those matches where you think its gonna go one way and he doesn't the complete opposite like his squash match versus CM Punk. Everyone I talked to about this match had different ideas of how this match would end. Some thought Danielson would pull out some miracle win, possibly with the help of Wheeler Yuta, some thought Mox would win and allow Danielson to have a proper goodbye in front of his home crowd, or that we would possibly see the debut of Shane McMahon as the person behind Moxley and this new BCC.

The match was brutal as expected, but surprisingly no blood which seems like something that would be impossible in a match between two of the biggest bleeders in AEW. I think when we saw Marina interfering multiple times without Wheeler coming down to assist, it was a sign we were going to see a heel turn from Yuta that night. She did a great job selling the shock and worry when she was ejected, leaving Mox alone to deal with Bryan. This actually ended up making the ending more shocking, with Moxley beating Danielson clean after Marina was out of the picture. You could almost hear the wind getting taken out of everyone in the arena when Danielson lost after passing out. The referee's face reflected the feeling of all the fans as we watched our hero's career come to an end.

The aftermath is what I think caused a lot of fans to go home quiet, sad, and confused. As I expected, Wheeler turned on Danielson all the while looking like he didn't want to do it. Even as he put the bag over Bryan's head and suffocated him just as Moxley did at All Out, he looked like he was doing it against his will. Wheeler is so good at portraying how conflicted he is and I hope in the long run we see him turn again and show he was doing this under orders. Claudio stomping on Danielson's neck with the chair was the perfect way to write him off so he could get his long-needed surgery. I expect we'll see Danielson again but probably not for a year or so. In the meantime, they did a fantastic job of ending this show with the AEW locker room uniting behind Bryan while also failing to take down the BCC. This really feels like the beginning of a NWO vs WCW type storyline and I'm here for it.

Well, our trip came to an end after that, but not without an anxiety attack in the morning. When we got on the bus from the rental car station to the airport, one of the attendants put my bag on the bus for me. It was because of this that I forgot to get my bag when getting off the bus. I should note I have ADHD and if I don't do things an exact way each time I tend to forget things. It wasn't until we were through security that I realized I didn't have my bag. I panicked not knowing what to do. Thanks to a nice gentleman with Alaska Airlines, I found the lost & found area, only to see that it was closed until later in the morning. I then took a chance to run out to the bus stop, hoping to get info on who to contact to find my bag. By absolute pure luck, I came up to the same bus that dropped me off and after describing what my bag looked like, the driver handed it over to me. Didn't need any caffeine after that, but could have used a beer to calm down.

This was my last planned trip for the year. Kelley is going to Detroit for TNA Bound for Glory in less than two weeks, but after we got home she said she really didn't want to go, and honestly, I didn't want to go in her place as I was exhausted and wanted/needed a break from traveling. After a couple of days to think on it, she decided to go after all. I also promised her I would not plan any more trips until we've paid down our credit card to a certain amount, just another good reason to stay home. I still have plenty of journeys from this year to write about, but for now, my journey this year has come to an end.