Spare Change on TV: AEW Portland 01 06 23

 

 "Hi Nick"

So, this post has been a long time coming.  Poncho and I happily sat through AEW's first Portland visit, which included a live broadcast of Rampage and Battle of the Belts V, plus tapings for Dark and Dark Evolution.  The crowd was hot, and clearly, so were we.

The week after the show, I downloaded the highest resolution videos I could find of all the shows, and watched them all intently staring at the screen to make sure I didn't miss any quick cutaway shots where we were visible.  There wasn't anything to be excited about, no great pics of us like there were at the NXT Takeover broadcast.  So I basically felt sick of staring at this stuff, and procrastinated making this post.

We can be seen chatting during the opening shot of BOTB5

We are basically in AEW now

One of the first matches we saw, I think the opening match of Rampage, was Mox and Danielson vs Top Flight.  What a star-studded banger.  I think Poncho said this was his fave match of the night, and maybe his fave tag match to have ever seen live.

 

 

We had one cameo during this one...

And here we are checkin' out Darby's taint during his match with Mike Bennett...

 I was marking out over seeing Jay Lethal live.  I think Lethal and Jarrett vs the Acclaimed was my fave match of the night.  So glad I got this great action pic of Jay irish-whipping Anthony Bowens for a memento.

 

Here we are hanging with new acquaintances Orange Cassidy, Danhausen, and Kip Sabian...

I think we really hit it off but I forgot to give them my number

The pop of the night from the SCW section was undoubtedly when Best Friends came out to make the save for OC after Butcher & Blade interfered.  I failed to take a pic with my phone because we were too busy screaming at the top of our lungs for them to take their shirts off, which they should have but didn't.

And that's the show we saw, at least as far as I can prove from our limited screentime.  Other highlights included Dasha, who held the entire live show together bantering between matches, a guy behind us who didn't know anything about wrestling but was very vocal about his alternating delight and confusion (who Poncho took to school a few times), and seeing maybe the best Jack since his vaunted Soaring Eagle days...