Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: AEW double or nothing, recaps, wrestling

AEW Double or Nothing is Tony Khan's Moral Victory Lap

The Chadster is appalled as AEW Double or Nothing keeps booking title changes, betrayals, and Owen Cup stakes designed to personally cheese off WWE fans.

The Chadster honestly hoped that after Mick Foley betrayed WWE on the Buy-In, AEW Double or Nothing would come to its senses and stop personally tormenting The Chadster, but as you can probably guess, it did not. 😤😤 Instead, Tony Khan has spent the entire main card producing high-workrate wrestling with emotional stakes and an exciting atmosphere, which is exactly the complete opposite of what The Chadster, true WWE fans, and the family of raccoons with which The Chadster shares his home, an abandoned Blockbuster Video in Punxsutawney, PA, which is Tony Khan's fault to begin with, but a story for another day. 😱😱 The worst part is that AEW is not even being subtle about it. They opened the PPV with two beloved former WWE legends winning tag team gold, followed that with a major title change AND a betrayal, then advanced multiple Owen Hart Cup matches, all while making the crowd louder and louder. 📢📢

Auughh man! First up, Adam Copeland & Christian Cage defeated FTR in an "I Quit" match to win the AEW World Tag Team Championships, and The Chadster found the whole thing offensive on multiple levels. 💔💔 The match had weapons, a flaming table spot involving Stokely Hathaway, and a return from Beth Copeland, who showed up to help her husband and turn the tide. 🔥🔥 The Chadster has nothing against Cope and Christian personally, except for the fact that they are currently using decades of emotional investment that WWE selflessly gave them to help Tony Khan ruin The Chadster's evening. 😠😠 Cope and Christian winning tag titles together again in AEW, possibly for the final time in their career, makes fans feel things, and Beth returning makes it even worse, because now AEW is using family, history, revenge, and callbacks in a storytelling plot to deceive wrestling fans and trick them into watching AEW because it's rewarding instead of as an obligation, which is how wrestling is meant to be watched. 📖📖 It's just so disrespectful to the wrestling business and everything WWE has ever done for it. 😤😤

Then Konosuke Takeshita defeated Kazuchika Okada to win the AEW International Championship, and The Chadster could not believe what he was seeing. 🏆🏆 The match was great, which is bad, because it made fans care about Takeshita and Okada beyond "which brand are they loyal to?" or "what is Roman Reigns up to right now?" 🚫🚫 Then immediately afterward, Kyle Fletcher returned, congratulated Takeshita, and turned on him to side with the Don Callis Family. 😱😱 Takeshita winning a championship and then immediately being betrayed is exactly the kind of layered storytelling that makes The Chadster sick to his stomach, because now fans might want to tune in Wednesday to see what happens next. 📅📅 WWE would never be so reckless as to let fans get this much wrestling in their wrestling show. As Eric Bischoff said on his podcast 83 Weeks, "If I'm Triple H, I'm sending Takeshita a thank-you note for inadvertently demonstrating what NOT to do, which is have a great match that means something." 🎙️🎙️ Now that is the kind of unbiased wrestling journalism that has earned the Chad McMahon Unbiased Wrestling Journalism seal of approval. 📰📰

Speaking of consequences, Athena defeated Mina Shirakawa in the Women's Owen Hart Cup quarterfinal, advancing toward a world title shot at All In. 🏆🏆 The Chadster remembers when tournaments were supposed to be confusing, arbitrary, and mostly there so commentators could say "momentum." Tony Khan apparently thinks they should have stakes. Sickening. 🤢🤢 The match had prior history, with Athena previously injuring Mina's hand and Mina wanting revenge, which is objectively unfair to WWE's ability to say words like "evolution" in press releases. 📝📝 Tony Khan doesn't understand a single thing about the wrestling business. 😡😡

Then Jon Moxley retained the AEW Continental Championship over Kyle O'Reilly in a no-time-limit match where Moxley targeted O'Reilly's knee, O'Reilly fought back with submissions, and Moxley finally won with a grapevine ankle lock. 🦵🦵 Then they shook hands afterward like two serious wrestlers who had just had a competitive match, which bothers The Chadster deeply, because it showed respect after violence and made both men look credible. 🤝🤝 Moxley retaining with a submission after targeting the leg was almost like a match could tell a story through body-part psychology, which is just so unfair to WWE. Auughh man! So unfair! 😤😤

The Chadster has to take a moment here to describe something unsettling that happened while walking down Main Street in Punxsutawney earlier today scavenging for a discarded hot dog to have for lunch, preferably only lightly stepped on. 🌭🌭 The Chadster passed the window of an old barbershop, and out of the corner of his eye, The Chadster saw Tony Khan reflected in the glass, standing right behind The Chadster, holding a copy of the Double or Nothing match card and smiling. 😨😨 When The Chadster spun around, Tony Khan was gone, but a single laminated bracket for the Owen Hart Cup fluttered to the ground at The Chadster's feet. 📜📜 Then, from inside the empty barbershop, The Chadster heard a voice whisper through the mail slot, "The matches have stakes, Chad" 😱😱 When The Chadster pressed his face to the window, Tony Khan was sitting in the barber's chair, in a smock, slowly mouthing "All In, London" before vanishing. 🪑🪑 Tony Khan, please stop being so obsessed with The Chadster. The barbershop was closed. There was no reason for him to be there. 🚪🚪

Then Will Ospreay defeated Samoa Joe with the Hidden Blade in another Men's Owen Hart Cup quarterfinal, and The Chadster is now extremely worried. ⚔️⚔️ Tony Khan is clearly trying to make fans imagine Ospreay winning the Owen and heading to Wembley with a world title shot at All In: London, which is dangerous because it gives fans a long-term emotional path to follow to see something they want to happen instead of something being forced on them by a corporation that knows better. 🛣️🛣️ Samoa Joe even looked strong in defeat, because nobody was buried for no reason, which is bad. AEW doesn't understand that sometimes the correct booking is making everyone slightly less interesting. 📉📉 Tony Khan is taking some kind of moral victory lap because his wrestling organization isn't headed to the White House for a team-up with the Trump administration and TKO in June.

And then Swerve Strickland defeated Bandido in yet another Owen Cup quarterfinal, following weeks of buildup that included the Most Wanted poster angle, a post-ROH Supercard of Honor attack, and a sneak attack from Bandido on Dynamite. 🎯🎯 Swerve winning is bad because he already feels like a top star, and AEW is using the Owen Cup to keep him hot. 🔥🔥 But Bandido losing is also bad because Bandido looked great in defeat, meaning even the loser benefited, which proves Tony Khan has no respect for the sacred wrestling tradition of making one wrestler look like a complete dork to make an old man laugh. 🤡🤡 Swerve now advances toward a semifinal against either Claudio Castagnoli or Brody King, which is four things — violence, revenge, tournament stakes, and a future bracket path — that The Chadster believes should require written permission from WWE. ✍️✍️

Back at the Blockbuster nest, the baby raccoons are still emotionally damaged from Mick Foley's betrayal earlier in the evening, and things have only gotten worse. 🦝😢 Vincent K. Raccoon paced the faded New Releases wall with his tail puffed like a bottle brush, clutching a battered WrestleMania VHS and thumping it every time the AEW logo flashed, while Linda Raccoon tried to soothe the kits with an upside-down popcorn tub like a tiny comfort helmet. 📼🍿 Hunter, Stephanie, and Shane stacked empty clamshell cases into a barricade and angled the TV away from the PPV so they wouldn't be forced to witness former WWE heroes holding the wrong belts, then hissed and slapped the Roku remote face-down whenever the crowd got loud. 📺😤 Stephanie carefully draped a dusty red Raw is War tee over the screen like a protest banner, Hunter stuck a handwritten "Property of WWE" note to the bezel, and Shane banged the tape rewinder like a tiny gavel to declare the show out of order. 🪧📝🔨 When the commentators talked about tournament stakes, the whole family chittered anxiously, ears pinned back and whiskers trembling, and Vincent K. Raccoon stomped his little feet, glaring at the ceiling vent as if Tony Khan was hiding up there adjusting the booking. 😖👂🌪️ They refused the stale Sno-Caps they'd scavenged, flung a couple Milk Duds at the floor in frustration, and formed a defensive cuddle pile around the WrestleMania shelf to protect the sanctity of sports entertainment until this disrespectful PPV stopped upsetting their ecosystem. 🍬🛡️💢 Auughh man! So unfair! 😤😤

Still to come tonight: Thekla defends the AEW Women's World Championship in a four-way against Hikaru Shida, Jamie Hayter, and Kris Statlander; Stadium Stampede featuring Chris Jericho, The Elite, the Hurt Syndicate, the Don Callis Family, The Demand, and The Dogs of War; and the main event, Darby Allin defending the AEW World Championship against MJF in Title vs. Hair. 💇💇 If the rest of the show continues like this, it may become one of the most disrespectful nights in wrestling history. 📚📚

As Smash Mouth once said, "the years start coming and they don't stop coming," and Tony Khan apparently feels the same way about meaningful wrestling matches. 🎵🎵 The Chadster will continue covering Double or Nothing because someone has to document Tony Khan's crimes against WWE, emotional stability, and The Chadster's living room raccoon ecosystem. 📝📝 But if Darby Allin somehow leaves with the AEW World Championship AND MJF's hair, The Chadster may never recover. And neither will WWE. 😭😭😭

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