WRESTLING REVIEW: AEW Beach Break II

With the tag team of Tha God Fahim & Y.O.D. ‘s “The Wolf On Wall Street” series spinning in the background, I decided to watch AEW’s “Beach Break”.

I had to check multiple sites to make sure this was a special event, and the whole thing really struck me as odd: Dividing a special event between multiple days is something I’ve never enjoyed as a wrestling head who grew up in the era when “Sunday.Sunday!SUNDAY!!!” was the time for a wrestling extravaganza that could shake the world. WWE started switching the rules a couple Wrestlemania’s ago by doubling up on weekend’s and to see AEW attempt to play with this formula as well is a travesty.

And then to relegate the event to run during AEW’s week day programming with virtually no option for playback really makes no sense. As of this writing, it’s been several days since the event and the AEW youtube channel just began uploading clips of the main championship Beach Break match. Someone who is only at the gateway of pro wrestling interest will have to hunt for the full competitions, and at a time when on-demand is in demand, this is a terrible marketing strategy. Yes, I understand the wrestling mecca as of today is Florida, but “Beach Break” in January ? In (the great) Cleveland, Ohio? At a time when a tropical state like Florida is undergoing thunderstorm after thunderstorm, I can understand the Midwest migration, but I just looked out the window here in South Dakota and all I see is ice and snow. Bottom line : “Beach Break” is far from an appropriate event title given the season.

Noted : this is the 2nd annual “Break”, so any devil’s advocate would say AEW is entitled to a break, but with Impact! and NWA getting rubs at WWE’s most recent Royal Rumble, it isn’t safe for AEW to fall back.

Starting with the championship match, TBS champ, Jade Cargill, destroyed Julia Hart. Made the cheerleader an absolute jobber in a match contested under three minutes. I tend to watch these women’s matches at half the speed like I listen to podcasts at double, and even then this felt way too quick. I do not understand why a championship match during an event program would be a squash. Cargill is already an over champion, there’s no need to build her any further. Nothing was special there, but earlier in the program Legit Leyla locked up with Red Velvet, putting on an impressive showing : Leyla was a tank with the mind of a tactician , focusing her strength on damaging the injured arm of Red Velvet. This left Velvet to take some severe punishment, but she was not to be mistaken for defenseless. I cannot tell what was better : witnessing Red Velvet pull of a Stunner from the second rope or seeing her launch a Spear just moments after it looked like all hope was gone. Red Velvet showed out, but Legit Leyla ended up pulling a not so legit win , securing the victory via pinfall with a handful of tights, and side swiping Velvet after the bell just to put her in an arm bar to add insult to injury.

As a wrestling head completely blue-pilled to WWE viewing, Red Velvet was the red pill for me to start watching other wrestling brands after I saw her last year contest in an AEW Dark match. But, that doesn’t make me biased when I say that Velvet was the face of AEW’s women’s division for the night, especially when one of the champions was relegated to mic duty while the other champ ran over her competitor in less than five minutes.

Legit was the yin to Velvet’s yang and played her role to elevate both her and Velvet’s star power to surpass their current mid-card positions that needs to be revaluated and repositioned.
Yes, AEW has talent in it’s women’s division and can never be excused of not putting them on display, but for the midcard match in a special event to be the most hotly contested while the champs were booked to bury and talk the audience to death does not leave a good impression for a company that still has room for improvement.

Score : 2/5

Date: January 26, 2022
Time: 8 PM EST/5 PM PST
Location: Wolstein Center, Cleveland, Ohio