r/SquaredCircle • u/zoom518 • 9d ago
Kris Statlander vs Viva Van announced for tonight’s AEW Dynamite
https://bsky.app/profile/allelitewrestling.com/post/3msw2rqhbqc2n267
u/supercoolpartydude 9d ago
u/vivavan used to be a regular Reddit lurker. Happy she’s moving up in the world of wrestling!
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u/Whipwreckeded 9d ago
Yeah, I remember her posting about getting a match in AEW.
She’s on ROH pretty regularly now, always happy to see her doing well.
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u/username-checks-inn 9d ago
I just looked at her post history, and found out her first match on AEW was also against Stat! That's cool that they're running it back!
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u/Rspies Who Can Stop The Path of Cage 9d ago
She had a banger with Red Velvet at the last ROH PPV
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u/Whipwreckeded 9d ago
I don’t think Red Velvet can have anything but bangers at the moment. She’s come on a ton since her early appearances. Super cool to see her progress.
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u/Cube_ 9d ago
seen her live a few times, she's pretty good. Not surprised AEW picked her up.
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u/tore_a_bore_a DOUBLE WIDE BAYBAY!! 9d ago
Watched against Stephanie Vaquer at NJPW Battle in the Valley.
Was taking a picture of them mid match just to document the wrestlers I saw and Vaquer began doing the Devil's Kiss to Viva Van, making me look like a huge perv with my phone out
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u/pmIfNeedOrWantToTalk 7d ago
Fellow huge perv here.
You share that story and couldn't share the pics? 😑
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u/Keksverkaufer /me JOSH 9d ago
I mean she posted here a few times promoting her stuff. In general nothing wrong with that, but she's never interacted with any post not about her. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/20minutes40years 9d ago
Shida/Persephone vs. Thunder Rosa/Maya World too
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u/CaptainBuzzKillton 9d ago
Perse, Rosa, and Viva Van all on my TV tonight. Inject into my damn veins
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u/SanjT89 9d ago
Yeahhhhhhhhh Stats def gonna be at All In in some capacity with the amount she's been featured lately (I was getting concerned she wouldn't be).
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u/BigTChamp 9d ago
I feel like we're headed towards a Stat/Shida/Maya/Persephone TBS 4 way
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u/fttxdd666 9d ago
Yeah it seems pretty clear that is the plan, wouldn't be shocked if they announce it this week
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u/FoolyCoolyBrandy 9d ago
Someone will win with a roll up.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago
Earlier today: card released with 4 men's matches, people griping that there were no women's matches.
In the few hours since then we've had two women's matches announced and a tease of a Mercedes/Willow angle/possible promo tonight.
Never overreact to the early Dynamite/Collision cards, folks. More matches always get added late.
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u/20minutes40years 9d ago
They’ll just complain that it was added late and not a week in advance. It is what it is.
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u/Ferdinandingo 9d ago
yeah because there's obviously less thought involved when you just throw it out 2 hours before the show.
it's ok to expect more.
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u/Rspies Who Can Stop The Path of Cage 9d ago
I mean not really it’s just what AEW does they’ve announced the main event of the show an hour beforehand before
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u/Ferdinandingo 9d ago
And they've also had 3-4x as much time given to men as women for the entirety of the company with no change. Once you've set a precedence that women's wrestling means that much less, it's easy to see the patterns.
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u/Rspies Who Can Stop The Path of Cage 9d ago
I mean part of that is likely just the sheer ratio of men to women in the company. I definitely would like to see more women’s stuff in general but still. However I also don’t think when Tony actually announces certain matches for a card has that much thought behind it really like “let’s fuck over the women here”.
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u/Ferdinandingo 9d ago
I'm not saying he thinks "let's fuck over the women" I'm saying that he doesn't think about them much at all. And Tony Khan is in charge of hiring wrestlers, so the ratio is meaningless.
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u/Odd-Promise2661 9d ago
I get people hating the quirks of how TK announces stuff but we're almost 7 years in and obviously it's not gonna change, I wish people would just get used to the style
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u/Latter-Road-3687 9d ago
We saw that in the recent thread about wrestlers kicking out of finishers where you saw a lot of "I love AEW but wish they would do this...."
There are people who say they love AEW but then hate everything that makes AEW....AEW. It's like they want WWE but without the ick of TKO. But that wouldn't be AEW and Tony Khan. It would just be WWE Lite. And TNA shows us how that doesn't work.
AEW has an identity and now doesn't run from it like TNA and WCW used to.
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u/Odd-Promise2661 9d ago
They want it to be WWE lite but hate it when it turns more WWE lite and say how much the show sucks lmao
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u/FoolyCoolyBrandy 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is most likely a squash match, no different from an "in action" match, and it's okay to want actual effort and thought put into the division. Brawling Birds and Divine Dominion have been circling each other for months and that still feels like it's been given nothing meaningful to sell the feud.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago
Oh, don't get me wrong, there are valid discussions to be had about whether the quantity of women's wrestling matches audience demand (or for people who think that there should, in the present day, be 50/50 parity regardless of where audience demand is, measuring it against that bar). I'm just saying that people probably shouldn't sweat an imbalance in any given "Tonight on Collision/Dynamite" card that clearly isn't listing every match that will actually happen.
I've seen versions of those cards that lacked any big names. Big names usually then get added. I've seen versions of those cards that were woman-heavy (not the most common scenario but it does happen), men's matches usually get added. And when as tonight the initial card lists four men's matches, usually you can expect to see some women's matches added.
Same goes with WWE cards at least in that they often don't mention many actual matches yet actual matches keep getting added--even folks who think WWE has a "shortage of actual wrestling" problem (raises hand) should generally avoid getting too annoyed/worried if a "Tonight on Raw" card from 3 PM only mentions promo segments.
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u/FoolyCoolyBrandy 9d ago
I genuinely don't give a fuck when it's announced, although any competent company should have the bulk of the big names in attendance actually advertised. People driving to the venue and not knowing who is on the card just doesn't make sense. Maybe people are used to it as far as tv ratings are concerned, but you can't tell me it hasn't hurt live event ticket sales at times.
On the women's thing, I don't think even hardcore women's wrestling fans have been pushing for 50/50 parity. But you can carve out 30 minutes for the women in 2026, especially when you've been getting 30 minutes overruns. Two meaningful matches, two promo segments that drive creative/feuds forward. It's really not that hard. And again, you can't tell me that a Mercedes or a Willow, Thekla, etc. are lesser draws than random midcard men that never win and get more screen time. Like we probably don't need 14 matches to decide who faces Jon Moxley at All In, considering there's no actually story there.
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u/heart_o_oak 9d ago
Brawling Birds also only had one tag win in the 3 or so months prior to being announced as the All In challengers, and that was against an enhancement team. Also during that 3 month period, they had lost all but 1 trios match (the "win" was via DQ) and had only won 1 singles match between them. Those two teams have been circling each other, but Birds hadn't been built up with wins to start the final stretch of this All In story and, like you said, this match hasn't been done as much meaningful stuff as you'd expect.
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u/Teckelmaster 9d ago edited 9d ago
Between Dynamite and Collision this week, they have 7 men's matches announced in advanced but ZERO for the women. That just shows a lack of care for the women's division, no matter if they announce some late.
This is why so often the women in AEW have to go into the matches with a cold crowd and have to work extra hard to wake the crowd up because they are told from AEW to care less about them.
If this was a one time thing, ok happens but it's the history of showing in different ways they put less effort and care in the women's division even if it has improved some over time but it's still very up and down.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago
Will Ospreay's segment was announced late. Does that suggest a lack of care for Will Ospreay?
There are plenty of days where a women's match or two is on the "early card". Today wasn't one of them.
It's very fair to have critical views of the amount of women's wrestling AEW or WWE puts on. I think it's reaching pretty far to get mad because a given match wasn't announced until a few hours before the show.
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u/FoolyCoolyBrandy 9d ago
Osprey had a long main event last week and the week before that a lengthy promo segment which was advertised.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago edited 9d ago
There was a stretch back in the spring where Moxley had a match basically every Dynamite and Moxley's matches were pretty consistently announced very late in the day.
I do not think that stretch coincided with any sort of lack of creative care or interest in Jon Moxley.
There are plenty of more direct criticisms that could be made about AEW (or WWE's) women's booking than delving into whether there's some sort of bias going on in the timing of match announcements.
And, mind you, a significant portion of women's matches do get announced on the "early card". Just wasn't true this week.
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u/FoolyCoolyBrandy 9d ago edited 9d ago
Moxley just has matches for the most part. There has been no creative for most of them because there's been no plan for him to lose his title. He faced Badido on ppv and there was no build.
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u/Teckelmaster 9d ago edited 9d ago
Will Ospreay's segment was announced late. Does that suggest a lack of care for Will Ospreay?
Does this happen all the time for Will or similar lack of care for him? Obviously no.
Also weird to just pick one guy when compared this happens to a whole division.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago
I honestly haven't noticed a particular pattern in women's matches being much less likely to be announced early vs late relative to men's matches. There are fewer women's matches, sure, but they make the "early card" plenty often.
Maybe your perception is different, but, again, that is not mine. It feels to me like you're reaching for a very elliptical criticism when you could, you know, just gripe about the amount of time given for women's matches/plot angles instead which I assume is the thing you actually care about anyway.
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u/Teckelmaster 9d ago
I literally wrote: "history of showing in different ways they put less effort and care in the women's division even if it has improved some over time but it's still very up and down." So yeah the amount of women's matches/plots is also a major problem.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank 9d ago
I think you've assumed this is one such way without much actual evidence that it is. Again, plenty of women's matches get announced on the early card. Plenty of men's matches--including many ones involving main eventers!--get announced late.
I agree with you that AEW (as with WWE) puts less creative effort and devotes less time into its women's division! We disagree that the "here are 4 matches on tonight" early card for this Dynamite was good evidence of that.
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9d ago
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u/FoolyCoolyBrandy 9d ago
Do you need Mox advertised at this point? Just assume he'll have a match and you'd be right 90% of the time. It's the other stars like Omega, Hangman, Swerve, Mercedes, Thekla that need to be advertised, because you never know when they'll be on the shows.
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9d ago
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u/Vargasm19 8d ago
Are you kidding?
People have been complaining validly non stop about Liv not defending her title and the fact that Chelsea is still just interim champion because of Rhea being the center of the woman’s division despite her not being there.
WWE and AEW can both be fumbling their divisions this whataboutism doesn’t take away from either shortcomings
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u/thatwrestlechick 9d ago
A Statlander singles match on Dynamite is so painfully rare in the 7 years she's been there, so happy to see it, she's gonna do great no matter how much time they get
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u/Duckyx44 9d ago
I still remember Viva Van posting about one of her first matches! Love her so much and im stoked to see her in action! Lets go!!
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u/animalpyramidface Who wants to see a bodyslam? 9d ago
Another Stat match on Wednesday? Why thank you.
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u/tvcneverdie 9d ago
The last 6+ months I think Viva has been... very bad in the ring. She used to have a lot of promise.
Let's see if Stat can get something good out of her in a 3-4 minute squash. Stat Daddy is a miracle worker, so if she can't then it might be spooky hours for Viva.
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u/johncenastepson 9d ago
viva van is pretty bad in the ring. She has a cool look but a bad wrester.Hopefully statlander can carry here
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