10 Greatest Angles In Modern Wrestling History
8. The Elite Sit Down
AEW hasn't exploited the Jim Ross sit-down interview anywhere near enough.
Renee Paquette is great in the role, but those segments are rushed. The graduating level of tension that drives these candid, heated conversations is edited to death. The impact is often lost.
They perfected it when the Elite sat down to promote their classic Tag Team title match at Revolution 2020 on the go-home Dynamite.
Not always the most subtle nor natural actors, these were exceptional, muted performances. Nick Jackson, conveying the awkwardness, didn't want to be there. Matt Jackson wondered aloud why he wasn't an AEW World Tag Team champion. He was in disbelief that two "great singles wrestlers" were sat in front of them with the belts laid across their lap. He couldn't understand it. "Oh God, you wouldn't" Hangman Page said, so softly that you could barely hear it.
Omega explained - to Page's dismay - that their success was "situational". Page argued - with genuinely believable misunderstanding - that it wasn't some accident. Omega, deftly building the layers of melodrama that sparked the match on February 29, claimed he was inspired by the Bucks to be better (where Page was motivated by his need to defy them and prove himself Elite). Omega and Page, on a different conversational wavelength, were telling you all along that they were two singles wrestlers who weren't an actual team built to last.
Ross was magnificent here. The tension wasn't chopped to death. It hung in the air, and Ross probed it, asking Page why he was uncomfortable.
The conversation deteriorated not with a threat, nor an insult. Matt Jackson referring to Page, with awful condescension, as "Adam" was it: the catalyst for Page to walk. The "ROH jobber" was a young boy in their minds, and he knew it. Omega sat there with his head in his hands. The feeling, allowed to linger, was palpable. Every character in that promo had a relatable and just motive. Those motives simply couldn't co-exist. AEW has had fun, possibly too much, burying WWE.
This however was the best flex yet of its superiority.