AEW Discussion 2019

[Zack T 171]

From what I've been told, Chuck Taylor goes back and forth between being heel and face while Trent is always face. So that's something.

 

The women's division is one of AEW's biggest weaknesses right now, they've got some good world class talent but they aren't making much use of them at the moment. The focus has primarily been on Riho, Nyla, Britt, and Bea Priestley. Everyone else is used sporadically and unconsequentially.

[Kam 243]

Another decent show!

 

I've been looking forward to Private Party/Lucha Bros - it was a good match, maybe a little too many flips/dives but everyone looked good here.

 

I fully expected SCU to go over, they seem to be building a nice following from the crowd. The Dark Order seems to be struggling to connect with the fans, I like Grayson, not too sure about Evil Uno.

 

Omega/Janella was good.

 

That Cody/Jericho faction brawl was FANTASTIC. I'm surprised that didn't finish the show. Although it was a little disappointing to see the number of empty seats when the camera panned around.

 

I was surprised to see another tag match considering we already had 2 taking up the start of the show. TYB looked great though.

 

Wasn't that keen on the womens match.

 

PAC/Moxley was what you'd expect, I wasn't expecting a winner as I thought they'd put this on Full Gear.

 

As much as I enjoyed the show...I do have a criticism. Having match after match (albeit good matches) without things to break them up more (backstage interviews/vignettes/confrontations) is too much. I think it could be a good way of getting to know the wrestlers more and enhance their characters which could be useful for any casual fans who dip in to AEW.

[Zack T 171]

Just finished watching AEW cause I suck at life.

 

I felt like doing both semifinal tag matches back to back might've been overkill. I personally found it difficult to refocus for another tag match after having just watched one.

 

I thought Private Party/Lucha Bros was a little sloppy, but more than that the apparent disregard for the rules kind of irked me. It's been on an ongoing problem with tag matches in AEW though, so it's not specific to just this match. I'm pretty sure we've gone beyond the 10 count numerous times in most every tag match that's happened, and that kind of annoys me because I imagined the whole point of having a 10 count instead of a 5 count was to make sure that type of situation happened less. Give the talent a few more seconds to get their double team in, but everyone's abusing the discretion of the referee.

 

Anyway though, I did enjoy Private Party and Lucha Bros. I actually enjoyed SCU/Dark Order less and I have to agree with Kam, I just can't get into those Dark Order guys. I want to, I think they're good in the ring. But so far, the gimmick just isn't clicking to me. I dunno why they keep insisting on saying "My notes say Evil Uno is 220. Hah, yea in what world is he 220?" and making a joke of it each week. I dunno if that's part of the gimmick or just a weird inside joke or quirk that's happening, but let's stop that.

 

I loved Jericho and the Inner Circle (Minus Jake this week) come down and just dump on whoever was in the ring. Good stuff. I appreciate that they mentioned Jake was off preparing for a fight he has this weekend (at least, that's what I THOUGHT they said, it was a pretty quick note). Valid reason for Jake not to be present.

 

Kenny and Joey was very solid, I liked that a lot. Sucks that Joey has to eat another loss to Kenny so soon, but hopefully it elevated him some.

 

I wanted to hear what Cody's announcement was :( We never got that. But I did enjoy this confrontation segment. Cody punching through the glass was badass. "He's breakin the dippin dots!" I was surprised DDP came out, was expecting Adam Page. But sure, why not. Actually, I was expecting Cody's back up to be Dustin and the Bucks or Adam Page and the Bucks. But I guess the Bucks were too busy preparing for Best Friends and preparing to accept LAX's challenge to actually...confront them tonight... :\ missed opportunity there. Oh well.

 

Young Bucks and Best Friends was solid, fun stuff with Orange Cassidy. Figured Bucks would win as they're headed to fight LAX.

 

I liked Britt's promo video (ADAM COLE BAYBAY) and she was quite over, that was rad. I honestly didn't like the match very much though, and mainly because of her opponent Jaime whatever her name was. I kind of expected Britt would get a squash match win just to make the crowd happy, but instead they gave her a real opponent and that's cool too but...I didn't like Jaime's style. She cut Britt of SO MUCH that it almost felt like it was supposed to be a squash match in Jaime's favor. I felt they made Britt work too hard for what was seemingly supposed to be a feel-good home town win. But she got the win and the crowd loved it, so it's all good?

 

Main event, I loved PAC attacking from behind with a chair. What a bastard. For awhile, it had me thinking the match would get called off. Then it had me thinking PAC would score a cheap win because of that early attack. I had considered maybe Mox would get that "overcoming the odds" win, but PAC is so unbeatable these days that I had a hard time believing he'd get that win that night. A draw made the most sense, I liked that. Sporadic use of the draw has been well done so far. I like that better than a cheap double DQ, double count out, or regular DQ/count out anyway.

 

Once again, good show. AEW continues to churn out quality content. I'd like just a TOUCH more focus on storyline/promo stuff outside of matches, but not a whole lot more. Just a little bit. It can get tiring to watch so many matches in rapid fire succession each week. Or maybe re-organize the order better.

 

I would've moved Britt/Jaime's match to earlier in the night, swapped places with SCU/Dark Order I think. Also would've made both those matches maybe about 5 minutes shorter, given that time to some kind of backstage segment to feature someone like Darby Allin or the Dinosaur Express or Shawn Spears. But hey, I'm an armchair booker so who cares what I think :p

[Kam 243]

That was a change of pace this week!

 

I liked Shivonne meeting Cody by the Jet and that interview on the way to the arena, something different!

 

Decent opener with the right winner, crowd seemed to enjoy it.

 

Shida/Shanna was OK, better than some of the matches we've seen before. However, none of the ladies are really grabbing my attention like some of the tag-teams/men on the roster.

 

I'm not sure about that Brandi vignette, it looks like she was doing some black magic against the ladies in AEW. I don't think she should be given so much attention until she can back it up in the ring, she's got a long way to go yet.

 

The Rock & Roll Express segment was short and sweet. The crowd seemed to be genuinely shocked.

 

Best Friends and OC seemed to be OVER! Nice little throwaway match.

 

I quite liked having the contract signing on the stage rather than in the ring, it makes sense. Jericho is awesome and the crowd rooting for Cody was great too. Then to top it off, Dustin's beatdown - I loved it.

 

No idea what was going on during Omega's entrance. I've since heard it's something to do with an old video game. I can't imagine many fans who aren't familiar with Omega would have got the references. I LOVED the 6-man match, lots of great spots, everyone looked good.

 

Santana and Ortiz strike again :deviltail:

 

Moxley promo was intense!

 

I was hoping The Lucha Brothers would win, but I'm fine with either team. The match was good but it didn't really draw me in like some of the past tag-team matches in AEW. I wasn't expecting the roll-up finish but I guess it sets them up for a PPV rematch. I was totally expecting Lucha Brothers to attack SCU after the match so was a little surprised for that not to happen :)

 

Overall, I don't think this was as strong match quality wise as some of the past shows but it did make up for it in some entertaining segments.

[Poppy 31]

I hate to say it, but I prefer WWE's Dean Ambrose over AEW's Jon Moxley. He played off of Reigns and Rollins so well. AEW is packing a ton of good content into each show. There's not much filler going on, which is refreshing.

[Kam 243]

Good episode this week...

 

The crowd was red hot for the opener. I was expecting this to be a shorter match with Pac getting the win easily but I really enjoyed it. Was that a bodge at the end as it looked like Pac was meant to win with the Black Arrow.

 

Cody's promo was great, just want he needed to do/show. I still can't see Cody winning at Full Gear. I think he'll lose but somewhere down the line he'll get a chance at the title again.

 

Jericho's video was great...I had a little mark out moment when I saw Virgil!

 

Tag match with Private Party and Dark Order was OK...I was expecting PP to win, so no surprises here.

 

Women's tag match was OK. I don't get why Sakura gets a title shot, had she won a match before this one in AEW? I thought wins mattered? I can't see the fans caring about the match at Full Gear. They really need a big moment for the women as they've not had one since Dynamite started.

 

Shawn Spears / Cutler was fine.

 

Main event was good and the brawl to end the show was EXCELLENT!

 

I'm looking forward to Full Gear, so they've done their job!

 

Fav moment of the night:

 

Edited November 7, 2019 by Kam

[Zack T 171]

Emi Sakura won a fatal 4 way women's match on AEW Dark last week, I think that's how she earned a title match but it's not really clear. The Women's division is AEW's weakest point right now and they didn't do a good job of clearly establishing a #1 contender for Riho. But they chose Emi for the master vs student angle that it allows.

 

Jericho's promo package was one of the best things I've ever seen, that was so ridiculous it was perfect.

 

Cody's promo was damn good too, though for me it wasn't as good as everyone else seems to think it was. Everyone else is calling it the promo of Cody's career and I disagree. It was very very good, but I think a promo he cut in WWE during his family feud against the Shield/Authority was better, but aside from that I also thought his voice cracking was maybe unnecessary/out of place. But then again, the crowd reacted hard when that happened so maybe I'm in the minority on that.

 

Loved the main event, PAC coming down and just kicking Adam Page right in the balls was perfect. What a bastard. Then the post match shenanigans were off the wall. AEW's done that a few times now and just had these crazy long send-offs and while I don't want this much crammed in all the time, it is fun to do it now and again.

 

I honestly think they could've done better setting up Full Gear. It almost feels like they had plans to, but forgot Full Gear was November 9 and not a week or 2 later. Cause that's what it feels like to me, like if we had 1 or 2 more weeks, we could flesh out the card much better and give more reason to care about the other matches besides Cody/Jericho and Moxley/Omega.

[Zack T 171]

Bored at work, so here's a long review of AEW Dynamite!

 

Sadly I didn't catch every bit of AEW Dynamite this week, I missed the first 30 minutes or so. But that covers PAC vs Trent Barretta and from what I've read, that was an excellent segment. I'll try to catch that match on YouTube - Some people are saying they think the ending was a bit botched and I can't comment on that since I haven't actually seen it. Normally though, PAC locks in the Brutalizer without even attempting a pin, so who knows what happened there. Anyway, PAC got an opponent he could beat without being fed someone who doesn't need to take a loss right now (Like Darby Allin or Joey Janella for example). Trent was a good pick because the Best Friends are going through a rough patch right now anyway, and he's a tag specialist too, so losing a singles match isn't as big a deal for his character right now.

 

Cody being in the ring is where I tuned in, and I did see this whole promo and I'm glad I did. Cody's promo was damn good, though for me it wasn't as good as everyone else seems to think it was. Everyone else is calling it the promo of Cody's career and I disagree. It was very very good, but I think a promo he cut in WWE during his family feud against the Shield/Authority was better, but aside from that I also thought his voice cracking was maybe unnecessary/out of place. But then again, the crowd reacted hard when that happened so maybe I'm in the minority on that. For me though, his voice cracking indicated he was so emotional he was almost to the point of tears but I wasn't exactly seeing that in his face and it just felt...too much. Just barely too much, but still too much. Again though, the crowd reacted hard and it seems everyone else loved it, so I'm probably just a weirdo. Cody announcing that he won't challenge for the AEW World title again if he loses was a huge caveat and makes me seriously question the outcome of the match. Beforehand, it felt sure to me that Jericho would retain, but now I don't know. But hey, that just makes me want to see it even more, so well done AEW.

 

Private Party and Dark Order was ok, I honestly thought Dark Order would win, but that's going off the historical concept that triple threats are often 2 heels and 1 face. Dark Order looked fine, but they didn't really even come close to winning this one. Private Party handily gets the win, and so we'll see SCU vs Lucha Bros vs Private Party and I'm down with that.

 

Jericho's promo package was one of the best things I've ever seen, that was so ridiculous it was perfect. The 1 liners it delivered, the audacity, the self parody, it was just incredible. It's on Youtube if you didn't catch it, go watch it, it'll be one of the best 3 minutes of your life.

 

Random women's tag match, this was...a match. It wasn't bad, the crowd even chanted "This is awesome" during it. But it also just felt out of place and not very significant. Emi Sakura apparently has a women's championship match with Riho at Full Gear, not really clear why. I think it's because she won a 4-way on AEW Dark but I don't remember it specifically being a #1 contendership match. Regardless, I believe they've done it for a "Master vs Student" type of angle and that's fine, but the women's division has been AEW's weak link so far. They don't seem to have much of a dedicated roster for it, and they did a piss poor job of promoting the women's title match for Full Gear. Honestly most of the matches for Full Gear weren't promoted or made very well, but that's another paragraph. Also, Emi Sakura's music is freaking awful. I believe they wanted to give her something that sounds a bit like Queen without ripping them off so hard they risk being sued, but it sucks. Her music starts off alright in the beginning, but once the trumpets or whatever they are start up, it sounds like cheap little kid sports video game music and it throws off the rhythm and obfuscates every other sound in her music and all you can hear is the god awful trumpets. She can't even dance to it, and I believe I've seen her trying to dance a bit during her entrance, but her music is so bad that she just can't and it sucks all the wind out of it for her.

 

The stream I watched of AEW on Taima.tv apparently was a special one cause it stayed live even through commercials. Kept throwing me off because it never went to commercial but I’d hear JR say they’re back and I’m like “wait we never went to break?” But it did allow me to see Jericho interacting with the crowd during the commercial break after him and Sammy had made their entrances but the match hadn’t started yet.

 

It was masterful. The crowd was chanting Stupid Dick at him and he kept pretending he couldn’t understand what they were saying cause of their dumb hick southern accents. Then they started chanting him asshole and he still couldn’t understand and got super offended when Sammy or Jake whispered the “translation” to him. Then they started chanting Stupid Dick again and Jericho would say something he thought they said “Stupid brick? Katie Vick? Yea that wasn’t my idea” and so on. And he ended it perfectly with the commercial break. I imagine coming back in regular TV, you had no idea that he had been on the mic - all you see is the crowd is now booing him to hell because he’d been harrassing them all break. It was awesome.

 

Loved the main event, PAC coming down and just kicking Adam Page right in the balls was perfect. What a bastard. Then the post match shenanigans were off the wall. AEW's done that a few times now and just had these crazy long send-offs and while I don't want this much crammed in all the time, it is fun to do it now and again.

 

I honestly think they could've done better setting up Full Gear. It almost feels like they had plans to, but forgot Full Gear was November 9 and not a week or 2 later. Cause that's what it feels like to me, like if we had 1 or 2 more weeks, we could flesh out the card much better and give more reason to care about the other matches besides Cody/Jericho, Moxley/Omega, Bucks/LAX, and Page/PAC. Those 4 matches have had a good amount of attention and build, with PAC/Page getting the least but still enough to work. Most of the other matches were made either this week (the week of the PPV) or the week before, and haven't had much build or reason. We're getting Joey Janella vs Shawn Spears and that's fine, I'm up for them getting a PPV match, but we only JUST started the fued on AEW Dark this week (even though it was filmed last week). This one is built on a pretty loose thread too, seemingly with Shawn taking offense to something Joey Janella said off-hand about Tully Blanchard in a promo and I don't even know when that happened cause I don't remember what he's talking about. But apparently the only logical recourse to this offense is for Shawn to try and take pliers to PULL JOEY'S TONGUE OR TEETH OUT OF HIS MOUTH. Well, that escalated quickly. Hopefully this 3 panel judge gimmick they keep mentioning for Cody/Jericho won't even come into play, but I suspect that it might given how much they've mentioned it. Not sure I like the sound of it, I worry it'll be poorly received if Jericho retains via "Judge decision" and it'd probably suck the fun out of Cody winning if the judges declared him the winner too. But we'll see.

 

Riho and Emi Sakura only just got made this week, I think. Not sure there was ever a proper #1 contendership match or if Emi was simply chosen because she's been winning lately. Not much reason to care about this one, Riho is gonna get the win over the "master/vet" character and move on to the next challenger. We also have SCU defending the tag titles against Lucha Bros and Private Party. We could see that it was likely SCU vs Lucha Bros would happen again at Full Gear, and I'm happy to add Private Party to it, but again they just didn't do anything to really promote this match beyond the Dark Order/Private Party match to be added to the PPV match, which coincidentally was just announced right before Dark Order/Private Party. Soooo, yea. We're also getting Britt Baker vs Bea Priestley on the Buy In, which does make sense as those two have been fueding since the summer, but they've done almost NOTHING to hype that up on Dynamite or AEW Dark. It's bizarre. So we're going into this with about half the matches being pretty well established/hyped, and half of them not. I'm sure most of it will deliver, but still. AEW could do a better job hyping the undercard matches some, especially the tag/women's title matches. Right now it's coming across like if you're not involved in the Elite/Inner Circle stuff, you're not important enough to be focused on.

 

That's a challenge AEW is going to have to overcome, because while it does make sense for them to book their shows around the guys who are most over and most well established already, they gotta elevate the rest of the roster more, or eventually they'll run out of steam. But all in all, I'm looking forward to Full Gear very much and I'm excited to see where AEW goes from here.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Zack T

[Snarky-Guru 7]

I hate to say it, but I prefer WWE's Dean Ambrose over AEW's Jon Moxley. He played off of Reigns and Rollins so well. AEW is packing a ton of good content into each show. There's not much filler going on, which is refreshing.

Really? I feel like he's finally coming into his own since the switch. Reigns was always pushed ahead when Ambrose was the one the crowd wanted to see and hear. He has charisma and now he can show it off. I even like his ring name better.

[Zack T 171]

I saw that from Poppy and I didn't know what to say to that, honestly.

 

We all have different opinions and perspectives, but man I just can't wrap my head around that one. I will wholeheartedly agree that Dean Ambrose feuding or teaming with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns was always fantastic. The Shield is probably my favorite group of all time. However, look at everything else Dean did when he wasn't attached to Seth or Roman and that's the kicker. Dean Ambrose was good, but the way WWE booked and wrote for him only really allowed him to shine when he was dealing with Seth/Roman, but you can't do that forever. He feuded with Seth for seemingly half of 2014 and 2015, and then a little bit more in 2016, and AGAIN in 2018, then reunited with him in 2019. Basically the only times WWE did anything truly good with Dean was when he was with those other guys. Otherwise, they tried to market him as "THE LUNATIC FRINGE!" but had him act more like a goofy silly comedy character who didn't mind getting extreme. They fed him stupid lines and while he's an amazing talent and did his best to make it work, he could've been so much more in WWE than what he was.

 

Jon Moxley is what Dean Ambrose could've been, if WWE had just trusted him a bit more and let him have some more freedom and voice in presenting his character.

[ShadowEdge 48]

I hope AEW sticks with a smaller roster. They need more women, but overall I like it when promotions keep the talent pool pretty narrow. It gives fans a chance to get to know the wrestlers and lets them have a deeper, more complete backstory. I'm still catching up with the group, but I easily remember who is who. On the other hand, WWE's roster is too large to become invested in more than a few of them.

 

I wonder how long most of us will judge everything one promotion does by how the other promotion does it. Probably forever. I know I still crank out, "well, when the WCW was around..."

[Poppy 31]

I saw that from Poppy and I didn't know what to say to that, honestly.

We all have different opinions and perspectives, but man I just can't wrap my head around that one.

I want to enjoy his character. I think he was treated wrong in the WWE, especially towards the end. But, I just don't enjoy his character as much. Maybe it's the name change or maybe it's the personality switch. It just throws me off. Jericho is still Jericho, no matter where he goes. He's changed through the years of course, but his underlying self is always there. But this Moxley guy seems like a whole different person, which reeks of fakeness to me. And I get the whole kayfabe thing, and that each persona probably contains parts of the individual's true personality, but Moxley's is so dramatically different that I find it hard to reconcile. I can still see the talent but not the wrestler. I hope that makes sense. I'm glad you still dig him though.

[Kam 243]

Moxley did hardcore type matches in CZW prior to joining WWE...it looks like he's returned to that character rather than what you saw in WWE.

 

Speaking of Moxley...FULL GEAR!

 

I can't say I was that impressed.

 

Baker/Priestly was fine for the pre-show. I like seeing Kong looking dominant, not so sure about the gold outfit though :P I'm glad they've stepped back on pushing Brandi as a wrestler and focusing more on pushing her as Kong's manager.

 

The opening video was awesome and I liked the stage layout. I didn't like how they kept most of the audience in the dark with just the ringside area lit, it made it feel like not many people were there. I know we did get some pan out camera shots but most of the time it was just who you saw at ringside. Speaking of the crowd, I think this has to be the quietest one I've heard in AEW which didn't help the atmosphere.

 

The tag match with the Young Bucks/P&P was alright, I was hoping for better. I didn't like Nick's leg injury angle...they (commentators) kept pushing it but he still had flurries of jumping all over the place. I know we see stuff like this quite often in wrestling but it seemed to bug me more here. I think it went on a little too long. I did like the involvement of the Rock & Roll Express at the end :)

 

Page/Pac was OK again, some nice spots but it didn't really grab me like I was hoping. I'm surprised Pac lost but I guess Page needed the win also.

 

Spears/Janella was OK.

 

I was confused by the Kip Sabin interview. I thought he was going to bring out Evans and Angelico as a new faction but we get Penelope Ford instead.

 

Tag title match was good, shorter than I expected, all 3 teams had some nice spots. I liked the Fallen Angel reveal at the end too.

 

Riho/Sakura was OK, pretty much what I expected.

 

Jericho/Cody was good although I feel it went too long. I wasn't expecting the MJF turn quite like we saw, I thought they may drag out the towel incident over the new few Dynamites before he snapped. Either way, it finally happened like we all knew it would. Glad Jericho retained.

 

I think I mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of the ultra-hardcore matches (like deathmatches etc)...so I wasn't really looking forward to this. There were quite a few spots where I had to wince (looked like quite a few in the audience were with me there!) - with the barbwire, glass, screwdriver etc - It felt like it lasted forever. I bet both of them are really feeling that today! Moxley winning was as expected...I'm assuming Omega may blame Page/Bucks for not bringing out the barbwire table sooner.

 

Overall, it was OK.

[Kam 243]

Really enjoyed Dynamite this week:

 

- The opener was just right, nice promo from Moxley after the match too.

 

- As soon as Dark Order /Jurassic Express started I was thinking we might see the Dark Order win with a beatdown to follow, causing a Luchasaurus save. I was right (for once) - massive pop for Lunchasaurus, great moment!

 

Darby Allin is OVER!

 

Nyla Rose is finally back, they need to build her up more.

 

Kong looked good, I liked the new entrance spot/lighting.

 

MJF / Jericho was awesome - crowd was red hot for it too. I hope MJF doesn't join The Inner Circle but still has some involvement/connection with them. I'm assuming Wardlow is MJF's new muscle.

 

PAC/Page was good, PAC getting the win was as expected.

 

Nice brawl at the back with the Bucks and P&P...great pop for Orange Cassidy too :)

 

Good main event, I was surprised with Jericho taking the pin but with the amount they're pushing Sky it's not that much of a shock. I guess he'll get a title match at some point not too far away.

 

Overall, an enjoyable episode again.

[Zack T 171]

Nyla's competed a couple times on AEW Dark but I'm glad to see her on Dynamite.

 

I'm enjoying JR's commentary overall. Sometimes I wish he'd not lecture the wrestlers so much - I usually agree with what he's saying, it's just that commentary on Dynamite ain't the place to tell Adam Page that he doesn't make sense doing high flying stuff.

 

Fun episode this week, I agree. The first 3 matches all had immediate post match promo's by the victors, and we also had the LAX/Young Bucks brawl immediately after a match. Clearly they wanted to test out how post-match promos would work Tongue But I liked it, though they shouldn't do it quite so much. But to their credit, it did end up making the show feel like they jam packed it full of stuff.

 

Loved the random Orange Cassidy cameo, and I love that Santana just slowly closed the door on him. So random, but yet so appropriate.

 

I was a bit shocked to see PAC win so decisively. I mean, I'm not shocked at it being decisive because they called this the rubber match and it seemed like they wanted us to buy in to this being the last Adam Page vs PAC match for awhile, but the ending just seemed to completely kill Adam Page. He held most of that match, so I can understand him losing, but wow.

 

Loved all the little things Jericho was doing during the tag title match too. That was a great story they told with that match too - Sammy was young and overconfident and not experienced enough to make good tag team decisions (like not tagging when he should've) and Jericho seeming to not take the match seriously enough, what with the jaw-jacking, the posing (The dual pose him and Sammy did was glorious). I was expecting SCU to beat Sammy, but WOW. Not surprised that Scorpio Sky would get the pin, they've been trying to put him over something fierce on commentary, but wow he gets to be the first to beat Jericho in AEW and he just pinned the world champ. Guess we'll see Scorpio Sky vs Chris Jericho for the AEW World title in the next couple of weeks.

[Kam 243]

@Zack T - Did you watch Full Gear? If yes, what did you make of it?

[Zack T 171]

Overall I liked Full Gear. Was kind of surprised Adam Page beat PAC that night to be honest...and then went on to lose to him so badly the next night. This 50/50 booking isn't exactly 50/50 since PAC is ahead on wins over Page now but it still looks like 50/50 booking since 1 night Page won and the next night PAC won. Didn't do Page any favors in the short term if you ask me, but in the long term he can currently claim to be the only guy who's beaten PAC at all, let alone TWICE in AEW. And when PAC's only been pinned 4 times in 2 years and 2 of those pins go to Adam Page, that is pretty good for him.

 

I think that stuck out to me more than anything else, just because of how odd it seemed that night to me and then the follow up a few days later. Everything else was pretty solid though. I don't think overall it was as good as Double Or Nothing perhaps, but it was quite good and I'm very glad to have watched it. It was rad to have well developed storylines for most of the show :D

[Kam 243]

This was the first week of Dynamite where I thought it was just OK.

 

It started off great with Fenix/Nick Jackson, I had high expectations and it delivered. Glad Fenix won too.

 

The women's match was OK.

 

I didn't like the Dynamite Dozen Battle Royal. Lots of good talent in there but Billy Gunn looked bigger than all of them. I'm not sure why he was made to look so strong too, they really should be pushing their own talent more. MJF/Page should be good next week, although I thought it was strange not having the match on the same night. I can't imagine the fans were happy that they didn't actually get a winner on the night.

 

I LOVED Jericho's walk from the back to the ring, some nice moments there. I didn't think the in-ring promo was as good as some of his previous work. I didn't like the whole SCU baiting Jericho for a title shot, it was so obvious, it just made Jericho look silly making it a title match.

 

P&P/Private Party was alright.

 

Moxley/Allin had its moments but nothing really stood out to end the night for me. They've had some great finishes over the past few weeks but this episode felt a little more subdued than most.

[Zack T 171]

Billy Gunn's size difference casts a light on the size difference between WWE guys and AEW guys. Billy Gunn was not small in WWE, he's 6'5 and around 250 or 260. But he also wasn't the biggest guy either, and while he was taller than a good number of superstars, he never felt like a giant. But in AEW, he was booked to look like Big Show or Braun Strowman would in a battle royal with that "everybody gang up on the big man and then he shoos them all off" spot. But that's because a lot of AEW guys are essentially cruiserweights. I mean even Jericho and Jon Moxley look pretty dang big, and yet we know that in WWE, they were average size AT BEST.

 

That size difference thing isn't necessarily a bad thing, I think it helps them with the prospect of finding talented "big men". Luchasaurus is in that category too, dude is only 6'5 but he looks like Kane or Undertaker compared to everyone else. Having a lower expectation of what a "Big" wrestler is means a few more people will be able to hit that category and you've got a better pool to pick from. When you're looking exclusively for 6'8 and above, you're not gonna find many guys that size and those that are may not be all that good.

 

I really liked AEW this week. Finally watched Dynamite this morning. Seems to me Santana missed the spot where he was supposed to break up that pin. But we recovered and moved past the botch pretty quickly. All in all though, it was a great match and surprising that Private Party got the win, but a good surprise. It was well done.

 

The stream I downloaded once again was Fite.tv with no commercials and it had Jericho walking backstage with Hager just insulting everyone he came across. It was great way to spend a commercial break.

 

This is the 2nd week in a row where Peter Avalon seemed to have something he was going to say, probably would've been a dinosaur promo based on those dino kids books he was holding and facing Luchasaurus. Sadly he seems to have been cut off again, probably due to time. They need to tighten that up a little bit.

 

Overall though, excellent stuff. Fenix and Nick Jackson was damned good, those guys are both so incredible. Fenix winning makes sense.

 

I figured Adam Page and MJF would be the last dudes in that Dynamite Dozen. I was worried that ending with 2 guys might feel anti-climactic but it worked out ok. MJF has pretty heavy heat right now, loved seeing Billy Gunn, he's always been a favorite of mine. Dude still looks amazing too, what the hell. I lol'd pretty hard at the Sonny Kiss/Billy Gunn spot and JR on commentary going "Well you know what Billy Gunn likes" HE'S AN ASS MAN! BEWP BEWP. Also, I wish the commentators and camera crew had picked up on this more but for awhile when Orange Cassidy was chillin in a turnbuckle, Jungle Boy was on the ring apron and crawled over to him and started picking at Cassidy's hair like a monkey and flicking stuff into the crowd, it was hilarious. Sadly no one in the production crew or commentary booth seemed to notice.

 

Hikaru Shida beating Britt Baker made sense too. Something about Britt seemed off though, like she just didn't have her usual fire most of the match. I dunno if she was sick or if that was deliberate or maybe they just don't have much chemistry together, who knows.

 

SCU reverse psychology on Jericho was pretty fun and silly. I also loved how Jericho never said the word Sorry.

 

Moxley and Darby was just great, I loved Darby instantly diving on Mox at the start and it just went heavy after that. That super Paradigm Shift was sick, I thought Darby had broken his freakin' neck. Jesus christ.

[Snarky-Guru 7]

So, Kylie Rae asked to be let out of her contract with AEW to get herself right with GOD, but I'm pretty sure I've seen her on Impact wrestling since then. What's really going on then? Is Rae the first wrestler to walk away from AEW? As far as I can tell, she hasn't trashed the promotion or anything like that. The reason she gave for quitting is suspect though.