-AEW leaned into their own “where the best wrestle” tagline in putting together the special three-hour AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision broadcasts on Wednesday night. Both of those shows were loaded with wrestling. Like, in-ring action. The result was two fun shows, but shows that felt a bit inconsequential outside of strictly being the home to good matches.
RIP Ted Turner
-I thought Sting and Tony Schiavone worked in a touching tribute to Ted Turner in kicking off the show this week. Turner was a major figure in the television industry and the pro wrestling business. It was the right move for Tony Khan to green light this on TBS, a network that is synonymous with Turner. Khan usually gets stuff like this right and he did again with the Turner memorial.
-Jon Moxley and Juice Robinson haven’t had a bad match together, so their match was a strong way to start the show. Moxley got the win and it seemed as if the audience enjoyed seeing him. Heel? Babyface? Who the hell knows? And that’s a problem.
-The Death Riders and Will Ospreay pre-tape video was well-done, but it’s not at all clear what AEW wants the audience to feel about this. Are fans supposed to feel sympathetic to Ospreay because he can’t see he’s being manipulated? Are they supposed to be excited for Ospreay to work alongside Jon Moxley so he can find himself ahead of a run to the championship? The issue with this is the lack of definition around Moxley and The Death Riders.
-Orange Cassidy vs. Dax Harwood worked for what it was, but probably wouldn’t have gotten the time that it did had it not been for the three-hour format of the show this week. It seemed strange for Harwood to lose this match. Ahead of facing a legendary tag team in a huge “I Quit” Street Fight on PPV in a couple weeks? Odd.
Stadium Stampede is back
-Well, per Chris Jericho this week, the Stadium Stampede Match is returning to AEW at Double or Nothing. Jericho and some partners against The Demand. I’m good with this. It’s essentially a comedy match at this point, so it would make no sense for Tony Khan to load up the match with main event stars that would be better utilized elsewhere on the card. This match in the middle of the card enhances the show overall and will give nice closure to the Jericho vs. Ricochet feud.
-Kazuchika Okada has perfected being a total asshole. Okada was wonderful this week. The match with Bryan Keith was good and his arrogance around Takeshita is making that match very compelling for Double or Nothing. The one thing I’d pivot on with him is this newly added chase for the world title. He’s not going to beat Darby Allin next week to win it and I think we all know how that will go down. Enter Takeshita. So, why do it? Okada going for the AEW World Championship is a big deal and can move numbers if it’s done right. I’d have like to have seen more attention paid to the significance of that moment rather than just have it thrown together in a week.
From The Takedown on SI
-Are you buying what AEW is trying to sell with Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida? Their team is fine and the company needs strong women’s tag teams, but these two are sold to the audience as having a much closer history than they really do.
Another W for Darby
-Darby Allin and Kevin Knight brought it with a ridiculously hard-hitting main event. These two ran all around the wrestling match spectrum with some mat wrestling at the beginning and some insane high spots with coast to coasts and tables by the end. The match certainly fit nicely inside the AEW World Championship title reign story for Darby Allin.
-Is MJF going to lose his hair? Nah. Yeah, when Darby Allin said he wanted MJF to put something on the line in order to get a rematch for the AEW World Championship, I thought he meant something more serious. MJF loves his hair and that’s fine, but I think if I were Darby, I’d rather have MJF’s diamond ring. MJF’s hair being on the line in this title match tells the audience transparently that Allin isn’t retaining the championship at Double or Nothing.
-All of the matches on AEW Collision were total filler stuff. Not a lot of drama around who was going to win each one, but totally fine from an in-ring perspective. The momentum on the show very much slowed down because of this.
-What is with this Jack Perry “national” bus tour thing? This is so, so dorky and only pulls a reaction of annoyance from me.
The Young Bucks can do that
-The main event was loaded with action and pulled the audience attention back. If nothing else, The Young Bucks can do that and they delivered to that end in this spot. Thumbs up way to end a solid show overall.
What did you think of AEW Dynamite and Collision this week? Let us know in comments!
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