-Another week and another stellar recorded promo from Jon Moxley to start the show. When Moxley is clicking he is a special performer. Mox keeps alluding to “something else,” but hasn’t given any clues or tips as to what that might be. It’s intriguing, but AEW has been here before. They need a home run payoff.
Danielson, is that it?
-Bryan Danielson’s recorded promo that followed and that responded to a Claudio Castagnoli interview from earlier in the day wasn’t as stellar. Not stellar at all actually. Danielson was fired up and that worked, but he left so much on the table in terms of what the match with Mox means to him. Very one-note material when there was a lot of depth to wade through.
-Darby Allin needs to avoid talking about his journey to AEW. We know the story, Darby and it worked to help get him more comfortable talking as a character. Pull back on it now. Darby needs to come across as a star and he can’t do that when he continues to talk about himself sleeping in his car on the indies. Same thing with Brody King in this case. Starving on the indies isn’t unique and guys like Darby and King both should be. All that said, Darby is going to get a lot out of this WrestleDream match. King is going to pulverize him, but he’s surely going to win. That’s going to come across great in front of that audience.
-I need more for Hologram. Not from an in-ring standpoint, but from a presentation standpoint. He’s called Hologram for goodness sake. That comes with some king of impressive entrance with cool music — think Rey Mysterio getting launched out of the stage for his WWE debut. He doesn’t have any of that right now.
-Sure, Jake Roberts managing Rush, Mortos, and Dralistico is a bit out of left field, but all three of those characters can use a mouthpiece. Jake can deliver that for them. In the end, this still feels like the bottom of the Collision roster to me.
Daniel Garcia is back, but with bad instincts
-Sorry Daniel Garcia, but your big return promo was a mess. Yikes. What the heck was the guy talking about? Look, if you’re a diehard AEW fan, maybe you know Garcia’s contract with AEW expired. It wasn’t a story that ever touched AEW television, though. In that instance, there is no way a promo with that being a central focus should hit the air. Garcia looked silly for that, but doubled down on the silliness by calling himself one of the best wrestlers in the world. Again, on television, he’s anything but that. The journey is him getting to that point and he neutered it by putting all his chips on the table at once.
-Good to see Willow Nightingale pick up a big win to secure a world championship match against Mariah May at WrestleDream. She brings it every time she’s out there and should factor in more significantly to what AEW does.
-I liked the squash win for Jay White a lot. They are simple, but they are an effective tool to maintain momentum. White has a lot and while the match with Adam Page on PPV should be a great one, it’s a shame he has to likely take a loss … again.
-If AEW builds the story correctly, the audience will be salivating at the notion of Hook destroying Christian Cage. This one calls for a slow burn and step one was this week. Thumbs up.
Get it together Stokely
-Stokely Hathaway is moving on to another client? Private Party? It was good to see Private Party turn him down, though I think them coming together is on the horizon sooner than later. The bigger question is what happened between him and Kris Statlander. After that big heel turn, she’s back to being a babyface and without Hathaway? AEW needs to explain this. If not, why will people care about Statlander?
-Well, it’s good to see that Will Ospreay finally figure it out and realize what a scumbag Don Callis is. Not sure what took him so long, but better late than never. Konosuke Takeshita should be the heel that takes advantage of their fallout and that will be good for his act. It felt like they were building an Ospreay vs. Takeshita match with the angle they did this week. Ricochet very much felt like a third wheel. Could that mean he’s winning?
-Mercedes Mone vs. Emi Sakura was a fun match. No drama, but fun stylistically. With what Mone is getting paid, she’s got to deliver more than just that.
Good main event, bad final PPV hype
-Good tag team main event between the teams of Bryan Danielson & Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli & PAC. All four guys worked hard and well together. So, a good match, but pretty awful final hype for the Danielson vs. Moxley PPV main event. Yeah, they brawled a little bit, but with Danielson’s full-time career potentially coming to an end on Saturday, he needed to talk about that with Moxley and in front of people. That is the biggest avenue to heat, intrigue, and investment in the match aside from the world title. Totally abandoning it in the final moments available to sell the PPV was an odd choice.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
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