-So, the no-contest finish in the main event left a lot to be desired. Tony, you can put someone over there? Why not? If it’s The Death Riders, well, that makes sense. After all, Moxley is the world champion. A win there doesn’t hurt the babyfaces. Same thing the other way. If you decide Cassidy and White gotta go over, cool. You pin PAC and move on. In the end, this match had good action in it, but meant nothing because there wasn’t a winner.
It is what it is
-We finally arrived at the fatal four-way match for the AEW World Championship that has been brewing for weeks. It is what it is, folks. It’s not great, but AEW has positioned everyone in this match to logically have a case to be there. Jay White suffers the most because of this stipulation. To me, he’s got the most momentum and is the freshest challenger that Moxley has.
-Ok, you got me. I get a kick out of the Bandido vignettes. Sue me.
-Let’s talk about that Christian Cage promo. Not a bad promo by any stretch of the imagination, but it fell flat. Why? Because it was against the top heel champion on the show, who Cage is chasing. This is a bad alignment job on the part of Tony Khan and it leads to weakened crowd reactions across the board.
-Thumbs up match for Claudio Castagnoli and Will Ospreay. No surprise there. This year’s Continental Classic is still searching for the standout match. Just haven’t seen the match of the tournament yet.
Help us Hurt Syndicate, you’re Ricochet’s only hope
-Ummmmmm, so about that Ricochet promo. Yikes. We don’t know yet whether or not Ricochet was going for this, but he was extremely unlikable. He looked arrogant, cocky, obnoxious, and uncomfortable all at the same time. He flashed MVP’s business card and honestly, a move to The Hurt Syndicate would do wonders for him. I’d be pitching Tony Khan hourly on that topic if I were him.
-Matt Cardona is a solid draw opposite Chris Jericho for the barely hanging by a thread ROH brand. He cut a good promo this week, too. Seems like a guy with upside with a lot of his career ahead of him that AEW should want to take a look at for their main roster.
-Finally. FINALLY, the Adam Cole vs. MJF match is happening. Look, nothing about this feud makes much sense. The Cole and O’Reilly stuff doesn’t either. Cole vs. O’Reilly was only ok this week. All that said, if we get to MJF vs. Cole and this all goes away, it’ll be better for all involved. Cheers to that.
-This week’s Chris Jericho New York Minute > last week’s Chris Jericho New York Minute.
The taking over is … over
-Ok, Darby Allin clocked himself in the face during his sit-down interview with Tony Schiavone. Geez, that dude is insane, but it helped make for a good promo from a delivery and intensity perspective. The problem with it was that the core storyline of Jon Moxley taking over AEW has totally fizzled. He’s just a regular heel now and you know what? That’s ok. It’s better that way. Moxley “taking over” is too hard to pull off anyway. Now, the others around the storyline have to stop talking about him that way too. No more “save AEW” stuff. It’s over. Commentary needs to clean that narrative up as well.
-A strong match from Ricochet and Brody King this week. Absolutely thought there would be some Hurt Syndicate involvement given the tease earlier, but alas, nada.
-Glad to see that Mercedes Mone and Anna Jay got some time to hype up their match next week. Jay has to find some authenticity when she talks. I rarely buy what she’s selling and it hurts her feuds. She’s come a long way, but has a long way to go.
She’s back
-Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa delivered in the main event. Good little match that Toni Storm stole all the glory from when she made her return. Smart for AEW to drop the “Timeless” gimmick. That had it’s time and place, but Storm can be a tremendous babyface. She can’t be one inside of whatever Timeless Toni Storm was. This is a solid pivot.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
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