-I don’t want to be the guy that harps on this, but why is Will Ospreay going 50/50 with a jobber like Brian Cage for 15 minutes to open the show? There has to be a calculated effort to treat stars like stars and this isn’t that for Ospreay. Would Steve Austin be going 50/50 with Mideon in 1999? No way. Ospreay shouldn’t be either.
Callis Family getting the focus
-As for the Ospreay/Omega vs. Don Callis Family feud, I like the focus that Don Callis and his group are getting across the show. They feel like an important heel faction. Now, we need to see more from Omega and Ospreay, so that the audience can get behind them and their mission to take Don Callis and his crew down. During the beatdown this week, it didn’t feel like the audience was bursting at the seams to see Omega and Ospreay fire up. AEW needs to have that if this is going to come across as a big-time match on a big-time show.
-I liked MJF’s backstage promo quite a bit this week. One of the best things he’s done on the show in weeks. It was simple, to the point, heelish, and not overly cute. He was a heel pro wrestler. Sometimes it’s just that easy.
-Man, Jeff Jarrett is just running political circles around the kids in the AEW locker room these days isn’t he? Hopefully someone is watching him handle his business. The match with Claudio Castagnoli wasn’t great. Jarrett could barely keep up and fans just aren’t invested in his quest to become world champion. The fact that Castagnoli needed two other guys — including Jon Moxley — to help him win the match is unnecessary protection of Jarrett that doesn’t help the top heel group on the show.
Just do it already
-It’s looking like MJF vs. Jarrett is going to be a match on the AEW Grand Slam: Australia card. We don’t need to see it, but getting it over and done with sooner than later is tremendously appealing.
-Ricochet vs. AR Fox this week after AR Fox took on Swerve Strickland last week? That right there is the type of character definition that helps nobody. Fox was the heel last week opposite Swerve, but the babyface this week opposite Ricochet? It’s messy. The match itself was pretty good and Ricochet continues to inject life into his character with the heel turn. Swerve attacking Ricochet and brawling ahead of the showdown on next week’s show was a strong final chapter of build. Good stuff.
Moxley the hypocrite
-Ok, so that Jon Moxley promo on the AEW World Championship belt and the fact that it’s locked away in a briefcase was excellent. Really compelling stuff from Mox. That said, AEW has to find a way to show the hypocrisy of his character more efficiently. He talks like the keeper of the title and says that he’s restoring value to it, but then he cheats to retain it, etc, etc. That has to be the narrative from babyfaces and announcers when it comes to Mox and it needs to be all the time. The heat for Mox as a heel is tied up in that story and if nobody talks about it, he doesn’t shine as much as he should.
-At least Jay White didn’t lose to Wheeler Yuta I guess? White is floundering once again and there just doesn’t seem to be any attention paid to the potential that he has.
-How about that Mariah May promo? I’ve got mixed feelings on this. On the surface, it was a good promo from May. She was confident, well-spoken, and I think she gave the upcoming match with Toni Storm some sizzle with how she talked. At the same time, she really buried the Storm angle from last week. At this point, it essentially felt like the turn to Timeless Toni had no impact on May. If it stays that way, they have a problem, but AEW still has plenty of time to sell that impact, though. After all, Storm wasn’t in front of May this week and if that happens at some point, May can and should sell that the head games Storm is playing are making a difference.
Main event?
-Not a great main event showing for AEW this week. Mercedes Mone vs. Yuka Sakazaki? That’s barely a halfway decent Rampage main event. The match was fine, but nothing special and it ended the show with a bit of yawn.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
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