-It looks like we’re fixing to see a Konosuke Takeshita babyface turn at AEW Revolution this weekend. Takeshita and Hechicero vs. Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli was a fine match this week on AEW Dynamite, but the angle at the end is what will stick with fans. Takeshita turned down help from The Don Callis Family. I can’t imagine Callis liking that. With that faction bloated anyway, losing Takeshita won’t hurt it much, if at all. Takeshita as a babyface fighting against his old stable is something that can occupy television time for months and months.
Context!!
-So nice to see Willow Nightingale and Persephone get a little promo time backstage to put some context around their title match this week. Neither woman said much, but their interaction and both flexing as alpha’s added intrigue to their match.
-What are we supposed to make of the little backstage interaction between Kyle Fletcher and MJF. A sign of things to come? Fletcher is the TNT Champion, so a showdown with MJF is a ways off. The big takeaway for me was how Fletcher gazed at the championship belt on MJF’s shoulder. Fletcher looked like he belonged with that thing.
-Fletcher vs. Mike Bailey for the TNT Championship was fantastic. It had plenty of spots, but I wouldn’t categorize it as a spot fest. There was more to it than that. It had pace, rhythm, flow, and some targeted selling by both guys. Fletcher got serious air on his Michinoku Driver and it looked glorious. Fletcher got the win, but the finish left the door wide open for another rematch sooner than later.
From The Takedown on SI
-Another squash match! These just rule. Brody King dominated a local jobber and got a nice win that simply took a few seconds. The angle with Swerve Strickland after the match fed the PPV match effectively. The chain that King broke looked like something from my daughter’s toy bin, but they got the point across. Strickland threw on good facial expressions for that moment, but they fell a little flat because of how awful the chain looked.
True babyface promos work
-If you missed it this week, your homework is to go back and watch the promo Mike Bailey cut with Renee Paquette after his match against Fletcher. It was a straight up babyface promo. It ran down Fletcher for cheating and talked up what would happen should the two men wrestle again. More important than that, Bailey was proud of being a good guy and trying to win matches the right way. In both companies, that is sacrificed for more nuanced characters, but fans want something to get behind. Bailey grabbed some attention with this mic work.
-The Dogs vs. Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin was what it was, but I loved seeing The Dogs go over again. Tony Khan appears to be willing to put some elbow grease into booking this new team. It takes patience and wins. Glad to see Khan stick with trying to make Gabe Kidd, David Finlay, and Clark Connors a real menacing group with actual credibility.
A beautiful finish
-The TBS Championship match between Willow Nightingale and Persephone was all about the finish. Perfect psychology. The announce team spent a lot of the match talking about Persephone beating Mercedes Mone over the weekend. When it came time, Persephone tried to beat Willow with the same move that beat Mone. She couldn’t hit the move and lost the match. A very sports-like ending that involved a clean loss, but one with logical reasoning and story behind it. Both women will go back to this finish in a future match. Mark my words.
-You know me, I’m over the six-man Young Bucks style tag team matches. If you still enjoy those, the main event this week is must-see for you. The Bucks and Mark Briscoe lost to FTR and Tommaso Ciampa. The action as wild, all around the ring, and urgent. Smart to put the heels over. It leaves The Bucks and Briscoe chasing into Revolution on Sunday and beyond.
-This show did not need a press conference out of the ring in the true main event slot. The live crowd hated that MJF and Adam Page were backstage and in front of planted media rather than them. Can you blame them? The press conference itself was awkward and the exact same storyline notes coming out of it could have been created more effectively with a standard in-ring promo.
Get your credit card out
-As soon as the barbed wire board was pulled out from the under the ring, I was worried we’d see either MJF or Page dropped into it. I swear, that’s exactly what we would’ve saw three years ago. AEW is learning. The idea is to make people want to pay to see that happen in the actual match on Sunday. MJF and Page set a great hook for their Revolution main event.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
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