-It was nice seeing Will Ospreay open up the show this week. Big stars do that and it’s smart to continue positioning Ospreay as that big star. The match itself against Shibata was excellent as expected, but confusing at points too. Why is Shibata kicking out of the Oscutter at one? Spots like that are self-indulgent and run counter to the goal of getting Ospreay over as the biggest star in your company. Shibata is a star inside certain pockets of the AEW fanbase only — he’s not a broad top tier talent. Presenting Ospreay as a guy that needs nearly 25 minutes to beat someone like that? Be careful.
But, what about the tone?
-Well, the backstage promo segment with The Young Bucks this week certainly wasn’t the worst one they’ve done. Growth? Maybe. There still is a comedic tone that surrounds them, which impacts their ability to get real invested heat from the crowd. Again, this wasn’t bad and they actually did a nice job of laying out their purpose moving forward, but tone is important too. Nicholas and Matthew are both missing in that department right now.
-Sports car Kazuchika Okada is a stellar Okada character pivot. The problem is, he’s still not getting booed.
-Young Bucks vs. Private Party? Thumbs up. Lots of action, the audience was into that action, and obviously The Bucks going over with the win made the most sense. Look for them to win the tag titles at Dynasty.
-AEW took a page out of the WWE playbook this week and featured two very well produced video packages that highlighted the main event between Konosuke Takeshita and Swerve Strickland. With a shot a the AEW World Championship on the line in that match, these pieces worked wonders to frame up the two combatants as big stars, but also the stakes at hand and what they meant to each guy. Really well done and fingers crossed that Tony Khan continues to do more of it.
Bet
-Hook said “bet” on live television, so obviously his segment with Chris Jericho this week was a hit. Seriously though, with the expectation of Jericho and Hook becoming a tag team this week, the fact that Jericho is merely an advisor to Hook is 100% fine with me.
-Good god. Get Mercedes Mone away from the commentary table as quick as possible. Forever. It felt as if the announce team was tirelessly working to pry something of substance from her in terms of analysis on the fatal four-way women’s match she was out there for and Mone just didn’t budge. She laughed here and there, but looked bored the entire time. Bottom line? The introduction of Mone into the AEW ecosystem has been a flop so far. Commentary is obviously not a strong place for her, but worse than that, she’s embroiled with a bunch of mid-card acts. Willow Nightingale, Skye Blue, Julia Hart, and Kris Statlander are all tier three or below in AEW. Why is Mone bothering with them? AEW needs to get this fixed quickly to realize Mone’s full potential.
-It was jarring to see The Butcher out of his usual get up. However, he dropped some funny one-liners while interacting with Dustin Rhodes backstage. New character alert for Butcher? We’ll see.
Pull the plug
-What do you say about Undisputed Kingdom at this point? I mean, the two members of the group who are ROH World Tag Team Champions lost to Best Friends and will not be a factor in who becomes the next AEW World Tag Team Champions. There just isn’t anything left for that faction. It’s been a botch from the beginning and the best play at this point is to end it. Pull the plug. Put it out of it’s misery. It’s time. If the group isn’t going to play in positions like this one on the card, what’s the point?
-Here’s a hard dose of reality. Kyle O’Reilly doesn’t have a high ceiling in AEW. That said, it was smart to follow-up on his first AEW win. At the very least, there is continuity present — something AEW has lacked since it became a company.
All you, Swerve
-And there we go. Swerve Strickland is the number one contender for the AEW World Championship and will face Samoa Joe at Dynasty. Swerve beat Takeshita in a very good match that I only wish wouldn’t have started out with a damn handshake. How silly is that? Now, that aside, they told a good story with Swerve. He earned his shot at the title, he’s been talking about the importance of that title shot for weeks, and now he has Joe in a one-one-one match. Thumbs way up. Sidebar: Takeshita was inches away from landing directly onto his head during the finish of this match. Glad he was ok because I gasped.
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