-This week, MJF proved why he very much is the MVP of AEW right now. The match with Kevin Knight was fantastic. Strong selling from Knight, but an effective mean streak from MJF as well. Not only was this a worthy world championship match, but it worked well to setup the trios main event later with the injured Knight. Well done.
Opportunity cost
-I don’t know how great the tag team between Darby Allin and Orange Cassidy is working at this point. It’s not bad, but there is an opportunity cost with that keeps both those guys away from singles action. Allin certainly is a more effective singles star than he is a tag team act.
-David Finlay and The Dogs are All Elite. Finlay is a nice depth pick-up for AEW, but I don’t get the sense he’s going to be a world title contender anytime soon. That said, depth is important and this is a win for AEW in that regard.
-Huh. The IInspiration lost to The Brawling Birds in about a minute this week. Well, there ya go? One the better parts of AEW programming the last six months has been the women’s tag division. In theory, The IInspiration could have a role in that. After this week, I’m not so sure. The Brawling Birds get another big win and it feels like they may be fast-tracked to a title match against Babes of Wrath at Revolution. That would explain the IInspiration squash.
The wrong focus
-It’s a good thing there is one more week of Dynamite before the Revolution PPV event. Adam Page has a huge world championship match against MJF on that show, but it felt like he had a bigger feud with The Don Callis Family this week. Page put ALL FUTURE WORLD TITLE SHOTS on the line in order to make the match with MJF a Texas Death Match. Focusing on anything else, including the AEW World Trios Championships is silly. That stipulation is too big to avoid. It needs feeding and AEW didn’t give it enough this week.
-Another week and more of the same from Jon Moxley. A solid match against a random opponent in Hechicero, but painfully ill-defined. He’s a babyface, his faction are heels. What gives? This isn’t difficult.
-FTR and The Young Bucks will undoubtedly have a great match at Revolution. Not a doubt in my mind on that one. The feud and the story leaves a lot to be desired. There isn’t any heat. They are resting on the match being good rather than utilizing a strong story to carry things forward.
Yet again … simple is better
-Let me enter into evidence another example of simple being better in pro wrestling. Brody King and Swerve Strickland. “I’m the most dangerous man in AEW!” “No, I’m the most dangerous!” Brawl with chain. Match on PPV. Boom. This ruled.
-Thekla is tremendous. The aura around her screams “star” and she compliments that with a rough in-ring style. Not a surprise to see her beat Thunder Rosa this week. The PPV match is another showdown with Kris Statlander.
-Ya know, the Dax Harwood and Tommaso Ciampa interaction was totally random, but AEW gets an “A” for effort in working to hype the Collision card. Since they’ve started to do that, Collision viewership has gone up. Go figure?
Go, Bailey, go!
-Mike Bailey was absolutely tremendous in the AEW World Trios Championship main event this week. His pace was insane and he stood out offensively and from a selling perspective. Goodness, he was great. As for the title change, it makes sense to get a little more heat on Page vs. MJF. Here’s the thing, though. They are having a death match at Revolution. MJF costing Page and his guys the trios championships is nearly irrelevant compared to that stipulation. That is what needs attention and focus.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
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