-The opening tag team match this week featuring Will Ospreay and Adam Page against Konosuke Takeshita and Josh Alexander was really good. Never a doubt on that. What stood out even more than the good match was the chemistry between Ospreay and Page as upcoming opponents at Double or Nothing. Both guys were likable, but you could cut the tension between the two with a knife. That’s the tone and dynamic that you want to emphasize and they did it perfectly. This was a drama builder rather than a story of “can the babyfaces coexist” and it was effective and damn entertaining.
Ricochet > Rollins
-I did not imagine I’d ever write what I’m about to write, but here it goes. Seth Rollins needs to take a page out of the Ricochet playbook as he works heel in his new faction with Paul Heyman in WWE. Ricochet was tremendous out there this week. He’s shed much of the exciting parts of what he can do in the ring in order to get heat. The fun flips and dives aren’t really there and when they are, they are calculated from a timing perspective and the context around them is very heelish in nature. He’s getting legit heat and it’s a blast to watch.
-Zach Gowen didn’t disappoint. He’s the ultimate babyface that wrestled like one, impressed with his athleticism, but then did the appropriate job to get the heel over. Thumbs up and a good use of a one-off appearance.
-That’s it? All that lead up and build for that? MJF is in The Hurt Syndicate — for now — and AEW better have something big planned for next week. In the building, it felt like the crowd got a bit deflated when MJF joined the group, but nothing else happened in terms of an angle to kickoff a real feud. The audience was expecting more. Look, the bottom line is this. If MJF has a run as a real part of The Hurt Syndicate for any length of time, AEW has a mess on their hands. We’ve seen this exact kind of thing from MJF before and the final result is a weak babyface that lacks depth. This has to end with MJF staying heel at the expense of Bobby Lashley, MVP, and Shelton Benjamin.
All Mina
-The women’s fatal four-way eliminator match had some good action in it, but really felt like a one woman show once Mina Shirakawa was announced as a participant. She certainly captured the crowd’s attention and a match with Toni Storm on PPV at Double or Nothing — while not fresh — is the right way to go without other options shining bright.
-Yikes. Daniel Garcia and Daddy Magic were both positioned for strong babyface pops opposite FTR, but neither got one. The audience sat on their hands for most of the segment and seems to not really care much at all about where this story is going. I can’t blame them. There is no reason to invest in Danny Garcia at this point and Daddy Magic is just a gimmicky comedy act. They aren’t taken seriously, so FTR gets no real heat by beating them up.
Violence over spots
-I liked the cage match world championship main event between Jon Moxley and Samoa Joe. It was slow and plodding at times, but out of that came some hard-hitting action and a match that tonally felt like a real fight. High spots and cage bumps were replaced with sheer violence and that worked for the competitors in the match.
-The post-match madness was all there to setup Anarchy in the Arena at Double or Nothing. I’m over the Anarchy in the Arena concept at this point, but give AEW credit, they’ve tried to tell a long story between the Mox side and the Swerve side of this coin in an effort to make Anarchy in the Arena feel necessary.
What did you think of this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite? Let us know in the comments!
Subscribe to the Brass Ring Media YouTube channel HERE.
Become a Brass Ring Media member HERE.