-The crowd in France was wild all throughout the show this week. Loud, energetic, and crazy. Overall, the show would’ve been really good no matter what, but the audience most assuredly enhanced the vibe and aura.
Kofi doesn’t have bad matches
-Bandido doesn’t have bad matches. Been saying it for like a year! Neither does Kofi anymore. Add him to the same list. These two were great. Smooth, but not too smooth where you lost the sense of a fight. Plus, Bandido — the ROH World Champion — won. He doesn’t get too many singles victories on AEW television, but this was a smart one to give him with another trios title match ahead between their two squads.
-It’s odd to say, but because of The New Level, the world trios titles are one of the top AEW stories right now. Well, The New Level and the always engaging Adam Page and Swerve Strickland rivalry. Did you hear the crowd reaction to them just looking at one another? Huge.
-Jack Perry doesn’t have a clue what his character is at the moment. I’m not sure he ever really has as a singles act in AEW, but he’s lost right now. Is he edgy and violent? Scrappy? A comedy guy? He throws it all at the wall to see what sticks and none of it does.
-I’m intrigued with the new Clockwork Carnage match and Samoa Joe needed to qualify. He very much beat the tar out of Perry, which was fun to watch, but he helps give the new match credibility. Former world champion and star power. Makes perfect sense.
The Death Riders reset
-Jon Moxley is going to face Mark Davis at WrestleDream for the AEW Continental Championship. Yes, that’s totally out of the blue, but what can you do? PAC passing away changed the entire trajectory of television for The Death Riders — Moxley included. Davis isn’t a great opponent, but he’s AN opponent and Moxley needs one for the PPV.
-Man, Darby Allin took a damn beating against Kyle Fletcher. He bled, he landed on tables, and just did all the Darby stuff. Won the match too. A total Darby style match in that regard. The Brainbuster on the turnbuckle was brutal and Allin sold it as such. The blood helped.
-I’m pretty sure I’ve never commented on this before, but I’m a big fan of the Renee Paquette cut-ins as wrestlers make their entrances. She’s done it for a while on television now, but it helps present the product in a sports-like way. Something that UFC does on a regular basis.
-Mercedes Mone vs. Queen Aminata was a good match, but not in the upper tier of what Mone has done in AEW. The match was not designed to be that. Mone got a strong win and now she moves on to Thekla at WrestleDream. The angle with Thekla and Mone at the end of the match was fine for what it was, but these two need microphones in their hands next week for a final chapter of build. Thekla is too good to not take advantage of that opportunity.
Ospreay. Okada. Free TV.
-I mean, Will Ospreay vs. Kazuchika Okada in the main event for the AEW Men’s World Championship was Will Ospreay vs. Kazuchika Okada for the AEW Men’s World Championship. A very good match and what else did you expect? Exciting, but built around making sure Ospreay went over strong. Ospreay got a very nice pop from the audience in France and very much came across as the top guy in the company because of it. All of that said, like Mone, this wasn’t an Ospreay classic. In a strange way, that was one of the better things about it.
What was the match of the night at AEW Grand Slam France? Let us know in the comments.
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