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AEW DYNAMITE, MAY 1, 2024
CLEANING UP
After last week's much talked about, and frankly, disastrous show closing angle, the question would be, what would the follow up be? Unfortunately Tony Khan’s selling throughout the week left a lot to be desired, and did more to turn this whole thing into a comedy skit, rather than a heated pro wrestling angle. If Tony had disappeared from the public eye last week, and left us wondering about his condition, this would have been a whole lot more effective.
However, the follow up on this week's Dynamite, was encouraging and a step in the right direction. Right away we got an explanation as to why The Elite weren’t fired, and will have power in the company. Should this have been explained weeks ago? Does it have flaws? Yes. But we are getting somewhere. Some of The Young Bucks tone in their backstage segments was too comedic and ironic for my liking, as well as references to a "new era", which could be a shot at WWE. Jack Perry has definitely made improvements as a talker during his time in New Japan.
The big angle on this week's show was centred around the return of Kenny Omega and boy did he deliver. This may have been the best promo of Omega’s career. It was certainly his best in AEW and easily his best babyface work since the promotion began. This was real, emotional, compelling and did so much to add legitimacy to this angle, and give people a real reason to care. Then the coin dropped…
The groundwork has been laid for an Okada vs Omega match, and if handled with care, will be a major match for the company. Omega’s “give me a couple of months” comment suggests this could be happening at All In. Please do not rush to this, and make everyone care, not just those that already know the history between these two.
So the power struggle has begun. Authority figure stories have been done to death in American wrestling over the past 20 years, and I can’t really remember the last time there was a good one. But there is something here. Is it too late for people to care about more Elite drama? Quite possibly. Has the Tony Khan and CM Punk silliness already turned people off the idea of any of this? Even more possibly. Could we have gotten here without weeks of embarrassment in the form of releasing the Punk tape, last week's angle and everything in between? Absolutely. And I have no doubt that more people would care about this had AEW stayed away from both those things on route to getting here. But if this leads to a major Okada vs Omega match, and Omega finally being presented as one of the top babyface stars in the company, this will have been worth it.
CHRISTIAN IS BACK
Swerve Strickland has his first PPV challenger in the form of Christian Cage. This is without a doubt the right guy for the job. Christian is a veteran that can help cement Swerve as a top guy, and one of the best true heels in the company that can get Swerve over as a pure babyface. The angle here was really good and referencing the history between Swerve and Nick Wayne, as well as Christian and Swerve’s All In history was a nice touch to add some depth to this new storyline. I would have liked to have seen more suspense built throughout the show before Christian was revealed, because this did make the world title seem secondary to The Elite angle again. Why did The Elite give this match to Christian and not Jack Perry? There is a logic gap there. Why did The Embassy not save Swerve? His association with them will have to be addressed, and whether they're babyfaces or heels will need to be cleared up pretty soon, as I had absolutely no idea who the babyface or heel was when Brian Cage collided with Claudio Castagnoli later in the show. But this is a much deeper issue in AEW, and one that needs fixing.
HOUSE OF COPE
Adam Copeland vs Buddy Matthews was probably Cope’s weakest outing in AEW thus far. This felt like a ten minute match stretched out to twenty. We know that Copeland vs Malakai Black is the end goal here, so we knew that Matthews had exactly zero chance of winning the TBS title. So what we got was a long, heatless match, where we knew the outcome. The dead crowd did not help, something that was an issue for most of this show. This would have been better off as a non title match, because then we may have believed that Matthews may have gotten some sort of win to further this storyline. Malakai encouraging Copeland to use the chair was a nice interesting touch and it’s about time we are seeing Black do something of substance in AEW. This is his first singles story that I can recall since his introduction to AEW vs Cody Rhodes in 2021.
ENTERTAINING JERICHO
Chris Jericho had an entertaining match. Mark it down. This was the best thing Jericho has done in quite some time. This was an incredibly fun match with Katsuyori Shibata with Jericho really hamming it up. There were some great trade off spots, with Jericho failing miserably every time. Shibata squaring off with Jericho while wearing a trash can on his head was an amazing image. I like the idea of Big Bill as Jericho’s muscle, especially if he ends up doing all the work for Jericho, and Jericho acts like he did it all on his own. This has some legs as an undercard act, exactly where Jericho should be at this stage of his career. Now, if he can ACTUALLY put some people over, without making it about himself, he may be able to redeem himself in a small way. We will wait and see if that happens.
I can be reached at matthewmacklin90@gmail.com
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