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WHAT A MESS
We are a long, long way from Tony Khan saying he would never become a character on his own TV show. This is one of those things where the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Let's ignore how bad Tony Khan is as a TV performer for a minute, and the amazing lack of self awareness to even put himself in this position as a performer, and the damage this is doing to the perception of his company. Even taking that out of the equation, this was bad on every level. At no point on TV has it been explained by anyone that Jack Perry was suspended, or why he was, so unless you are following this crap online, you probably don’t really understand what any of this is about to any major degree. There was nothing to lay it out, nothing to present this angle as an important confrontation, it was all done with the assumption that people read wrestling news sites or twitter religiously. Why did Tony just reinstate Perry? No consequences for a suspended performer jumping in the ring during a title match last Sunday? Is he really a heel? Because he has been allowing The Young Bucks to do what they want (while standing beside them at times), with zero consequence for weeks. Why did no one attempt to save Tony from this attack? Surely it wasn’t out of fear of being fired, because we know that Tony is the boss and has more power than the EVPs. By Tony’s own logic that led to CM Punk being fired, which was made part of kayfabe, shouldn’t all of these guys be fired immediately? I’m developing a throbbing headache just thinking about this. Unfortunately, yet again, people are going to be talking about AEW for all the wrong reasons. It isn’t the new world champion, or the killer match Bryan Danielson & Will Ospreay had last Sunday, things that generated some positive talk about AEW for the first time in weeks. This was Dixie Carter in TNA levels of bad. This Elite group actually has, or had some potential, but the whole thing has been so badly thought out and presented to the point where it's hard to even comprehend that people sat around and planned this out in this way, with so many logic gaps and flaws, and thought it was a good idea. What’s next? Probably a lot of heel boss related rubbish, something that has been done to death in American wrestling over the past 20 years, and I have no faith that this will be any better based on how we’ve gotten here.
WHO'S THE CHAMP?
If you weren’t paying attention, you could easily have thought Jon Moxley was the new AEW world champion. He got promo time, he was in the main event, defending a world championship (from another company). Willow Nightingale was given a championship celebration and felt like a more important champion than the new AEW world champion. Swerve Strickland, just days removed from the biggest moment of his career, took 15 minutes to beat a guy that never wins on television. And that was it. No recap to open the show, no promo time, nothing to get over what a huge moment it should be to crown a new world champion, even more so as the first black world champion in the company. He came across as another wrestler carrying a belt, having a wrestling match. Swerve Strickland should have been the focus of this episode of Dynamite and nothing less. A promo, celebrating his moment, and setting up his mission going forward would have been way more beneficial than a 50/50 wrestling match against a lower tier guy. Why was Kyle Fletcher given an opportunity at the champion when he is 0-5 on TV? What about people with strong records? Why don’t any of the people that beat Fletcher show any interest in challenging for his ROH TV title?. Kyle Fletcher is an immense talent with huge potential, and absolutely makes the most of every opportunity he’s given. But from a booking standpoint, this does nothing to help anyone, even Kyle, who despite taking top names to the limit in TV matches, is completely lost in the shuffle and directionless.
A STEP BACK
Will Ospreay, just days ago, beat Bryan Danielson in one of the greatest and most celebrated matches in AEW history. Three days later we had no follow up on Bryan Danielson’s condition, or anything of substance to move this story forward outside of a few references to Ospreay no longer wanting to use the Tiger Driver 91. Instead, Will Ospreay was thrown in a “gauntlet match” for a shot at AEWs fourth most important singles championship. Fifth if you include the IWGP championship. I say “gauntlet match” because this was completely different to any gauntlet match I have ever seen. Which would have been fine if they made any effort to explain the rules, or clued the announcers in as to what was going on. At one point Tony Schiavone said there would be 21 entrants, and minutes later, the match ended, after 8 entrants. This went on for an eternity and seemed like a bizarre use of TV time, other than to come up with an excuse to get a load of guys in the ring to perform cool spots and sequences. Will Ospreay will challenge Roderick Strong for the AEW International title at Double or Nothing, which in my opinion is a step back for Ospreay. After a statement win, he should be moving forward in the top mix with more top stars to continue building him as an important main event level figure in the company. Could he win the title and go on to have a great reign that elevates the belt? No doubt. But is it where he should be? Probably not.
A GOOD NIGHT FOR MERCEDES
After an excellent debut, Mercedes Mone has had a rocky start to her AEW run. Thankfully this was a much stronger week for her, and her story with Willow Nightingale got some juice behind it. Willow was fantastic here as the infectious new TBS champion. She comes across as the most genuine babyface in the company, so much so that the crowd were turning on Mercedes, who is a natural heel. That’s the only way this can go, if one of them is to turn on the other. Turning Willow would be a monumentally bad decision. This was the highlight of the show for me.
A BAD NIGHT
From a creative standpoint, this was one of the worst ever episodes of AEW Dynamite. This is a company that seems to have their priorities in the wrong place and are consistently making poor creative choices that are a determinant to the perception of the company, and their insanely stacked talent roster. From the lack of attention on Swerve, to Chris Jericho, the least self aware man in wrestling, doing a self aware gimmick, to the unfortunate injury to Powerhouse Hobbs, this was a bad night. Audio issues in the first hour of the show certainly did not help. The story between Toni Storm & Mariah May has some potential with the addition of Mina Shirakawa. But again, unless you are a Stardom watcher, there is very little reason to care, and Serena Deeb being added to the mix made this have way too much going on. After a really strong and well received Dynasty show last Sunday, they failed to capitalise on the positives coming out of that show. Instead they are giving more fuel to people to mock the company, and less of a reason to tune in.
I can be reached at matthewmacklin90@gmail.com
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