Overall Evaluation and Achieved Goals
This felt like their take on RAW After Mania… a Dynamite After Double Or Nothing, if you will. There was a ton of meat and they hit every beat – forward movement, squashes, angles, debuts, setups, next PPV build. A Battle Royal! TYSON VS. JERICHO!
Humor, high spots, and an HBO MAX sponsorship – this was undoubtedly a fantastic professional wrestling show.
Areas of Excellence Within Performance
There were a bunch of bits here I trust will be referenced in the future – the Young Bucks attacking butcher & Blade during their match, Orange Cassidy walking into Inner Circle‘s camera shot, Colt Cabana being handed a Dark Order leaflet during the Battle Royal. They’re still bringing up Private Party‘s win over the Bucks – that’s respect.
I normally watch WWE with the face of a concerned parent, but The Inner Circle‘s cold open made me laugh out loud. Ortiz stole the show with his excitement over CARLOS BEING THERE, and the reveal that they had a truck full of Stadium Stampede Champions t-shirts was so well done I bought one.
Yeah, it was the ultimate wrestling show – a wrestling show that got me to buy a t-shirt.
The Young Bucks called for progressively younger versions of Matt Hardy in another actually funny backstage bit, which made me wonder if I had ingested drugs as I don’t think I’ve ever seen two wrestling comedy segments deliver in a row.
FTR or The Revival did the thing they kept hinting they’d do and have made the jump to AEW. It was a solid debut, hilariously small cool guy car aside. They had a showdown with the Bucks and brawled with Butcher & Blade. I liked Wheeler having trouble with big Butcher leading to Hardwood – yeah I’ve accepted these names – having to back him up. It was very uhh Four Horsemen esque.
Best Brian Cage match I ever did see.
Britt Baker is the best act in wrestling, somehow a mix of both overt and understated obnoxiousness. There was a lot to digest here: JR’s annoyance, Tony Schiavone standing by, the fireworks, “Roll Model” on the back of the wheelchair, the injury becoming progressively more serious. Her connecting dots between Aubrey Edwards and her injuries was amazing – this is the doublespeak bullshit character we need in this era of doublespeak bullshit.
Cody did another great promo, just not sure why any wrestler would promise great matches.
SoCal Uncensored vs. Kip Sabian & Jimmy Havoc for a shot at the Tag Titles – not a fun match, not an exciting result, but a FINE story beat with Sabian & Havoc made slightly more relevant and another setback for the passive aggressive SoCal dads.
The TNT Title #1 Contender Battle Royal properly showcased all the knuckleheads AEW has introduced us too, and though there were plenty of fine moments my favorite might have been Austin Gunn‘s unconcealed excitement as Billy entered: “that’s my dad!”
The show ended with The Inner Circle having a pep rally, and there’s something to say about how consistent these guys are with their sports entertainment. Then Mike Tyson came out with a crew of MMA fighters and Rebel Wilson’s boyfriend and got into a little scuffle with Jericho. It was the perfect ending to whatever this new school old school wrestling show was.
Suggested Areas of Improvement
Why was Matt Hardy‘s young spot monkey gear his heel turn on Jeff Hardy gear?
My Favorite Things
2. Britt Baker’s “Broken nose? Aubrey was… somewhere, right?”
1. The Stadium Stampede Shirts
Official Star Rating
5 out of 5 Stars
