Overall Evaluation and Achieved Goals
Areas of Excellence Within Performance
The Tag Team Battle Royal opener was kind of busy (both members must be eliminated!) but Johnny Hungie took out Jake Hager, MJF did the Young Bucks pose, and young Max Castor actually took out MJF.
Imagine some normie channel surfing and catching anything between a crowd rocking out to Tarzan Boy, Sammy Hagar endorsing a tag team, a Battle Royal, and Jade Cargill lifting weights. Someone’s bound to be captured by the professional wrestling.
The Penelope Ford/Kip Sabian Wedding was uncomfortably mediocre but happened to feature some of the only live wrestling crowd work since COVID shut it down, with that old pro Miro rolling with the crowd taking over his Best Man speech by taking a “What is love?” line to its natural, sing-a-long conclusion. Good vibes.
The Taz/Sting feud needs another killer angle but there are a lot worse versions of “repetitive” than Taz talking shit every week. Ricky Starks talking down to Sting like he was some punk was great too.
Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa messed each other up and had an awesome match. Between this and the incredible Women’s World Title Eliminator U.S./Japan lineup, it would appear AEW is on their way to solving one of their largest areas of suggested improvement.
Kenny Omega & The Good Brothers vs. Jon Moxley, PAC & Rey Fenix was a blast of a main event and I am about to get emotional right now writing about how cool it was to see the show end with KENTA running out and laying out Jon Moxley.
Promotion for the KENTA/Moxley U.S. Title match created a moment, and while there are plenty of nerdy implications around the Bullet Club and New Japan I just loved seeing KENTA do the whole thing and look like a monster. I wouldn’t put money on the match delivering but after seeing him waste time in WWE for five years, it could not be more clear – just present the thing and people will follow. AEW!
Suggested Areas of Improvement
Dug the Top Flight fella staying until the end of the Battle Royal against Chris Jericho and MJF but I maybe would have slotted Anthony Bowens in that spot, given MJF was eliminated by and went after his partner. Maybe it was suggested!
Sting could’ve tagged that “maybe you need to take a closer look” better!
As on the pulse as Hangman Page feels right now, I kind of resent Matt Hardy suddenly being a part of it.
Luther? huh.
That Orange Cassidy cake reveal for the Penelope/Kip wedding just was not good, a trifecta of stupid wrestling: bad timing, cool guy looking lame, good guys being jerks.
Did both Team Taz and FTR have to be banned from the building? Did Marko Stunt have to be kidnapped? All on the same night??
My Favorite Things
2. “Jake Roberts just decked Angelico!”
1. Hangman nods to the camera and does a Buckshot Lariat
