It is OK to like what is going on here.
I mean, don’t get weird about it. But I will gladly write with glee about the shows AEW is putting on a year removed from Revolution, their last PPV with a true in-person audience.
As a wrestling fan who posts Performance Reviews of AEW Dynamite every week, sometimes the best Review I can say is to not worry what I think and just watch the whole show.
The World
A brand is being built that’s providing a national TV platform for both new talent and wrestling history, using the steady hands of the old school to build up the exciting possibilities of the new school.
It’s a show with week-to-week lives, the soap opera for men that people always claim wrestling is. New avenues are created weekly to be excited for in the future, like: I want to see what happens to these people. You kiddin’ me?
J.J. Dillon, Atsushi Onita, and the Big Show were on this show. There’s a Barbed Wire Death Match on Sunday, Matt Hardy is managing like three different tag teams, and Shaquille O’Neal went through a table. Wrestling rules again.
They had confidence in Hangman Adam Page to close the show too.
The Wrestling
Shaq & Jade Cargill vs. Cody Rhodes & Red Velvet wasn’t so much about the actual match; it was the journey of the people in the match. But it was a really good match too, laid out perfectly to provide three impressive debuts in one. Shaq was loose and mobile, Cody was a ham, Velvet crushed, and Jade is a galaxy unto herself. Triple H has spent a decade talking about the hard cam and here comes Jade Cargill doing it better than anyone.
Cody risked his damn life for that table bump, equal parts graceful and totally insane.
The matches after it were a trio of professional wrestling experiences that delivered on the original promise of AEW: first, an Anderson-style straightforward squash from PAC & Fenix where they replaced armbars with springboards, then a great Anderson-style 6-man with Jurassic Express vs. FTR & Tully Blanchard (!) where Jungle Boy looked like the second-coming of Dustin Rhodes firing back on Dax.
After that? Nyla Rose and Ryo Muzakami beat the shit out of each other to get to Hikaru Shida at Revolution.
The last two matches – Max Caster vs. 10 and Hangman Page/John Silver vs. Matt Hardy/Marq Quen – weren’t as high-end as the first four, but they were good solid TV too. So maybe they were high-end anyways.
The Entertainment
There was just a blistering speed to this show, packed with STUFF but also enough care on the pacing to make everything individually stand out. The wrestling was great and the angles were tremendous, from the mini-Four Horsemen reunion (R.I.P. Jim Crockett Jr.) to Shaq disappearing from an ambulance to The Inner Circle‘s insane press conference with cameos from Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson.
Paul Wight looked like he just let out a piss he was holding in for twenty years, and it is AEW’s looseness that’s becoming a huge asset: Tony Schiavone ribbing his old pal J.J. Dillon, John Silver jumping on Hangman Page‘s back for a yee-haw – it’s just fun! Schiavone’s line on how “long and lean” Jade Cargill cracked me up too, not because it was creepy but because he sounded like a proud dad.
Sting was around here too.
Room for Improvement
- The Young Bucks don’t always need a mic.
- Make me believe Shawn Spears can be a Horseman.
- Make the theme music louder.
My Favorite Things
- Fenix’s little knee smash before he hit his finish
- Luchasaurus’ spin kick to Tully Blanchard
- SHAQ SHOES!!!
