By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
Darby Allin vs. Will Ospreay in a Continental Classic gold league match: AEW did a great job of pushing this match over the last week. Starting with last week’s Dynamite, it felt like they didn’t go more than 15 minutes without plugging Allin vs. Ospreay for the Holiday Bash show during any of their weekly television shows . The match lived up to the hype. When the trios match was listed as the Dynamite main event, I feared that Allin vs. Ospreay would end in a draw or would have some time of unsatisfying finish. So it was a pleasant surprise to get a clean finish, and it was even more surprising that Allin went over. I love that four Allin, Ospreay, Ricochet, and Claudio Castagnoli are tied in the standings with each wrestler having only two tournament matches remaining.
Mercedes Mone vs. Anna Jay for the TBS Championship: A quality title match to open the night. Mone has yet to find her groove on the mic or as a character in AEW, but she’s put together a series of quality matches. Meanwhile, Jay has a ton of upside, but I’m curious to see what comes next now that she’s taken high profile losses to the AEW Women’s Champion and the TBS Champion.
Harley Cameron: The Shop AEW commercial song was cute and impressive. Cameron has emerged the most fun undercard act in AEW. She strikes me as being similar to Chelsea Green in that fans will boo her now, but it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they start to rally behind once they develop an appreciation of what she brings to the table.
Shelton Benjamin vs. The Beast Mortos in a Continental Classic blue league match: A soft Hit for a solid match involving one wrestler who feels like he’ll finish in the middle of the C2 pack facing a wrestler who has no points in the tournament. By the way, I didn’t put Ricochet and his weird noise in the Miss section because I’m actually curious to see what’s going to happen with him. MVP tore up the business card that he gave to Ricochet, but the out of nowhere backstage exchange between Ricochet and Swerve Strickland left me wondering if Ricochet will end up in The Hurt Syndicate after all.
Christian Cage and Nick Wayne vs. Hook and Katsuyori Shibata: Another soft Hit for a decent tag team match that concluded with Cage and Wayne stealing a win to get more heat.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Jon Moxley, Pac, and Wheeler Yuta vs. Hangman Page, Orange Cassidy, and Jay White: The match quality was fine, but the build to the four-way for the AEW World Championship match at Worlds End just isn’t clicking with me. Moxley isn’t the least bit afraid of defending his title against three other wrestlers. Hell, he actually asked for the match. Hangman Page burnt another man’s house to the ground and there was no actual babyface turn for Jay White, so I have no idea what he’s supposed to be. Therefore, the only true babyface in the match is Orange Cassidy, who just lost to Moxley in a title match at the last pay-per-view. One positive coming out of the post match brawl is that Moxley actually retreated. That’s a step in the right direction because he’s come off smarter and cooler than the babyfaces and needs to work harder to turn the fans against him.
FTR promo: This was a mess of a segment in that Cash Wheeler was talking about being attacked by The Death Riders (without actually mentioning them by name) on Collision as if all viewers were fully aware. The logical approach would have been to replay the footage of The Death Riders’ attack before the FTR interview aired rather than show clips at the end of the interview. Dax Harwood’s stating that they won’t be coming alone at Fight For The Fallen is widely assumed to be a tease for Adam Copeland’s return. Will this lead to Copeland and FTR winning the AEW Trios Titles? If so, will it be like when Dustin Rhodes and the Von Erichs won the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Titles in that it was really fun in the moment and then fans woke up the next day and remembered that they don’t actually care about six-man tag team titles?
MJF and Adam Cole: The feud felt cold to start with and the announcement that Matt Taven and Mike Bennett will be at ringside is like tossing ice cubes onto a frozen lake. Taven and Bennett are a good tag team who would be fine challengers for Private Party, but once you’re in The Kingdom you’re apparently stuck doing Kingdom storylines for life. And here’s hoping that we start to see more of the diabolical MJF and less of insult comic MJF.
Do you think Pac has actually got any clothes?
“..like ice cubes on a frozen lake” was spot on lol.
Crowd literally groaned when Taven/Bennett joined Cole on screen. Please don’t tell me those 2 and O’Reilly will turn on Cole and join MJF.
Nope, sorry, I cannot agree this week at all!
AEW NEEDS a big time, meaningful, generational STAR! Will Ospreay should have been it. But as such, he simply cannot be putting over lesser talent like Hot Topic Stockboy Darby.
This isn’t World Class Championship Wrestling in 1987. You don’t need to build a guy up over time so the fans “get to know him.” If any group KNOWS Ospreay it’s the small but rabid AEW fanbase.
Kahn’s booking of Ospreay has been criminal. He is a once-a-decade wrestler who should have had the main title around his waist in no time flat and the entire roster should be built around him.
Instead he is in some meaningless mid-tier tournament (just how many tourneys has AEW even HAD this year?? Why should I care about this one??) jobbing to a guy who, while certainly popular, is HARDLY larger than life!
Add Ospreay to the list of wrestlers Tony “collected” like action figures and then had no idea what on earth to do with. I’m sure Ospreay doesn’t even mind – he got a boat load of money, doesn’t have to work nearly as much if he had signed with WWE, and can travel back home as often as he wishes. As a fan tho, I see him, and the opportunity to really change the company, as completely wasted.
It does indeed seem like Ospreay has plateaued compared to how hot he was 2 or so months ago. I see him as their top guy, but he’s treading water lately.