By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
Casino Gauntlet match for a shot at the AEW World Championship at Forbidden Door: This was so much better than the previous Casino Gauntlet match. In fact, they really should have found a way to drive home that this was going to be a loaded lineup of entrants even if they didn’t want to give away any of the names in advance. I was legitimately surprised to see Will Ospreay win the match. A lot of people expected Ospreay to challenge Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Championship at AEW All In. I was skeptical of it happening, especially once Ospreay won the AEW International Championship, because it seems like Tony Khan has been hesitant at times to deliver his biggest matches. I never would have guessed that Swerve vs. Ospreay would happen at the Forbidden Door show. It’s a great call. NJPW isn’t in a great place and I don’t believe the addition of CMLL talent to the show is going to be a major selling point. With no interpromotional dream match worthy of headlining Forbidden Door, Khan opted to go with the biggest AEW World Championship match the company has to offer. For the UK fans who were hoping to see this match at Wembley Stadium, there’s always a chance that you will still get your wish in the form of a big rematch at All In. Either way, this main event helped Forbidden Door go from feeling potentially uneventful to becoming a must see show.
AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland vs. Killswitch in a non-title match: I’m not a fan of television matches that feature too many needless near falls. In this case, Killswitch kicking out after Swerve hit him with his finishing sequence served the purpose of helping Killswitch maintain his monster heel status even in defeat. The post match angle was a mess with Swerve pulling on Killswitch’s ponytail and the camera zooming in, which exposed that the fake ponytail was attached to Killswitch’s mask rather than his head. If nothing else, someone really should have told Swerve not to show off the ponytail like it was a trophy during his promo segment later in the show.
Mercedes Mone vs. Skye Blue for the TBS Championship: It was a strange call to book Mone in her first AEW television match without advertising it in advance. Fortunately, the match was enjoyable and Mone came off well, though it was surprising to see her in babyface mode when all signs pointed to her being a heel going into Double Or Nothing. In retrospect, the mystery attacker angle was a pointless waste of time. The Stephanie Vaquer video package was a start, but now they really need to showcase her on AEW television to make the average fan care about her before Forbidden Door.
Christopher Daniels becomes the mouthpiece for Tony Khan: Will Tony Schiavone’s character be asked to take a pay cut now that Daniels has taken over half of his responsibilities? Anyway, it’s good that Khan recognized the need for someone more television ready to deliver his character’s lines.
Ladder match to determine the new TNT Champion: With the Owen Hart Cup tournament returning soon, they really couldn’t do another tournament to crown the new champion. Going with ladder match qualifiers will give some television matches a nice hook.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Chris Jericho’s “TV Time” talkshow: Just because Jericho is leaning into the negative crowd reactions he’s getting doesn’t make his segments good. While I’m all for reinvention, I’m struggling to see how this will become more than a mid-card gimmick. I could see this doing well in the ratings if viewers were curious to see what the talkshow was all about, but it started to feel like a channel changing moment before Hook came out. By the way, Hook beating up security guards now fees just as tired as when the gimmick of Wardlow beating up security guards was run into the ground.
Don Callis tries to sign Orange Cassidy for the Callis Family: Did anyone actually think this would happen? From the moment the angle started, it felt obvious that Trent Beretta would end up with the Callis Family. Cassidy beat Beretta in back-to-back singles matches, yet apparently this feud will continue.
IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley vs. Rocky Romero in an eliminator match: A soft Miss for a well worked match that also felt highly predictable despite Moxley essentially working with one arm. It was even more predictable for anyone who saw a one-armed Moxley beat Konosuke Takeshita at Double Or Nothing.
AEW production: It was a rough night for the production crew with multiple cases of the wrong video playing. Even Excalibur called them out for showing the upcoming television show lineups out of order.
The IWGP eliminator match, featuring Rocky Romero who literally has zero wins on AEW TV, is a soft miss?
The existence of the match itself is a miss, and not a soft one.
If I criticize AEW it’s not enough. You must criticize them more. I see the gimmick and it’s tired.
TGO is often over the top like a 1980s WWE heel. But in this case he is right
Neither of the big 2 seem to know how to develop challengers consistently. This reliance on gimmick matches to determine challengers backfires when a champion gets hurt (latest example is Copeland) and now we are subject to more gimmicks to get to a new champion
There is no shame in enhancement matches and both promotions should use them more. If Romero had won a months worth of lower level matches last nights match could have seemed more meaningful
That’s all well and good and I make that point routinely (see my griping about both companies having a barrage of four-way matches determining challengers). But I haven’t read him complaining about Solo Sikoa stating that there are consequences for wins and losses while taking over the Bloodline even though Solo hasn’t won a singles match since he beat John Cena last November. Tribal fans have very selective memories. In the case of Romero, he also works for NJPW (and everyone else). I’m guessing his record isn’t much better. Did I want to see the match? No. Would I have booked the match? Absolutely not. I put the match in the Miss section and yet somehow that was not enough because I wrote that it was a soft Miss? Good lord.
You completely ignored the part where a guy who has LITERALLY ZERO TV WINS in AEW was given a match where if he won it he got a title shot. That’s not a soft miss of a match no matter what the result is.
You are butt hurt over a soft miss compared to a regular miss. Seriously, seek mental help.
And since you’re acting like you didn’t see this because I didn’t respond to you directly, here you go. Did I miss your shit fit about Solo or are you just a tribal fraud?
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That’s all well and good and I make that point routinely (see my griping about both companies having a barrage of four-way matches determining challengers). But I haven’t read him complaining about Solo Sikoa stating that there are consequences for wins and losses while taking over the Bloodline even though Solo hasn’t won a singles match since he beat John Cena last November. Tribal fans have very selective memories. In the case of Romero, he also works for NJPW (and everyone else). I’m guessing his record isn’t much better. Did I want to see the match? No. Would I have booked the match? Absolutely not. I put the match in the Miss section and yet somehow that was not enough because I wrote that it was a soft Miss? Good lord.
LOL….you are literally laughed at, you poor soul. Literally.