BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB (Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler YUTA) vs. JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY (Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara (w/Jericho Appreciation Society)- 7.25/10
William Regal was on guest commentary for this match. The BCC overcame interference to get the win, with Claudio pinning Jericho to presumably set up a ROH World Title match… except that none of the announcers even mentioned the fact that the man who had just been pinned was the ROH World Champion.

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS BRYAN DANIELSON AT THE “MONGO” POSITION- mostly didn’t like it
It’s really nice that they named the spot in this guy’s memory, but, I’m willing to bet that a good chunk of the viewership had no idea what this meant. You can’t just throw a new term out there. You have to explain it! It takes ten seconds to announce this guy’s sad passing and tell us that in his memory, you’re now calling the interview set the “Mongo Position.” You don’t want fans thinking “did he say “Mongo Position? What’s a Mongo Position” instead of concentrating on Dragon’s interview.
Anyway, Danielson was finally upset about Daniel Garcia turning on him and costing him the ROH World Title, but the thing that has actually set him off and gotten him to the point where he is angry about those things is “the fact that Wheeler YUTA talked back to me last week.” “Talked back to me?” What a horribly unlikable thing to say. The idea that Dragon is even thinking about what happened in those terms is just so unlikable. He’s not your young-boy washing your gear in exchange for being taught the ropes. He’s an experienced wrestler who has earned people’s respect and won the ROH Pure Championship. Danielson’s outlook here is that of the douchebag veteran. In fact, it’s almost exactly what Trent did when YUTA left Best Friends at Danielson’s encouragement to join up with the BCC.
And the fact that Dragon could have this outlook towards YUTA while having been so chill at Daniel Garcia’s betrayal just adds another level to it. It’s completely unbelievable to me that anyone could simultaneously think these two things about these individuals given the situations. It feels like Danielson is being instructed to act this way by a (very bad) booker for the purpose of manufacturing a conflict between him and YUTA.
Anyway, YUTA showed up just as his name was mentioned. He took credit for getting Danielson to a point where he could be angry at Garcia’s betrayal. Yes, I realize that in this, Garcia is doing to Danielson what Danielson did to Eddie Kingston- getting him angry in the belief that it will unlock some potential that lack of emotion is preventing him from accessing. But just because there is dramatic mirroring going on does not automatically make the story good!
Dragon and YUTA have a shoving match until Claudio breaks it up, saying that they will talk this out “like adults.” He also noted that he just beat the ROH World Champion, so he’s a better commentator than any of the four people AEW had in the booth for the opener.

YOUNG BUCKS AND KENNY OMEGA VIDEO- Excellent!
The concept here and the graphics was brilliant. It was them talking about starting AEW and giving their all to it and to the fans over still-shots of them from key moments in AEW history… and they would be “burned” out of the pictures, and as that happened, their voices would cut off. My read on this is that they’re coming back as heels, angry at Tony for suspending them and “not standing by them,” and angry at the fans for just cheering for “new” heroes like Moxley and MJF instead of “hijacking” shows with protest chants, and I think that’s the right move (especially if MJF is turning, but even if he’s not).
I think a Kenny Omega whose goal is going to be to “burn AEW to the ground” will have more of a focused direction to channel his quirkiness into in a way that will feel like more of an unhinged and violent psychopath than the just “Kenny being Kenny” we got when he was world champion. I also think that it will set Adam Page up for that kind of big moment he needs when they try to recruit him and he eventually chooses to turn them down and emerges as the hero who saves from them. (And if Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly are ever healthy again, it will create an interesting situation where they get to still be heels but are cutting “I told you so” promos to the fans and claiming to be the only people with the vision to see what a cancer the Bucks and Kenny are, while the fact that they are feuding with Kenny and the Bucks results in them teaming with various babyfaces and there being tension there).
Wow. My mind is coming up with so many ideas for this that it might well wind up as a fantasy booking thread.
Anyway, the risk I see in this is that it’s creating another situation where fans will likely start to boo Tony Khan, even though in both this situation and the MJF situation, Tony did nothing wrong (by which I mean in the way he handled the incident between the Elite and CM Punk. He certainly bares some responsibility for allowing things to escalate to the point that they did), but I think that’s just something you’ll have to deal with, and hopefully the fans will be happier to cheer Moxley and Page and MJF than the Bucks and Omega.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY- bad
Jericho is being way too over the top. He comes across like someone having fun playing a heel wrestling character on TV, not like someone who is actually a bad person. Anyway, Jericho was so angry that he issues an open challenge to any former ROH World Champion. Sammy Guevara claimed he would beat Danielson.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Swerve in Our Glory vs. FTR- 8.5/10
Gunn Club were in the front row, in idiotic costumes that were supposed to be mocking FTR. The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn came out to watch from the stage, though I can’t imagine that’s better than watching on a monitor, especially if you’re trying to scout potential competition.
An excellent tag team match with a beautifully designed finish, bringing Gunn Club into play in a way that wasn’t the cheap bullsh*t distraction one would expect. I am also quite excited to see what will happen once Lee sees a replay of the finish (which saw Swerve use a low-blow to set Lee up to get the pin while Gunn Club were holding Cash back from being able to break it up (he had been whipped into the barricade right in front of them.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very good
Gunn Club beat up Cash, then go into the ring and attack Dax. The Acclaimed made the save. This segment did a great job of doing what so many AEW most-match attacks (and doubly so ones with saves) fail to do, which was to feel organic.

RENEE PAQUETTE’S INTERVIEW WITH SARAYA IS INTERRUPTED BY BRITT BAKER- bad
Britt showed up two seconds in. She and Saraya yelled at each other. Renee declared that “if we’re going to talk about this, we should do it properly.” Britt left, leaving Renee alone with her intended interview subject… and they said nothing, so the camera cut away. Did Renee not have any actual questions she was going to ask or did Saraya not have some statement she intended to make? It felt like this segment was booked so that the camera could catch the interruption that supposedly happened spontaneously. And, of course, this appears to essentially be an interview whose purpose is to set up another talking segment between the same two people.

RENEE PAQUETTTE INTERVIEWS MJF- didn’t like it
The fans are all chanting for MJF and Renee is standing there, trying to hide this big smile like she loves it. Do she and they not realize that he’s going to wind up saying horribly rude things about her?
Well… I’ll be darned. He didn’t say anything particularly rude about Renee. I was expecting him to come up with some creative way to call her a whore.
MJF cut a promo revising his statement from last week when he said he was going to wrestle cleanly against Moxley. He now vows only to refrain from using one specific type of cheating, which is his diamond ring… you know… because he’s involved in some sort of mental feud with Regal and that’s his way of cheating that resembles Regal’s most famous way of cheating. He just went out there and said he was going to cheat during the match… but there was just one specific way that he promises not to. Management should bar everyone from ringside and have four referees on the outside of the ring to stop MJF’s planned cheating, but they won’t.
Then MJF cut what was essentially a babyface promo about wanting to beat Moxley and become world champion to prove everyone wrong. Stokely Hathway came out and said essentially “Ah. Yes. When you say you want Moxley at 100%, it means that you definitely don’t want us to attack him. I understand. Wink, wink.” MJF then slapped the mic out of Stokely’s hand and told him that if anyone laid a hand on Moxley before the PPV, MJF would fire Stokely. This must be a ruse, simply because if Stokely really thought that MJF cutting this promo was just to lie to everyone, he should be smart enough not to come out on national TV and expose the lie. That kind of story inevitably results in the announcers making a big deal out of the fact that MJF lied to us or went back on his word or whatever, but those kinds of angles are just stupid when it’s someone we have absolutely no reason to believe would be telling the truth, and would be even more silly in this case, because the outrage of over the fact that he lied about this one form of cheating misses where the heat should be, which is the fact that he cheated at all.
MATT TAVEN VS. WARDLOW VIDEO PACKAGE- mostly good
Wardlow can’t help but come off like a jerk. Matt Taven is getting a TNT Title shot because he won a lot of titles in ROH. Remember when your ranking and win-loss record were going to matter?

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. SAMMY GUEVARA (w/Tay Conti)- 7.5/10
Sammy got a great flurry early on and kept avoiding Dragon’s stuff with his athleticism until Dragon finally caught him in a submission.
Dragon did the stupid Ishii “you keep punching me in the head, but I’ll just no sell it and back you up into the opposite corner in the process” spot. Other than that, this was great.

I noticed Ricky Starks’ name in the Dark results, which was the first time I had thought about him or Will Hobbs in forever. So much for all of the momentum Starks had coming out of his big win in that feud after turning babyface, huh?

RENEE PAQUETTE’S INTERVIEW WITH REY FENIX & ALEX ABRAHANTES IS INTERRUPTED BY CHRISTIAN CAGE & LUCHASARUS-
They got a plug in for Penta challenging Moxley tonight. Fenix then said he was going to go after the All-Atlantic Title. This was when Christian showed up. Apparently he declared that Luchasaurus was going after everyone with a championship, but I guess that doesn’t include whatever belt that is there that Fenix is currently holding, I guess.
They argued over who should get a shot at the least important title in the world… and wouldn’t you know it, the champion just happened to be walking by as well. He said “let’s do this” and apparently Excalibur somehow knew that that meant a three-way instead of Luchasaurus and Fenix in a #1 contendership match. Renee treated Orange Cassidy saying this as if it made the match official.

RIHO vs. JAMIE HAYTER (w/Britt Baker & Rebel)- 7/10
Excalibur hyped this up as a “big-time grudge match,” which felt quite silly for a rivalry that has only been going on for a week. Schiavone thinks that Jamie Hayter has a case to deserve a title match. I have no idea what that case could be, but if it exists Hayter should be talking about it.
Hayter won a great match cleanly.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Toni Storm came out to the top of the ramp to raise her title. Isn’t this essentially that heel spot where you “steal the moment” from a victorious babyface by drawing the attention to yourself?

RENEE PAQUETTE INTERVIEWS EDDIE KINGSTON- decent
Kingston clearly doesn’t want to talk about the comments his friends made to him last week. Eddie was very good hear, but that whole story is just so dumb.

DARBY ALLIN PROMO- AWESOME!
He explained Sting’s absence as being at Darby’s request so that Darby could prove himself alone. He cut a promo where he essentially psychologically invalidated Jay Lethal’s claim that he had an “old friend” tell him Darby’s biggest weakness. He also challenged Lethal to bring said old friend to Dynamite next week.

JAY LETHAL, SONJAY DUTT, & SATNAM SINGH PROMO- meh
Lethal was decent. Sonjay was better than usual. Singh is entertaining in the background.

AEW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Jon Moxley(c) vs. Penta el 0M- 7/10
They did their stuff. The most impressive part of this match was Moxley not managing to bleed.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- really disliked it
The firm jump Moxley and beat the crap out of him. Security tried to make the save but got beaten up. We were shown Alex Marvez reporting from backstage, where someone had chained the door to the Blackpool Combat Club locker room shut. Okay… what about Moxley’s good buddy Eddie Kingston, who they reminded us was friends with him less than half an hour ago? Or maybe FTR would want to come out and help to get some revenge on Gunn Club?
MJF came out and was conflicted as to whether he should save Moxley. MJF told Stokely he was fired, so the Firm beat MJF up a lot. If this is how they’re turning MJF babyface, it’s a very unsatisfying way to do it. If this is all a ruse, then it’s really stupid because they gave such a beating here that if their goal is for MJF to win the title, then a much better plan would be to just do what they would normally do instead of have MJF take a lot of real punishment.


This was a very good episode of Dynamite. Probably the best in a very long time. The wrestling was great, we got an excellent promo or two, some very good video packages, and a lot less of the usual frustrating stuff.