AEW and NXT Wednesday Night Wars: 3 winners of night #2
With another week of NXT and AEW: Dynamite in the books, let’s take a look at who stood out on both shows.
This has probably been said on about 500,000 other wrestling sites, but this is a great time to be a pro wrestling fan. For the first time since the end of the Monday Night Wars in 2001, fans have options, and the wealth of choices has fostered an environment where audiences can have their specific tastes satiated.
Are you a diehard WWE fan that enjoys what Vince McMahon offers you? McMahon will give you all the sports-entertainment you need with five hours of weekly programming and monthly pay-per-views.
But if you are tired of a company that does things like, say, advertise top stars for premiere shows and not deliver them, and sully the credibility of one of their signature matches because they didn’t want either of the participants to lose, you can find something else to scratch that wrestling itch.
Among other promotions and shows, NXT and All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite represent that “something else”.
Last week, both shows exemplified why they are a viable alternative to the wrestling establishment, even though one of them is under the WWE umbrella and merely masquerades as a counter-culture promotion. This week was no different.
But much like last week, a few talents stood out a bit more than the others.
This (hopefully) weekly feature will highlight three of them, but first:
Honorable Mentions:
Bianca Belair- Belair and Dakota Kai had the best women’s match of the night, which ended with a K.O.D. from “The E.S.T.” to Kai and a clean win.
Between this match and Rhea Ripley’s enhancement win over Aaliyah earlier in the night, it looks like the NXT writers are building towards a number one contender’s match between those two.
WALTER and KUSHIDA- Kudos to these two for a fantastic main event. The big Austrian will likely head back to NXT UK following his win over the junior heavyweight legend, but here’s hoping that he makes a few more cameos on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Chris Jericho- The AEW World Champion cut a fantastic promo on Wednesday introducing his new “Inner Circle” faction. He also looked pretty good in his main event tag match with Sammy Guevara against “Hangman” Adam Page and Dustin Rhodes.
Two weeks in, Jericho has shown that putting the title on him was the right move.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman- Man, he is gonna get so much heat when he finally turns on Cody. In the closing segment, MJF made the save for Cody after a brief betrayal tease that played off of the well-worn swerve trope that fans have grown accustomed to.
Of course, since he’s still a heel, Freidman smugly basked in the fans’ appreciation before walking right into a Codebreaker from Jericho. This man gets it.
Isaiah “Swerve” Scott- Just go back and watch his match with NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong.