AEW and NXT Wednesday Night Wars: 3 winners of night #5

A WarGames announcement, a pair of hot angles, and a heel turn explanation highlight this week’s best moments from the AEW vs. NXT Wednesday Night War.

By the time this gets published, WWE’s latest soulless endeavor to line their already filled wallets, Crown Jewel II, will have come and gone. But there’s no need to dwell on whatever nonsense Vince McMahon filled that propaganda show with (and there was plenty of it); we’re here to talk about the more positive aspects of the industry, specifically the Wednesday Night War.

If you’ve kept up with this weekly installment for the last three weeks, you know how this works: I’ll discuss three standout wrestlers/teams/managers/announcers/whoever from this week’s episodes of All Elite Wrestling (AEW): Dynamite and NXT. But before tackling that, here are some honorable mentions.

John Moxley: Anytime Moxley picks up a microphone or works a match, it’s an indictment on Vince McMahon’s modern approach to pro wrestling. Along with his great matches, the former WWE star has cut the best promos of his career since leaving McMahon’s promotion last spring and this week was no different, as he delivered the most memorable monologue of the week on last Wednesday’s Dynamite.

“Hangman” Adam Page: Speaking of great promos, Page delivered a great one following his win over Sammy Guevara in Dynamite’s opening match, saying he would do some “real cowboy s—” and take PAC’s head off at Full Gear. Page’s character has seemed a little lost since losing to Chris Jericho at All Out, so this was a step in the right direction.

So Cal Uncensored: With Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian’s win over The Lucha Bros., they are now the inaugural AEW World Tag Team Champions. SCU!!!!

Tommaso Ciampa: After helping Keith Lee and Matt Riddle fend off the Undisputed Era, Ciampa said “Goldie” would have to wait because he plans on going to war with Cole and his crew, maybe at Survivor Series.

The Elite: Go out of your way to watch Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks’ excellent trios match against Kip Sabian, Jack Evans (vastly underrated heel) and Angelico and the video that aired prior to Omega’s entrance for the match. There are plenty of great breakdowns of this video, so I’ll just leave a link to one of them here if you’d like a detailed dissection.

The Inner Circle

It’s safe to say that AEW World Champion Chris Jericho and his Inner Circle got their heat back this week after taking one on the chin from Cody, Diamond Dallas Page, Dustin Rhodes, and Maxwell Jacob Friedman on the previous episode.

So what did this maniacal quintet do to get back on track? Well for starters, Santana and Ortiz introduced themselves to legendary tag team The Rock n’ Roll Express — who were presenting the AEW World Tag Team Championship belts — with forearms to the back. The extended old-man beatdown ended with the duo powerbombing Ricky Morton through a part of the stage. They also got some licks in on their Full Gear opponents, The Young Bucks, later in the show.

But the real heat cultivation came during Jericho and Cody’s World Title match contract signing. The two avoided most of the WWE-created tropes of this segment, but following a tense handshake, Jericho threw to the big screen, which showed a video of Jake Hager brutalizing Rhodes by hitting a low blow, making a dent in a limousine with his head, and swinging a limo door into his arm.

Thus far, AEW was gotten everything right as it pertains to its Full Gear main event and this angle was another example of a company that’s pushing most of the right buttons creatively.

The women of NXT

One of the few areas where NXT has bettered it’s Wednesday night competitor has been its booking of the women’s division. Not only have Triple H and his crew dedicated more screen time to the ladies than AEW has so far, but they have also built feuds that have thus far exceeded Dynamite’s “match of the week” formula.

Let’s start with Io Shirai, who is supposed to be a heel despite receiving the sort of cool entrance that’s usually reserved for top babyfaces, and Candice LeRae. In the opening match of this past Wednesday’s NXT, the two rivals scripted another fun chapter to their months-long feud, which ended with Shirai winning in a manner that didn’t protect LeRae as much as the writers thought it would. As Shirai prepared to attack LeRae after the match, Rhea Ripley ran in and sent the “Joshi Judas” fleeing.

Later that night, we got a WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship match between the now-heel Kabuki Warriors and Dakota Kai & Tegan Nox. After the champs retained in a very good match, NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler and her pals, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir, made their way to the ring to pick the bones of Kai and Nox.

This eventually led to Ripley, Shirai, Bianca Belair, and the rest of the women’s roster joining the fray. After a few minutes of brawling, general manager William Regal decided to presumably let the ladies who sparked the ruckus settle their issues in WarGames, much to everyone’s delight.

Finn Balor

For the last week, Finn Balor has left cryptic clues as to why he attacked Johnny Gargano as the Oct. 23 episode of NXT came to a close. He’s said that the attack was “a long time coming”. He compared the glitziness of the main roster to the relative artistic grunginess of NXT. He even teased that “The Prince is back”. But he didn’t officially explain himself until this past Wednesday.

Balor, whose entrance included a spotlight that shined only on him instead of the fans as he performed his signature pose, started off his soliloquy with a not-so-subtle shot at The Fiend (“Two months ago, I’m laying down for what’s supposed to be the hottest thing in the business just because he put on a new mask. Well, I just took my mask off, and now I’M the hottest thing in the business.”) before turning his attention to the rest of the roster, particularly Gargano.

After he all but called the other NXT wrestlers marks, he offered feint congratulations to Gargano for getting out of the hospital — not “medical facility” — and said that if “Johnny Wrestling” wanted to try him again — and he probably will at TakeOver: WarGames — he would turn him into “Johnny Watches Wrestling”.

Underwhelming nickname aside, Balor’s heel turn is off to a great start. This promo was fantastic and his expected match with Gargano in a few weeks should be a Match of the Year contender.