This week’s best from the Wednesday Night War included a great AEW Tag Title match, a women’s title change, and another home run promo from Britt Baker.
NXT and All Elite Wrestling (AEW) checked another week of shows off the ledger this past Wednesday, which means it’s time to give props to the wrestlers who stood out the most on either show. But before we get to that, let’s take a look at some honorable mentions:
Johnny Gargano: In his first televised match since October, Gargano showcased his technique in a winning outing against Cameron Grimes. Next up for “Johnny Wrestling” is a grudge match against Finn Balor at NXT TakeOver: Portland, which should make some Match of the Year lists if all goes well.
Tommaso Ciampa: The number one contender to the NXT Championship cut an outstanding go-home promo on this week’s NXT. By the end of it, you were convinced that he needed to beat Adam Cole to validate his comeback and reclaim the belt he never lost.
Mark Henry: This was the best part of this week’s NXT. To hype the Keith Lee vs. Dominik Dijakovic match for TakeOver: Portland, the NXT crew produced and aired a hype video featuring the Hall of Famer extolling the virtues of the big men. This resembled something you would see prior to a big football or basketball game, and the sportlike feel of the vignette added a great deal of importance and gravity to this clash.
The Broserweights: The Odd Couple-like team entertained once again, this time in a series of skits that showed Pete Dunne and Matt Riddle trekking to Portland with the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic trophy.
“Hangman” Adam Page and Kenny Omega
This week’s Dynamite opened proceedings with an AEW World Tag Team Championship match between SoCal Uncensored – represented by Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky – and defending titleholders “Hangman” Adam Page and Kenny Omega.
The two teams bested their fine effort from a few weeks ago on the Jericho Cruise; with most of the focus centered around Omega and Page’s tenuous relationship and whether it would blow up in this match.
Instead, we got the opposite; for the most part, Page and Omega gelled as well as any full-time tag team. There were a few moments where the announcers questioned if the partners were on the same page, but outside of that, the respective babyface duos wrestled a straightforward title tilt, which ended with the champions scoring the pin after a Buckshot Lariat/V-Trigger combination.
At some point, AEW will follow through with the much-teased Page heel turn, but thanks to this pairing with Omega and the fans that have latched on to him following his “Cowboy S***” promo, he has gotten over enough to stave that off for a little while.
Make no mistake, flipping Page over to the rudo side is probably still the long-term plan and this run means it will be more impactful when it happens, but this run will make the journey there all the more interesting.
Britt Baker
Ultimately, Britt Baker’s performances in the ring will determine how successful this antagonistic character goes, but if she continues to cut promos as she has over the last two weeks, the road to that success will be less arduous.
This week, Baker was again interviewed by Tony Schiavone, who attempted to glean why Baker hit Yuka Sakazaki with the ring bell and kicked her teeth out of her mouth a week prior.
Before the interview began, Baker was already delivering some shrewd heel work with a disingenuous hug with Schiavone and a request to be interviewed on her good side (which was, interestingly, the side of the ramp where the babyfaces come out).
From there, it was time for Baker to go in: she chastized Schiavone for his “stupid questions”, used dental jargon to explain that her attack on Sakazaki was a “favor” she proffered for free, referred to Schiavone as “Mr. Starbucks” again, and sang her own praises as an educated woman and as a wrestler.
And just to make sure she was the most hated person in Austin, Baker took some digs at the “chubby, Whataburger faces” in the crowd and flashed the “Horns Down” at the fans – a gesture they really, really loathe down there – before leaving.
Again, there are still valid questions as to whether Baker can maintain this heat when the bell rings. But given that she will likely feud with Riho and, probably, Sakazaki in the near future, she will get plenty of necessary reps against good opponents to ensure that she delivers at somewhere near the same level that these promos are.
Riho and Nyla Rose
When Nyla Rose and Riho faced off for the AEW Women’s Championship on Dynamite’s inaugural episode, it didn’t take long to notice the chemistry these two shared between the ropes. The formula was simple: Riho was the lovable, undersized babyface who had to fight from underneath against the athletic-but-menacing monster heel in Rose, and the combination produced a memorable title match that Riho won by the skin of her teeth.
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On this week’s Dynamite, the two rivals tangled once again for the women’s division’s richest prize, where they once again kept the audience hanging on every move and nearfall.
It followed the same template as their first meeting: Riho used her speed, strikes, and technical prowess to counter Rose’s power. But this time, the match ended with Rose hitting her signature powerbomb to score the clean pinfall and the AEW Women’s title.
As much as the 10-year-old mark in me is disappointed that Riho lost (she was that effective as a babyface, but more on that in a bit), putting the title on Rose was the correct decision.
If Rose has lost to Riho again in a championship match – she also ate the pin against Riho in a Fatal 4 Way match earlier this year – it would’ve positioned her as a choker who couldn’t seal the deal in big matches and render the last few weeks of rebuilding pointless.
Now, she can hold the title for a little while and build her heat with some dominant wins. The AEW Women’s division is more heel heavy than people realize, but the potential for great feuds with the likes of Big Swole, Kris Statlander, Hikaru Shida, and, if she’s able to, Awesome Kong is there.
Riho should also get a ton of credit for setting a high standard for that championship in her 133 days with the gold; she was booked exquisitely during her reign as a competitor who won with her skill and in-ring acumen despite almost always being the smaller competitor.
As mentioned in a previous slide, she will probably move into a feud with Britt Baker for a while, but we will definitely see her and Rose clash for that title again. Given what they’ve crafted in their first two matches, the third chapter – whenever it happens – is sure to be just as compelling.