AEW Booms/Duds: Britt Baker doesn’t give a you know what

Cody and Shawn Spears faced off in the opening match of the AEW TNT Championship Tournament, Kenny Omega teamed with his long-time partner Michael Nakazawa, and Hikaru Shida finally faced Britt Baker. Here are the booms and duds for last night’s episode.

As discussed before, circumstances are changing rather quickly during our new normal.

It was reported by Wade Keller that AEW taped enough episodes of Dynamite to last at least the next six weeks, if not more. Six weeks would bring AEW right up to the Double or Nothing event, which is still pending since we have no idea what situation will be at the end of May.

As Keller also noted, the same talent who were on last week’s episode were also involved in the extended tapings. Chris Jericho also appeared, but this was to do commentary with Tony Schiavone (or Skia-vone, as Jericho says).

Further, Keller added:

"“AEW also pre-taped matches in Jacksonville last month, including the Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager AEW Title match that airs in two weeks which will have Jim Ross on commentary. So AEW will be able to feature first-run matches with wrestlers in coming weeks other than just those who appeared on camera last night, since they taped matches in Jacksonville with a different crew.”"

This means that while some may have been wary of seeing the same wrestlers in round robin style matches over the course of six weeks, we could actually see a different mix of talent depending on how each show is produced.

As I determine which segments garner a “boom” and/or “dud” from me, I will keep this in mind. I urge all of you, dear readers, to do the same.

As a reminder of my criteria, I’m not going to run through each match/segment. Rather, I will identify a couple of segments that either worked (“boom”) or didn’t for whatever reason (“dud”).

My criteria includes quality of match/segment and how it starts and/or builds stories. After all, we watch partly to be caught up in the stories. If a great work-rate match happens with no context or bearing on the stories, it’s going to be a miss.

Also, just because something is a hit/miss doesn’t mean it was an overwhelming choice. The selection could be 51 percent hit, 75 percent miss, and so on.

There are other subtleties to my criteria, but those are pretty much the parameters.

Let’s start with the opening of the TNT Championship Tournament.