AEW Booms/Duds: The gritty brutality of Moxley vs. Hager

A much ballyhooed no holds barred match between champion Jon Moxley and challenger Jake Hager for the AEW World Title headlined the show. Did it live up to the hype? I’ll discuss that and more in this week’s booms and duds.

I know I’ve been saying a lot changes in a week recently, but wow, the past week was a whirlwind.

First, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida deemed sporting events closed to the general public “essential” businesses, including WWE (overturning the decision of Orange County where the Performance Center is located). It was then revealed this may be due to a Linda McMahon-led political group “American F1rst Action” running an 18 million dollar reelection campaign in Florida for President Trump; McMahon previously served on his Cabinet.

It was also revealed the Orange County Sherriff’s Office had been called multiple times to the Performance Center (PC), including Monday’s RAW, saying WWE was not in compliance with an existing Executive Order on gatherings of people. Because of DeSantis’ decision, WWE was not cited.

This was also shortly after Wade Keller reported a member of WWE staff had tested positive for COVID-19. He also corroborated reports from Pro Wrestling Sheet that WWE was to resume airing live, beginning with the most recent RAW.

Second, and specific to AEW, WrestlingInc reported that the following wrestlers were not present at the extended tapings held a few weeks ago: MJF, The Young Bucks, Adam “Hangman” Page, Death Triangle (Pac, Lucha Bros), Nyla Rose, SCU, Big Swole.

Remember that Tony Khan advised talent they could stay home and not face any repercussions. AEW also avoided using talent from places like New York and California (Bucks, SCU) because of those were the hardest-hit states at the time of the tapings.

More power to those talents for putting their health, and that of their families, first. This doesn’t mean I am criticizing the talent that did appear at the tapings, mind you; I just don’t think any sporting company should be running shows.

This also means stories those wrestlers were involved in prior to the pandemic (and Rose is the Women’s Champion after all) are pretty much paused and we may not see these talents until stay at home/self-quarantine orders are lifted.

Third, AEW announced Double or Nothing will still take place Memorial Day weekend on PPV, but NOT in Las Vegas. This most likely means AEW, following DeSantis’ lead, will tape in Florida and Jacksonville, specifically.

Fourth, as I was writing this intro, WWE released or furloughed a slew of wrestlers, producers, and other employees Wednesday afternoon. Needless to say, it was a rough day for many.

(For more coverage on the sudden and substantial releases from Daily DDT, please click here, here, and here.)

Even with my opinion that wrestling should be shut down, since the promotions are moving forward, we do have an obligation to cover their on-screen product and off-screen happenings.

With that long preamble aside, let’s turn to last night’s show and the main event, which Tony Khan not-so-subtly claimed will be the “most brutal and memorable match” in AEW history and “best empty arena match ever.”

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.