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AEW Booms and Duds: WTF was Jake Roberts doing?!

By Bruce Lee Hazelwood

PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 23: Wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts from "The Resurrection of Jake The Snake Roberts" poses for a portrait at the Village at the Lift Presented by McDonald's McCafe during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2015 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 23: Wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts from "The Resurrection of Jake The Snake Roberts" poses for a portrait at the Village at the Lift Presented by McDonald's McCafe during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2015 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images) /
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Without the hook of TNT Championship Tournament matches, AEW advertised a number of top stars for the show. With AEW also returning to a live show last night, were they able to keep the momentum going strong as we head towards Double or Nothing?

With states like Florida reopening during this pandemic, AEW decided to hold a live show last night at Daily’s Place (their veritable home base) as restrictions were loosened by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The most concerning is his allowance of businesses operating at 25 percent capacity. Many have questioned whether this means WWE and AEW will seek to fill 25 percent of the stands with fans. While there weren’t enough fans/wrestlers to fill 25 percent of the stands last night, we did see during the entrance of a certain World Champion that there were people in the stands. 

Then again, 25 percent capacity doesn’t just mean customer occupancy; it also means the number of employees present.

(This is amid reports that the deaths from coronavirus “soared” in the state and Palm Beach County, specifically.)

AEW, smartly letting WWE take the negative public relations hit first, announced they would also return to airing live, starting with last night’s show. There is an expectation that AEW will tape an episode, leading to a staggered schedule of a live show last night and a taped show next week.

Let’s see if that pattern holds true.

However, at least we know AEW is taking as many precautions as possible (aside from, you know, cancelling shows). They worked with local chapter 115 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) to test every stagehand, crew member, venue staff, and talent. They also had other safety measures in place.

Heading into last night’s episode of Dynamite, AEW advertised the presence of many top stars, including AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, Cody, Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho, Matt Hardy, and Lance Archer. They also hyped the first singles match in AEW for SCU member Frankie Kazarian (against Moxley).

Was the presence of these wrestlers enough to garner interest lost with no matches in the TNT Championship Tournament?

(Ratings and viewership for both Wednesday shows, as well as wrestling in general, has suffered during this pandemic.)

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.

To begin, let’s analyze the main event segment.

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