AEW Booms and Duds: Jake Roberts went full incel on us

10 days from Double or Nothing, AEW advertised another stacked show of Dynamite. The big draw: Chris Jericho vs “Pineapple Pete,” SUGE D! Let’s take a look at that match and other events on the show in the weekly “booms” and “duds.”

Hand it to AEW: they’ve done everything short of signing Roman Reigns to stack their shows and garner interest as we head towards Double or Nothing.

It began with last week’s show, continued with this week’s episode of Dark, and saw the momentum through last night’s episode of Dynamite.

After weeks of irking “Le Champion” Chris Jericho, Pineapple Pete (SUGE D) finally stepped into the ring with the “Painmaker.” At least to me, this is what I was most excited for heading into last night’s show. It wasn’t what I expected, but it also sets a path for the two to meet again, possibly soon.

Also, AEW rekindled the stories between Dark Order and SCU as “The Exalted One” Brodie Lee faced Christopher Daniels, the long-time target of Dark Order, in the main event. This segment saw multiple angles occur, and did well in keeping my interest for Double or Nothing and future feuds.

Kenny Omega (still without his championship partner in Adam “Hangman” Page) and Matt Hardy looked to rebound after last week’s loss to Le Sex Gods against another Inner Circle team in Santana and Ortiz in a traditional tag team match. Would Omega and Hardy gain their first victory as a team?

There was a fatal 4-way women’s match involving four wrestlers highlighted in last week’s video: #1 ranked Hikaru Shida, #2 Kris Statlander (the most recent title challenger), #3 Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D., and unranked Penelope Ford.

The last time Shida and Baker were in a match together Shida inadvertently and memorably broke Baker’s nose. What did this 4-way match have in store for us?

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 take a look at the clash to end all clashes…that lasted about 30 seconds.