AEW Booms and Duds: Are Butcher and Blade a worthy threat for FTR?

AEW Dynamite was loaded last night, topped with two championship matches. We also heard from FTR as they sat down with Tony Schiavone. Here are the “booms” and “duds” for Jun. 3.

Black Lives Matter. Black Women’s Lives Matter. Black Queer Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Disabled Lives Matter. BLACK LIVES MATTER.

It’s been a terrible week in the United States as we keep enduring instances of unarmed Black people murdered at the hands of law enforcement. The solidarity being shown between people of different identities during these uprisings has somewhat alleviated how tired, exhausted, and frustrated many Black people and people of color have been feeling for, well, centuries.

As I head into discussing last night’s episode of Dynamite, keep in mind this is a company that has stressed they’re an open, diverse, and inclusive brand. While they have failed in one main area on-screen (elevating men’s wrestlers of color to the World Championship picture), the women’s and tag divisions at least have worked towards achieving their goals for diversity.

Off-screen, how many of the decision-makers in AEW are of color, women, or LGBTIQA+ identities? Brandi Rhodes is a woman of color, and she’s the only one in these positions who’s a woman and of color, no?

As fans, we should hold companies accountable not only for what we believe in, but for how rarely their words match their actions. AEW has done better than most, but that doesn’t mean we can stop holding them accountable.

Seeing AEW actually have Black Lives Matter to start the show was more than I anticipated, so I’ll give AEW their due for doing more than a lot of other companies.

However, as Rich Fann noted on Twitter, we have another receipt to show if in six to 12 months, AEW has progressed or if those words were just some more of the public relations spin we’ve seen the past week from corporations across the country and from AEW themselves.

We’re still waiting for men’s wrestlers of color not named Scorpio Sky to be in the World Championship picture after all, something Tony Khan and Cody promised would happen by the end of 2019. Oops.

With that said, let’s review last night’s show.

(We do know that Fyter Fest won’t just be “sometime this summer,” but actually a two-night event spanning Dynamite episodes on Jul. 1 and 8. Here are some bold predictions I made that published before last night’s episode.)

It was a rather loaded show topped with two championship matches. First, and the big draw to many, was Cody defending his TNT Championship against recently-minted number one contender, Jungle Boy.

After impressing in a hard-fought loss to MJF at Double or Nothing and emerging victorious in last week’s battle royal, many fans are finally starting to see him go from “having potential” to “undeniable growth.” Would Jungle Boy topple the champion, or would Cody remind Jungle Boy of his standing?

Second, we had Kenny Omega and “Hangman” Adam Page defending the Tag Team Championship against The SuperBad Squad, Kip Sabian and Jimmy Havoc.

The latter won a number one contender’s match last week by beating SCU, and have shot up the tag team scene even though they’ve only been teaming for a short time in AEW. The winners of the titles already knew their next opponent: Best Friends at Fyter Fest. Who would emerge with the belts to face Best Friends?

Brian Cage was in action for the second straight week as he looked to continue his hot streak since debuting at Double or Nothing. Under the tutelage of Taz, it will be interesting to see if Cage adds more suplex variations and submission maneuvers to his arsenal (hint: he did), or if he helps focus Cage on psychology and promos.

Regardless, with his World Championship match against Jon Moxley set for Fyter Fest, what did Cage and Taz have in store for us and Moxley?

Next, Big Swole returned! After voluntarily being away due to the pandemic (she has a preexisting condition in Crohn’s disease), she stepped right into arguably the toughest match outside of Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida as she faced former champion Nyla Rose. Who added to their accolades as each seeks a Women’s Championship match?

Lastly, FTR sat down with Tony Schiavone to speak their first words on AEW television. Why are they in AEW? Why did they help Young Bucks only to turn their backs on them? Most importantly, what is/are their goals and mission statement? In WWE, it was “No Flips, Just Fists” as they were basically this generation’s version of The Brain Busters.

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.