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

Boom: only needed one promo to tell us who they are and their mission statement

Dud: presenting The Butcher and The Blade as a threat when they’ve been booked as anything but

THAT is the kind of character and promo ability we longed to see for FTR when they were on RAW or SmackDown. It was confident, laid out a mission statement, and gave us an ultimate goal: beat Young Bucks at their best and prove that FTR truly is the best tag team in the world.

They also didn’t come off as comedic idiots or goofballs as they so often did in WWE.

After a bit of playing around about what FTR stands for, they named some tag teams they want to wrestle, including Lucha Bros, who they described as the complete opposite of FTR as a team and that they would teach them tag team wrestling, “Emphasis on ‘tag.'” Remember, their old slogan was, “No Flips, Just Fists” and well, Lucha Bros are “All Flips, Just Kicks,” basically, who don’t really seem to utilize tags during their matches…

When Schiavone mentioned Young Bucks, FTR laughed a little and discussed how everyone always compares the two. When you talk about one, you talk about the other. It’s a “dream match” to everyone except FTR; they just want to punch Nick and Matt Jackson’s mouths.

They turned their backs on them last week after running off The Butcher and The Blade because they want to face Young Bucks “as healthy as they’ve ever been” so that there are no excuses when FTR defeats them. Then, they want everyone to come to them and apologize for not calling FTR the greatest team all this time.

As they stood to end the interview, Schiavone said what he thought FTR stood for: “(Bleep) The (Bleep).” I mean, “Revival” was actually bleeped out! I thought WWE was petty, but either FTR, AEW, or both were a bit petty with this one.

Then, we had the appearance of AEW’s resident mimes, I mean The Butcher and The Blade enter to go after FTR. They were separated before they came to blows, but now we know they will face each other next week.

Does anyone actually think The Butcher and The Blade are a serious threat as a tag team? They’re unranked and somehow doing worse than a team with QT Marshall. To add insult to injury, The Blade’s real-life wife in Allie (formerly The Bunny) is flirting with Marshall and, dare I say, making him even slightly more interesting?

We know who’s going over next week. I hope it isn’t a back-and-forth match, either, but it probably will be. I also hope the earliest we have the first FTR-Young Bucks match is All Out. Let’s build out a nice, in-depth story, yeah?

Another week of Dynamite is in the books, and we now definitively head towards Fyter Fest. We still only have the World Championship and Tag Team Championship matches set, so the next three weeks are going to be full of booking angles for the two-night event.

I’ll see you all back here next week as we discuss Cody’s second defense of his TNT Championship against Marq Quen and the AEW in-ring debut of FTR. Until then, please stay safe, healthy, and remember that Black Lives Matter.