AEW Booms and Duds: ‘Blood’ Orange Cassidy, beaten to a pulp!
With only a few weeks left before night one of Fyter Fest, AEW filled last night’s episode of Dynamite with many story-driven matches. Here are the “booms” and “duds” from Jun. 10.
As we barrel towards Fyter Fest, AEW is doing everything they can to retain and increase interest in the various, well-told stories and angles they’ve produced. Last night was no different. I would consider it the most story-driven episode I can remember; every match, segment, angle, and interview/vignette seemed important and coherent.
There were five main advertised segments (sixth if you count a certain “Le Champion” on commentary, who I refer to as “Le Commentator”), all fulfilling the goal of advancing stories. Jericho was mostly entertaining on commentary until he left halfway through the show, but as I’ll discuss later with a certain character, he’s straddling the line between “entertaining” and “goofy.”
Unlike WWE, there weren’t a couple of random matches with little stakes and no bearing on future angles; all matches served a purpose.
Interestingly, neither AEW World Champion Jon Moxley nor his challenger at Fyter Fest Brian Cage (presumably on night two) were advertised, though they appeared in the segment embedded above.
Taz and Cage did watch Moxley’s match while Taz commentated on Tuesday’s episode of Dark (which included Moxley utilizing the leg-capture suplex Taz is so well-known for), but it would behoove AEW to show some highlights from the show on Dynamite for those who don’t watch Dark (and the YouTube numbers indicate only about half the number of viewers, if that, watch Dark as opposed to Dynamite).
I mean, if you haven’t been watching Dark, you’re probably wondering how The Natural Nightmares became ranked #1 after not having a match on Dynamite since they defeated Eight and Nine of Dark Order on Apr. 1. You might be wondering why Allie, who was The Bunny only a few short months ago (is this her third character change already?), is flirting with QT Marshall considering she’s actually married to The Blade. Now they have a title shot next week, and this is the second team to challenge for the titles before Best Friends even receive their title shot (which is not certain anymore).
I digress.
Quickly on Moxley-Taz-Cage: while I’d advocated for their first physical confrontation to happen the week before their match at Fyter Fest, last night’s angle was fine. Taz (rightfully) interrupting Moxley only to distract him long enough for Cage to attack him, culminating with Cage slamming Moxley onto the back windshield of a car (it’s been a rough time for cars at wrestling events), leaved me intrigued on how Moxley will respond. This also provides a reason to keep Moxley off television for at least next week, building anticipation for his response.
Extra points for Taz trying to reign in “The Machine” only to be thwarted by Cage’s own desires.
(I predicted Cage would upset Moxley at Fyter Fest based on his immediate impact, and last night only bolstered my thinking…but booking in wrestling is a weird endeavor, so we’ll see.)
Depending on your taste, the draw for last night’s show was either Cody’s second defense of his TNT Championship against Marq Quen (in his first AEW singles match) or the in-ring debut of FTR against The Butcher and The Blade. Although the match outcomes were never in doubt (at least to me), how did these segments continue the ongoing stories of Cody’s untenable pace and FTR’s impact on the tag division?
AEW Women’s Champion Hikaru Shida teamed with Kris Statlander (her most common tag team partner it seems) as they fought Penelope Ford and former champion “The Native Beast” Nyla Rose. With Rose still looking for a rematch, was she able to legitimize her standing as next challenger, or did that fall to someone else?
Inner Circle continued their little feud with Colt Cabana as he squared off against “The Spanish God” (even though he’s Cuban) Sammy Guevara. After losing to Jericho last week in an even match, and drawing the interest of “The Exalted One” Mr. Brodie Lee, would Cabana be able to shake off the loss or would his woes (and recruitment) continue?
Lastly, the Inner Circle sent Jake Hager, Santana, and Ortiz into battle against all three members of Best Friends. With Best Friends scheduled to face AEW Tag Team Champion Kenny Omega and “Hangman” Adam Page at Fyter Fest (maybe as the night one main event?), would they continue their recent streak of success or stumble over the hurdle that is Inner Circle?
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.