3 AEW/WWE matches worth a rewatch (Week of Oct. 16-22)

We got another week filled with good wrestling matches on WWE and All Elite Wrestling programming. It truly is a great time to be a fan of this great simulated sport regardless of the promotion.

WWE aired a premium live event that featured two great matches further added to the weekly tally. Even without Halloween Havoc, though, fans still had plenty of good offerings to choose from between Raw, SmackDown, Dynamite, and Rampage.

So, let’s look back at a few of those matches.

These are three WWE and AEW matches worth rewatching.

Rey Mysterio vs. Ludwig Kaiser (SmackDown Oct. 21, 2022)(***1/4)

A week after winning a Fatal 4 Way as a surprise entrant to become the number one contender to GUNTHER’s Intercontinental Championship, Rey Mysterio waged battle with Imperium’s Ludwig Kaiser on this past Friday’s SmackDown.

Even with limited previous experience working together, Kaiser and Mysterio looked like two guys who’d been dance partners for decades. Even with the specter of shenanigans hovering over the match in the form of GUNTHER and Giovanni Vinci — who Mysterio got ejected from ringside thanks to an old Eddie Guerrero trick — the two put together a fun match that highlights how easy Mysterio makes life for most heels.

Now that Mysterio has scored a win over Kaiser, he will probably face Vinci next, which should also be a joy to watch.

Death Triangle (c) vs. Best Friends- AEW World Trios Championship (AEW: Dynamite Oct. 18, 2022) (****1/4)

After Orange Cassidy finally bested PAC to win the AEW All Atlantic Championship, he teamed with his pals, Trent Beretta and Chuck Taylor, to take on PAC, Rey Fenix, and Penta El Zero M for the Trios Title on a special Tuesday edition of AEW: Dynamite.

If you have even the slightest understanding of who these six wrestlers are, you don’t need me to tell you how wild this one got; these guys could face each other a thousand times and would still churn out a show-stealer of a match. They also advanced the story of PAC using the ring bell hammer to win matches and introduced the Lucha Bros.’s aversion to those tactics, which could lead to Death Triangle’s eventual split.

Carmelo Hayes vs. Wes Lee vs. Oro Mensah vs. Von Wagner vs. Nathan Frazer- Ladder match for the vacant NXT North American Championship (NXT Halloween Havoc) (****1/2)

Like one of those novelty Oreo flavors with a wacky creme center, NXT Halloween Havoc bookended with two great matches and filled the middle with a bunch of weird nonsense. But let’s focus on the good, specifically the ladder match that opened the show.

Given the quality of workers in this match (and Von Wagner), most fans expected this to be the highlight of the PLE, and boy, it lived up to the hype. These days, it’s hard to come up with cool, innovative spots in these sorts of bouts, but everyone came into this one ready with something unique, making this feel more memorable than a lot of these other multi-person offerings. Even Wagner mostly accomplished being tall while the smaller guys bumped around for him.

It also helped that the right guy went over in the end, as Wes Lee climbed the ladder and retrieved the North American Title.