The eighth weekly AEW on TNT extravaganza came to us from Indianapolis, Indiana. They came off of a hot Full Gear post-show, where they got back up near the coveted one million viewer mark. Let’s see how they’d fare this week.
Nick Jackson vs. Fenix
We opened the show with what some fans considered a dream match. Matt Jackson is still selling his knee injury from Full Gear (and the subsequent attack from Proud and Powerful last week), so we get a rare singles match from one of the Young Bucks. This one was full speed ahead from the opening bell. What was lacked in psychology was made up for in innovative high flying. Fenix manipulates and scales the ropes better than anyone in the business. The two did a lot of duck and dodge sequences, which were highly choreographed, but smooth and impressive. Fenix wins with the Muscle Buster Sit-Out Driver, but Nick looked very impressive for a tag team wrestler. Nick went to shake hands after the match, and Fenix declined.
Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker
This was a battle for the #1 women’s title contender (Baker) versus the #2 contender (Shida). This one started hot, but got a little choppy as the competitors got winded. The strikes they threw looked very tight, and Shida has really gotten her “outside knee off the chair” over. The crowd enjoyed this with dueling chants. Hikaru Shida looks like a deer in the headlights sometimes, but she’s been adding to her offense every time she’s appeared on Dynamite/Dark. Shida gets the win here and Britt gets a busted nose.
We get a cult-like infomercial promo for The Dark Order. A guy gets bullied at a train station, then a guy appears to tell him that if you’re on a losing streak, you can find yourself and start to win if you “join us”. This has a very cool 80’s feel, and it did more to get this team over than anything they’ve done so far. I hope they start to recruit lower-card AEW talent to join them in a stable.
Dynamite Dozen Rumble
This is a twelve man battle royal, where the final two move on next week to face off for the Dozen Diamond Ring. They didn’t say if the ring came with any privileges, but I hope it has clout and stakes. These matches are good because they provide something different, contain a lot of action, and are a quick way to get multiple guys over. Billy Gunn (who’s now an AEW agent) was a surprise entrant, and he’s still completely jacked in amazing shape. MJF got great heel heat by throwing out multiple comedy wrestlers. Kip Sabian looked very good here in his new heel persona with Penelope Ford. Jimmy Havoc came back with a staple gun after he was eliminated, and ran amok. Chris Daniels came out dressed as Fenix, to cause the distraction elimination of Pentagon (and continue their tag team feud). My only gripe in this fun, fast-paced affair was that they did the same exact “we thing Wrestler A is eliminated, but they come back sneakily and win in the end” finish that they always do. MJF and Adam Page move onto a one-on-one encounter next week for the ring.
Chris Jericho and Jake Hager were out next for a promo. Jericho is near his 50’s, and is probably doing the best heel mic work of his life. He can’t bring himself to apologize for last week’s losing tantrum, so he gives the mic to Hager every time he wants to use the word “sorry”. This is comedic, fun, and brings great heat. Next week, they’re doing a “Le Champion” celebration in Chicago. SCU comes out, and Scorpio Sky works the mic well. SCU pretends Sky isn’t ready for a title match, so they sort-of con Jericho into a championship match next week. I don’t like the veteran getting obviously outsmarted here, but they did a nice job making Sky seem like a legit contender. The Inner Circle and Nick Jackson/Dustin Rhodes are out for a big brawl, and Luchasaurus eventually has a promising staredown with Hager. There’s a match I’d LOVE to see. Luchasaurus is a future main event star in the making. This segment was all over the place, but it did well to shine a light on Luchasaurus and Sky.
Luchasaurus vs. Peter Avalon
This is a quick squash to get the returning Luchasaurus over, and the crowd eats it up. I’d be surprised if this lasted a minute. But Avalon is a good talker and gets natural heat with the Librarian character, so it doesn’t really hurt him. Luchasaurus picks up the W with his tombstone pancake.
Private Party vs. Proud and Powerful
This was a tribute match for their friend Matt Travis. Travis was a 25 year old wrestler from House Of Glory who was recently killed in a tragic traffic accident. These two work nicely together, as the brawl-and-isolation style of Proud and Powerful controlled the match, and the high flying of Private Party got the crowd into it. This was well-paced, had time to develop, and told more of a story than most AEW tag team matches. There was a bit toward the end where the referee stopped counting as he was waiting on a cue, and it went off the rails a bit. Referees have made quite a few mistakes on Dynamite so far. But this was good overall, as Private Party gets the upset win with Gin and Juice, after Nick Jackson distracts Proud and Powerful.
We see Kenny Omega lifting minimal weights backstage, being spotted by Michael Nakazawa. Omega sits up and says he’s lost his marbles and been doing odd things lately. He blames this on his loss to Pac on pay per view, and says he gets his fresh start when they wrestle next week. This was Omega’s best promo work in AEW to date.
Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin
Allin had a cool black-and-white package of himself carrying around a “MOX” body bag and crowd-surfing in it at a concert. The crowd was into this before the bell even rang, as Allin dove onto Moxley as he was approaching the ring. This started hot, as they brawled in the crowd and all over ringside. All the strikes were very tight, and Allin is incredibly smooth in his counters and transitions. Moxley walks with an intensity and a confidence like nobody else in wrestling, and Allin is one of the best bumpers in the world. Allin takes a scary bump onto the ropes back into the ring, and also on a cross body to the outside (that he over-shot). Allin gained a lot of crowd sympathy by working underneath and taking lots of punishment. At one point, Moxley zipped Allin in the body bag and beat on him. Several crisp false finishes happened, and then Moxley won with the Paradigm Shift off the second rope. This gave Moxley a statement win, but made Allin look very strong by hanging with the star. I hope we get this again on PPV.
Overall, the show was admittedly a few steps down compared to the last three weeks. They went back to longer matches and more wrestling this week, as opposed to character development. But the last two matches on this show were great, and Omega/Dark Order had some nice progression. Jericho/Sky was hyped nicely, and Luchasaurus & Allin got big rubs. While this show may not have been a homerun like last week’s, it was still very good overall.
