Off the back of an entertaining Full Gear PPV event, All Elite Wrestling looked to carry some momentum into Dynamite and regain some of their lost viewership. Meanwhile, over on the USA Network, NXT seek to continue their climb and overtake their rivals in the Wednesday Night War. What will this instalment of the battle bring?
Starting the Show
Following a video recap of Saturday’s Full Gear event, AEW Dynamite kicked off with an update on the condition of Kenny Omega following his brutal bout with Jon Moxley. Informed by JR that Moxley will kick off the night’s competition shortly, we peek into the medical examination of Omega. We learn that he, unlike Mox, has not been cleared to compete and Kenny does a fantastic job of carrying on his face the mental pain of his opponent being cleared before him. This is real emotion on display or, at the very least, a stellar and convincing reproduction of it. Back in the ring, Jon Moxley makes light work of Michael Nakazawa before taking to the microphone. Mox rubs the victory into Omega before sharing his reluctant respect for him. Following this, Moxley effectively calls out the entire roster, claiming they don’t have the balls to confront him. Ultimately, he is proven correct, with no-one answering the call in that moment.
NXT launched itself onto the airwaves with a recap of last week’s show, combined with the opening music video. The only thing that would have made this more perfect is fully putting up the NXT titlecard at the crescendo of the music. I’d love to see NXT open in this way going forward; it’s super fresh and very unique. The show proper got underway with the NXT Cruiserweight Championship match which I, for one, highly anticipated. The match met all expectations and continued to demonstrate the ability of the Cruiserweight roster. The early commercial break really broke the flow of this match but the match overall was a delight to behold. I’m a little disappointed with the ending but I’m satisfied in the fact that it means this will not be the last time we see Garza and Rush face off in the near future.
Match of the Night
In my opinion, the match of the night belonged to “Hangman” Adam Page and PAC. The raw emotion that carried into their second match was unmatched and lacked the errors that other top matches from the night had. This match put PAC over, big time, as he took his underhanded, bastard tactics to another level rendering Page unconscious and refusing to relent. Great story, great action, match of the night.
Honourable mention for the Cruiserweight Championship match. The end of the match combined with the few moments in which each superstar stood waiting to be hit or for moves to be delivered pushed the edge to Hangman vs. PAC.
Biggest Shocker
For me, the biggest shock of the night is that NXT didn’t payoff the best possible outcome in the night long women being attacked, Baszler needing a fourth member deal. Sure, Kay Lee Ray is fine but everything pointed to a larger conspiracy that would have seen, if I were writing the show, Dakota Kai join Team Baszler. Kai left last week’s NXT livid and emotionally devastated that she had been supplanted for Team Ripley. She was presented as a weak, feeble person that didn’t have the resolve to fight for her place, let alone fight against some of the toughest women in the business. Imagine then, that driven by the negative emotions of last week, Kai took the decision to reach out to Shayna Baszler and join her War Games team instead. Asked to prove that she was ruthless enough to join her team, Baszler instructs Kai to make and impact, which she does by taking out all of Team Ripley with Shafir and Duke feigning injury to cover her tracks. During the main event, Shayna Baszler’s music hits and Kai rushes to the ring through the crowd, standing alongside Mia Yim, whom she’d sworn to protect backstage. Shayna tells Yim she isn’t there to fight, she’s here with video evidence proving who attacked all the other women backstage. The video shows a person brutally attacking Ripley and co before telling Shafir/Duke to take a dive; that person turns around and is revealed to be Dakota Kai. Before Yim can react, Kai kicks her in the head and drags Io Shirai to the ladder, where she climbs and secures the victory. The event ends in the same way but with Kai in the place of Kay Lee Ray as Bayley jumps Baszler.
That should have been the shocking moment of the night… but hey, what do I know? By the way, because they didn’t make it explicit on the show, it was Bayley…
Fun moments and other good stuff
- Great to see the Luchasaurus back in the ring. Here’s hoping we can see more singles action from him, leaving Jungle Boy and Marko to handle tag division duties.
- Finn Balor’s verbal tirade transitioning into a War Games build transitioning into a Roderick Strong vs. Keith Lee match. See also bad stuff below.
- Darby Allin is big time over. I came into this night thinking that AEW needed to find a good feud for this kid that can payoff with a big PPV match, focusing on what he can do in the ring rather than his more risque style of wrestling. Accepting Jon Moxley’s open challenge accomplishes half of that… but a match with Mox is never not going to be high risk. Here’s hoping it won’t be one-and-done next week in Indianapolis.
- Nice little rivalry building between Shawn Spears and Joey Janela. Their payoff will be a good opportunity for them both to demonstrate the technical aspects of their repertoire and put on a great match for the audience.
- A feud in which the hatred was between Pete Dunne and Killian Dain was evident has morphed effectively into a chaotic, three-way war – adding Damien Priest. Priest definitely isn’t a third wheel in this situation and will add a dynamic element to this Triple Threat match, in a Survivor Series weekend dominated by Triple Threat matches.
- A lot went down in the Chris Jericho initiated talk segment, all of it good. We saw a coming out promo for MJF, followed by an ego-off between arguable the two best heels in the company, followed by the debut of Wardlow. Cody’s quest for revenge should dominate Dynamite for weeks to come, with Cody being denied his retribution all the way to the next PPV event. By the way, as a subordinate of MJF, the Burberry tie is a nice touch.
- There’s not often much worth hearing during a backstage brawl so using the commercial break splitscreen for the majority of the altercation between the Young Bucks and Santana/Ortiz was an excellent use of time.
- Mia Yim took an absolute beating tonight. Major respect, hope she’s okay for Takeover: War Games.
Room for improvement
- If the Cruiserweight and United Kingdom Championships are now truly NXT titles, they need a fresh design, replacing the front and center WWE logo with an NXT based design. Without that, it’s a constant reminder that you changed the names without much reason.
- I loved Finn Balor’s rant about how soft NXT has gotten but Gargano’s injury really hurts Balor.
I would have hoped Balor be confronted by someone who he might face at Takeover: War Games. Riddle already has a match… Balor won’t be joining the War Games match… what’s left for him to do at the first major event since his return? Do they take Riddle out of War Games?Cancel my last. After writing this, they did indeed take Riddle out of War Games and put him in a one-on-one with Finn Balor. Kudos. - Enough of the stupid Librarian crap, seriously. If Shane Douglas couldn’t pull of this kind of scholarly elitist gimmick, Peter Avalon sure isn’t going to.
- Two squash matches in the programme does not a quality wrestling oriented show make.
- Forced Star Wars reference from Nigel McGuinness and Beth Phoenix.
- Why is All Elite Wrestling obsessed with battle royals? And giving out trinkets like medals and rings? Very strange.
- Rules go out the window in AEW tag team matches. Officials rarely keep illegal competitors on the apron, hold them to account for being in the ring too long. The referee would have clearly seen Jake Hager attack Kazarian outside the ring, he was looking right at him. Rules matter.
- I really, really don’t like a mid-card (at best) guy like Scorpio Sky kicking out of the Codebreaker, beating the World Champion, or handing Chris Jericho his first loss. The only legitimate reason to potentially do any of those things would be as the launchpad for a main event push for Sky, which I don’t see being their end game. Where can this go, other than making your company’s top guy look weak?
What the ratings said
This week, AEW Dynamite improved to 957,000 views on last week, failing to break back through that 1 million barrier. NXT slid backwards to 750,000 viewers, failing to capitalise on the promise of RAW and SmackDown superstars boosting the show’s appeal. The viewers lost from the early weeks of the Wednesday Night War do not seem to be returning for their Wednesday night pro wrestling fix.
And the winner is…
Deciding a winner this week was tough and there were times that I thought I’d declare week 7 a tie but, ultimately, less went wrong on Dynamite and the story wasn’t left with a gaping hole in it in the same way NXT did (see rant above). Furthermore, while the Full Sail crowd were engaged and vocal, as always, the reactions from the Nashville audience were at another level, especially during moments like MJF’s promo and Cody’s arrival. It takes a lot to top an NXT crowd and that should be recognised. This week, AEW put on the better television show. Overall, the war is 5-2 to NXT but with a stellar event this week, the All Elite crew prove they ain’t licked yet. The war wages on…
What did you think of NXT and AEW Dynamite? What were your highlights from both shows? Sound off in the comment section below or join me on Twitter @thejezshow.
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