Overall
If you read my review of this week’s NXT (and if you haven’t it’s right here) you would know that I felt that there wasn’t a lot of bad stuff in the episode but that the good stuff didn’t really pop either. NXT fell a little flat for me and so did this week’s AEW: Dynamite. Don’t get me wrong there was stuff to like, such as the return of Mike Chioda to television as the official for both the TNT title match between Cody and Scorpio Sky and the main event match between Orange Cassidy and Chris Jericho, and the tag team appreciation segment. I just wasn’t wowed by anything like I have been in the past.
I don’t want to seem to negative because I can’t expect every week to be a stellar show with any promotion. I don’t expect each week of Dynamite to be better than the last, but I don’t think that it is unfair to say that I was disappointed with last night’s show overall.
So, with all of that being said let’s check out the good, the bad, and the ugly of AEW: Dynamite 8/12/20.
The Good
- Young Bucks vs. The Dark Order is a good match to start with.
- Commentary and the wrestlers did a great job of telling the story of how The Bucks and Grayson and Uno knew each other’s play books really well.
- I don’t care what anyone on twitter says. I like the MJF politician gimmick.
- I liked the idea of having the different tag teams talk about their favorite teams of all time.
- MJF laying down for his promo on Mox was a good touch.
- I really like the direction that Matt Hardy is taking his character. This backstage interview was good.
- The new TNT title belt is an improvement.
- Glad to see Mike Chioda working again.
- I enjoyed the mind games that Scorpio Sky was playing.
- I liked most of Brodie Lee’s video announcing him as next week’s challenger for the TNT title.
- Kenny and Jungle Boy kicking of their tag match was good. I’d love to see a singles program between these two.
- I had a lot of fun with the tag team appreciation night segment.
- Orange Cassidy and Jericho starting with a ton of punches to each other got a good pop.
- I loved seeing an aggressive Orange Cassidy.
- I always pop when Jericho underestimates Cassidy and ends up eating a superkick.
- Orange Cassidy beats Jericho!!!
The Bad
- I think I would’ve liked to have seen The Bucks take the L. The finish on this match felt like it didn’t mesh well with the rest of the story.
- Ok, let’s not act like the Brodie Lee “tick tock” bit wasn’t a straight rip at NXT and Karrion Kross. It just made this upcoming match feel like an underwhelming counter program to TakeOver which happens to be the same day as the special episode of Dynamite.
- Kenny and Hangman Page and Jurassic Express had some weird timing issues in this match. Something just felt off.
The Ugly
- As most people who follow wrestling know, last week AEW faced more criticism of their women’s division than usual. It was a big mess due to the reaction from Brandi Rhodes who is the CBO of AEW. I get that there are a lot of reasons why AEW’s women’s division is lacking, but this week could’ve been a week to address this. Instead we got a Shida squash match that barely lasted 3 minutes. We all know that AEW can do better, it just sucks that they decided to not listen this week.
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