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DREAM MATCH DELIVERS
Bryan Danielson vs Will Ospreay was one of the best presentations on AEW programming in quite some time. The insanely hot crowd, the commentary, the camera work, and the spectacular in-ring work, put this up there with the best matches in the history of the company.
Ospreay & Danielson, in my opinion, are two of the greatest in-ring performers ever, and despite a poor build for this match, it didn’t matter. Once the bell rang, it would’ve taken an unforeseen act of god to get in the way of this being an instant classic.
There were some amazing, innovative spots that were performed with Unbelievable levels of accuracy and timing, mixed with physicality, an element of danger and top level selling.
The finish, although some may argue was slightly tasteless, given Danielson’s history of real serious injuries, does open the door for a rematch and further storyline developments.
SWERVE ERA
Swerve Strickland is the new AEW World Champion. It has been a fantastic rise in AEW for Swerve, ever since his split with Keith Lee. He has been one of the great success stories in AEW over the past two years. Samoa Joe should be highly commended for his run as champion. He stabilised the championship after a very rocky MJF reign, and delivered it to the right guy. I do think Swerve had cooled off somewhat in recent weeks, it felt like Revolution was the peak of his title chase, but his win here was a great moment. The finish didn’t go as planned, with Swerve overshooting an avalanche Swerve Stomp, leading to Joe having to sit up for an awkward amount of time waiting to take the regular version of the move. I hope Swerve considers modifying, or eliminating this from his arsenal, because it can take people out of the match. AEW made a new top star in Swerve Strickland, let's hope they capitalise on it and make him a centrepiece of the company going forward.
GUESS WHO'S BACK
It’s never a good thing when a match gets to a point where the audience are chanting for the men in the ring to be careful. Which, unfortunately, did sum up the FTR vs Young Bucks ladder match. They worked their asses off, and took some insane risks, which was the problem. It started getting uncomfortable and almost like they were trying extremely hard to make people forget the weeks of CM Punk related rubbish that surrounded this match. For whatever reason, despite being two of the greatest tag teams of the past decade. The Bucks and FTR have never had the classic tag match that fans have expected from them. They were in a tough spot following Ospreay & Danielson, so between that and a build that no doubt turned some people off, there were parts of this where the crowd were struggling to stay with it. Every dog in the street knew what the finish of this match was going to be. Jack Perry is back on AEW TV, and unfortunately being associated with The Young Bucks, means we are probably going to be reminded about CM Punk for at least another while.
THE SHOW AEW NEEDED
Overall this was a really strong AEW PPV, and one they badly needed after weeks of being in the news for all the wrong reasons. The show started hot with an outstanding Okada vs PAC match, which if it wasn’t for Ospreay & Danielson, would have been the show stealer. The 6 man tag was very strong, and nicely set up a future Adam Copeland vs Malakai Black TNT title match. Willow Nightingale is the new TBS champion, building to her Double or Nothing clash with Mercedes Mone. Toni Storm vs Thunder Rosa and Roderick Strong vs Kyle O’Reilly were both very solid but unspectacular championship matches that made for an enjoyable undercard.
\The biggest negative of the show? Well it comes from the same name that has too often been AEWs biggest negative as of late. Chris Jericho. Another poor performance from “the learning tree”, who sadly, is looking more and more desperate with every match he has. This has been made worse by an attempt to lean into the criticism he has been receiving online and general fan apathy towards him. A man once known for being way ahead of the curve, always able to reinvent himself and stay current, is now so far beyond stale that the crowd chanted for him to retire. And no, it’s not good heat. People just want Jericho off their screens for an extended period of time.
I can be reached at matthewmacklin90@gmail.com
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