MoS

Most places in NYC with indoor crowds were asking for proof before this mandate anyway, and generally no one was complaining. I think the NY/NJ shows should be fine. They better hope they don't have to go back to Florida; if a wrestler gets injured there, there might not be available hospital beds.

Brandi was really tone deaf as usual. There is a good point about AEW's lack of black TV talent. I don't think they use the ones they do have too badly; I like Scorpio, but right now he is a midcard wrestler and his team with Page is actually the best use of him. Nyla and Jade and Velvet have been booked like their level warrants, if not more so. Their issue is hiring young good black talent. I am not an expert on the indy scene, but I am sure there are a lot of young black wrestlers with a lot of upside to them, and I absolutely think AEW should be making a push to scout and sign more of them. I know a really good friend of mine keeps remonstrating about how they are not getting Willie Mack to come from Impact and wrestle for them, instead of subjecting us to the fucking Good Brothers every single week. He isn't young, but he has never been on the national stage before. I am hoping the signing of Mark Henry changes this to some extent; IIRC, he scouted Bianca for WWE amongst others, so he does have a good track record. It is foolish of Brandi to handwave this away by blaming the fans. I absolutely think they should be making a bigger push to address it. It's not empty symbolism; representation matters for both ethical and sound business reasons.

This is me with Jamie Haytor these days

You mean you don't think those Iron Crosses make him look cool and like the King of Kings.

Henry (and even Jericho, but especially Henry) seems to be a great example of someone who is a fantastic promo but a bad commentator. He feels like he honestly doesn't care. I did like his line about how there's no point knowing karate when the other person knows ka-razy. The thing is though, when three commentators are fighting over each other just to keep cracking similar quips, these lines lose their effect due to sheer redundancy.

After Meltz reported that Wyatt to AEW seems very likely, clearly someone corrected both him and Alvarez on it, because the next day they came out and said that "people who would know" contacted them and said that the report isn't true and they are not actively going after Wyatt. I am hoping that is true; I would much rather see him in Impact, he will acctually fit there. As for the Dark Order breakup tease, I am not a fan of breaking groups before you need to, it seems totally unnecessary and usually leaves you with two unover acts than one over act. I am hoping that this dissension is a sign of Hangman coming back and getting his friends to reunite for him, showing everyone the power of friendship and unity. Hangman's entire arc is contingent on learning how to trust friends and how to accept failure. It makes sense for part of this redemption story to be to reunite a fighting group, after he was responsible for the split of his original group of friends. Then they can tell the story about his friends believing in him despite his previous mistakes, Hangman reuniting them, learning to not dwell too much on past failures, and then FINALLY winning the big one. It has been AEW's biggest angle since the second the promotion started. I hope they don't fuck up the layout by making it too complicated or introducing too many twists cuz you want to do sTOrYTelLiNg. Part of Elite's (and by extension AEW's given the power the ELite have) issues for me personally is they often try to bee too cute with this shit. Stuff that is funny on your YouTube show isn't necessarily a good fit for your television show.

He was actually okay last night compared to the really really bad stuff he has done with Callis, including last Wednesday with that dumb You Think You Know Me line - that all the wrestling journalists thought was hilarious cuz they're all dorks too. He is not going to do his promos completely serious as long as Callis is with him, but at least it felt acceptable and not egregious and complete cringe like he has been in the past. I am really hoping that being around Punk will teach this young roster how to carry yourself like a star. Punk was always great at projecting aura and star power, to the extent he felt believable going toe to toe against Brock Lesnar. Having that aura and projecting that even while saying funny shit on the mic is a skill that most AEW talent have to learn, because apart from Mox and Jericho, the main eventers (i.e. the Elite) seem to go out of their way to diminish their own aura and star power, something that really pisses me off. This hour was a much better watch than Dynamite even though it was by no means a stacked card. Seemed to be formatted better and thus had an easier flow. The Darby-Punk promo was great, and the Miro-King program had a fantastic first tease. I really liked that they had King come down with a mic but then said fuck it and decided to just brawl. Puts over Kingston as someone who, while he can talk better than anyone else in wrestling right now, is also someone who prefers fists to words. This also makes his promos a big deal. It created some anticipation for what he was going to say to Miro; now, the verbal battle between these two will have more hype and will make the program feel like a much bigger deal. Basic classic wrestling booking. They really need to cut down that booth though. Jericho in particular is terrible. He was great as the constantly shouting commentator during empty arena shows, because his energy and enthusiasm lifted the dark, quiet, pandemic product. Now, with fans back and making so much noise? It seems excessive, contrived, and cacophonous. It really detracts from the experience.

The match was great though, Tay is amazing

Yet another WWE-esque bullshit interference finish. Is this like some bit.

Taz and Excalibur are great together, get everyone else out of there

I agree about AEW being fine ultimately, but there has to be something said about having clunkers when you have momentum and having clunkers when you are building it. AEW haven't found their NWO angle yet. When Nitro was having clunkers, they could point to NWO. Raw could point to Austin v. McMahon. This show honestly felt out of one of those early 2019 Dynamites where the formatting and structure of the card would be off. It's a one-off but a good reminder to not get complacent. The best part about the main event honestly was Arn doing a promo and basically shitting all over his kid. That really was great. They are very lucky to have Arn.

I can't say it's the wrong decision by WWE. The Fox deal is massive for them and gets them on network TV. NBC/Universal are getting their Network business and WWE said this Summerslam was watched by more people than in the last two years, so Universal can't complain too much

AEW is definitely not harmed or anything, but I think this is a learning moment for a young promotion. I think we can conclude now that building two shows completely around a return and a promo makes for flat TV. Meltzer said that he thought one idea was to showcase their big talent but not give any big matches away. But it meant that not one match was really strong enough to headline a modern TV episode, especially when the main event ended with a jobber coming out for the big save and your featured star leaving instead of killing him. Brodie would never

With Roman, Sasha, Becky, Brock (and really, even Cena) exclusively on Smackdown now, is this the first time Raw has been the genuine B-show? There were times when you could say Smackdown was 1A, but Raw was always the flagship show. Even when Cena and Hunter were drafted to SD years back, Raw was still the A-show. But it feels different now. I mean no disrespect to Lashley and Drew, but that star power is not close to comparable. SD is on a different level.

Wow Coach Tony K REALLY loved the attitude era eh

An almost record number of 18-49 viewers watched tired, wretched old acts like Matt Hardy and Big Show in cold programs. Again, I have to say that AEW dropped the ball here. I understand there were some last minute changes to the show, but they have enough of a great roster for this to not have come to this.

The main event was a total massacre (as it should have been of course.) It was fine for what it was, but it should never have been the main event in the first place. Lee Johnson coming out to make the save should never have been the closing shot of Dynamite, that shit is just not hot enough. In hindsight, I would have gone with the trios match, although given they didn't have a single match involving exclusively stars, literally no match would have felt like a good main event. Very surprised at this show's booking. Felt so cold.

This was a really bad episode of Dynamite tbh. Can't help but feel they dropped the ball badly in terms of producing a great hot show for viewers tuning in the first time

If you are going to sell this as a hate-filled grudge match going back 20 years, then maybe you shouldn't crack corny jokes referencing Christian's best friend

HAHAHAHA Punk basically confirmed Danielson is coming soon

Business FINALLY picked up, thank God

The most over person so far on the show has been Britt and she didn't even wrestle. Got to say, this episode has felt disappointing so far

Compare the past 30 mins to the 30 mins of Punk's return and just wow. Thankfully Rey Fenix is here to restore quality

Oh God this feud is continuing? Kill me now

I genuinely don't ever need to see Matt Hardy on my TV ever again