Stiva

That Andrade debut was so flat, my word. Why debut him on a Friday night show? He’s the perfect guy to build vignettes with and then build to his debut. AEW really can’t do debuts right at all.

Somewhere, Tony Khan’s eyes just lit up.

Fuck yeah, Sting. I popped big for that whole sequence; Scorpio's facials were great

Match needs a Rebel crutch shot to heat it up.

Well, that was certainly a booking decision. The KO blow in the figure four would have been a star-making finish

I hope Ogogo cuts an anti-America promo on the dog

I like how Jungle Boy is always in the final two or four of every AEW battle royal. When he wins one, it'll be huge. Ha! Told you

I'm on board with Lio Rush coming in. Roster is getting super stacked

Totally should have give Moxley and Kingston the straps. I guess Britt winning the title is going to be the big title change of the night.

Moxley/Kingston's entrance was up there. This face in peril segment with Kingston is going to be an all-timer

Same here. Hopefully this show isn’t too long to avoid any possible burnout.

It’s going to be great to see how the previous years booking has worked with crowds. Obviously this show was always going to be hot but Page and Darby had superstar pops in recent days

Brian Cage out here looking like the guy from 90s PC game Bioforge

Deeb is outrageously good. Her having work rate NWA title matches could well be a highlight of Rampage

Hope it’s a good one for you, MoS. Psyched for when they can tour the UK so I can cheer on national hero, Tony Ogogo. The last couple of weeks of Dynamite have actually had me hyped for this. With the fans back and able to respond to some of these guys for the first time, AEW feels really hot.

Jonathan Pearce has history commentating on those robots kicking the shit out of each other and then, as an added plus, I won’t have to listen to him on Match of the Day anymore.

Good work if you can get it. Ink a deal, be anywhere less than what Vince demands on whatever whim he’s feeling this morning and take the severance money to go back to a sane company.

Whatever it is, they need to sort it because if it’s stopping any of Bryan, Joe or Andrade coming in, then it’s costing them all a fortune. Quite literally. I don’t even love Omega but I’d be down for Omega vs any of them

In lighter news, Miro as TNT champ means that they’re probably going to do the Miro/Sabian match for the title and if that’s not an 8 second squash then I might boycott

Not to mention taking entire segments of shows to do a baby shower, advertise his reality show and do tone-deaf, patriotic promos because he has a psychotic desire to recreate all of his daddy’s programs. For as much as AEW attempts to make everything connected, Cody’s segments may as well be from a different promotion. As much as I find the Young Bucks borderline unwatchable, they’re plugged into a lot of the various programs on the show and acknowledge things. Plus, you know they’re going to get their comeuppance at some point. It really feels that, once Darby finally beat Cody, he’d served his purpose for the fed

Almost forgot Wild Thing! They really should get as many recognisable and fitting songs they can muster as theme music. Part of the reason why ECW felt so cool at the time and it can work again

You could really tell that they’re ramping up the numbers since the crowd sounded pretty unsweetened tonight. My jaw actually dropped when Cody started his promo; just totally out of left-field and Ogogo has only cut about 2 anti-American promos hasn’t he? Cody wants to do so much old-school shit that he hasn’t got the patience to get there. That, coupled with his complete lack of self-awareness, makes him a heel in my book. I say it all the time but that main event reinforces that Darby Allin is the man for their future. Make 2022 the year of Darby, I say. Glad to see Miro get a good showing and that match was fucking great. Babyface Inner Circle has lost all appeal and really doesn’t work, outside of a few moments last week so it’s probably best that they fade away. Put the rocket to Santana and Ortiz and give us a good, long series with FTR. Britt Baker’s promo was awesome and it’s probably been the right idea to give her the big win in front of a packed house. Did I miss it or did they not announce any matches for next week? Is that a first? And, holy shit at The Bucks retiring SCU and them barely even mentioning or lingering with it. You know, you don’t have to take from WCWs shitty years, TK. That surely should have been the match to headline the California show?! Knowing the Bucks’ convoluted, shitty booking, they’ll probably give SCU one last chance and run it again there. Didnt think the show was too bad overall but the big moments and decisions were handled in a way that soured the good stuff.

This MLW deal has to be Nick Khan’s doing, right? Scenes when he eventually takes control and explodes NXT

Forgot to mention Ethan Page's Golf Dad ensemble. I assume this all leads to AEWs first Dynamite triple threat with Page vs Scorpio vs Darby but Ethan Page was out here looking like a dad enjoying a freshly mowed lawn in July. Darby should hopefully take them both out since Miro/Darby is the money match, baby. With the win records the way they are, they're definitely building to Darby/Cassidy as a TV main but part of me thinks they need to move past Moxley and Kingston fairly soon. Renee is about to burst so I assume there's going to be an angle to take Moxley out but you can do Omega/Kingston at DoN. Christian is being positioned so he takes out all of Team Taz one by one and Cage beating Hangman is purely designed so that when Christian beats Brian Cage, it sets him up for the Omega match. The problem is that Miro is clearly being established as the new big threat and the logical match is Miro/Darby with Miro going over. Maybe they do the program where Miro is constantly kicking the shit out of Kip and when it comes to the big match, Kip costs Miro the TNT title but who cares about Kip Sabian? Either way, the fact you can have such a far reaching conversation about who is ready for what title shot and who deserves what is a testament to the booking of AEW; even when they get things wrong, which they absolutely do, they still understand the art of protecting their top guys and that's something to be applauded. And that's before I mention Sammy Guevara. I've been 100% sure that this entire Pinnacle/Inner Circle feud was designed to push him to the stratosphere and now that he's first in Blood and Guts, he's going to be in there from the start, have a great shine in the first 5 minutes, showcase his selling for the rest of the time and i'll be amazed if he doesn't get the pin. Probably on Spears but that's the exact reason he's in the Pinnacle. I can only assume there's going to be an angle where MJF kicks him out for literally anybody else.

Could give or take the first hour up until the parley but thought the show really pulled around with the second hour. Heel Bucks and their wink-nudge bullshit had me skipping through my first Dynamite match in forever but I enjoyed the SCU promo on them. I don’t know how you can look past Darby as the future man of AEW at this point; Vance, while improving, is still green around the gills and Darby constructed a match around the spots he had and made it feel different from his previous defences. Week to week, he’s doing interesting things every time out and all of his matches feel like must-watch events. Popped for Miro attacking that Twitch streamer/Penelope’s manager and the next two weeks look great. If Moxley/Nagata doesn’t lead to Nagata buddying up with Moxley and Kingston as the three baddest dudes in the land, what are we even doing here?