Stiva

Roderick as the Arn is pretty perfect tbf. He’s the best worker in that stable by a mile.

Say what you will about Cody, he knows enough to put a roof on the fucking cage. Undisputed ERA are like 4 e-fed wrestlers come to life.

Beth Phoenix reciting the awkward, wordy introductions has to be a rib at this point?

Well, I’m definitely going to pretend it was intentional now Theres a rapper in the audience so Mauro can make 15 tortured referenced because he’s so cool.

Seriously! Riddle is smoking him in every possible category

Riddle/Goldberg is money. And also a match that no human ever predicted 2 years ago.

Seriously! I thought the same thing. Riddle had to find a way out of the weakest chin lock in the world while still making Balor look good. The man is one of the best on Earth.

Why is Heel Finn Balor doing his babyface entrance?

Pete Dunne gets the illustrious position of challenging for the NXT title on the Survivor Series pre-show.

Pete Dunne is “literally fighting for his right to party” according to the Human reference machine, Mauro. He needs to take his face for a shit.

On my stream, Priest has just Razor Edge’d Pete Dunne on top of the table. What have I missed?

If anything, lifting references from a 70s sitcom actually enhances his desperate to be cool, midlife crisis gimmick

I popped huge when he was clearly disgusted at Chuck Taylor’s shitty bumping.

Man, that main event was so great. Moxley is astonishingly good at laying out matches and everything about this act screams “star”. The entrance, the gear, the swagger, even the music is perfect. Darby Allin matches are always going to be must-sees because when they tease something crazy, like that superplex onto the floor, there’s every chance that he’ll actually take the bump. Every potential, ludicrous big spot tease takes on far more meaning.

I’ve only just started this show but we’re getting DUSTIN on commentary. EDIT: He’s channelling Dusty something fierce, including asking Excalibur if he’s pronouncing things right.

Darby Allin is going to coffin drop from the top of the ship onto a crowd. It'll be like New Jack's balcony dives but crossed with the guy hitting the propeller in Titanic.

I really want to see Biff Busick roll through Marko Stunt and Jungle Boy before eventually coming up against Luchasaurus. Book it, Cody

That’s the guy, thanks. For some reason, I wanted to call him “TJ Johnson” but I knew that wasn’t right.

I would kind of like it if AEW had a set of 5-6 job guys, ala Horowitz where, everyone knows what’s going down but are strong enough workers to make their opponent look good, feed them correctly and get them over. Peter Avalon is actually solid at it, so is the dude with the apple who’s name escapes me but Nakazawa is really poor, even if it was neat that there was a character justification for him working Moxley. They were in Nashville, there has to be some ex- NWA Wildside guys around someplace. David Young could be All Elite.

Yeah, this really felt like they finally got the balance right and who knew that you could feature twice as many people if guys weren't having 20 minute matches every week? The Wardlow debut was a great bit of heat and with him and Luchasaurus' return, AEW finally has some more big boys to beef up the roster a bit. The Bucks/PnP brawl was good stuff and I'd assume the belts will go to PnP before the Bucks get their shot and even the Janela/Spears brawl, while bland, at least did something to further their feud. It feels like they took a way more active approach to getting everything on the show, advancing just about everything further and cutting a great pace. Nyla/Kong will get over huge if they can continue to find ways to keep them both on Dynamite every week and the eventual title match with Riho from whoever wins that should be fun.

Another Paul Burchill run

Great to see Kong finally hit the ring. Riho/Kong is genuinely intriguing going forward and it's time to see if Kong is a draw post-GLOW.

This is such an incredible idea. I've been chuckling at it on and off all day, excellent work. Nice to hear Taz again; he has a genuinely solid rapport with Excalibur that AEW should explore going forward.

Card is 1. AEW World Championship Match: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Cody. If Cody loses, he’ll never challenge for the AEW Championship again 2. AEW Women’s Championship Match: Riho (c) vs. Emi Sakura 3. AEW Tag Team Championship Match: SCU (c) vs. Lucha Bros. vs. Private Party 4. The Young Bucks vs. Santana and Ortiz 5. PAC vs. Hangman Adam Page 6. Lights Out Unsanctioned Match: Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley 7. Joey Janela vs. Shawn Spears 8. Buy In Match: Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Bea Priestley Should be a pretty good show, the big matches should all deliver. I’m surprised that they didn’t find a way to get Darby Allin on the show, figured he might work with Guevara but not to be. This Countdown vid is another great hype job. They really do need a way to get this character work over on TV, even if it means sacrificing a match since it’s all very genuine and convincing. Talking head interviews are a really cool way to put guys over too.

Having stables and teams, babyfaces and heels interact with each other is vital, just so you can run awesome angles like the one we got at the end. A great little touch was Cody's "Oh shit" expression when he saw Moxley coming through the crowd. I think the matches weren't great on this show but they heated up that PPV like a motherfucker last night.