Stiva

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.

It’s why Seth was perfect in The Shield because he could flip around like an asshole at the end of those big 6-mans and it was always a hot finishing stretch.

Vince pulling the feed in the middle of Blood Money, silent assassin country and bouncing off on a private jet is fucking radical. Leaving his entire workforce behind is questionable behaviour but fuck, man, that's a power play you can respect.

Vince vs Salman at Mania is way, way better than anything they have lined up, to be fair.

HHH using this to further his goal of one day running everything by integrating NXT is one step closer. And even better, he put them all over the main roster, guys. The man is something else, you have to give him credit.

In 40 years, troops will be pulling down a gigantic statue of Stephanie McMahon standing in the centre of Riyadh

Also, Megalovania should be Kenny Omega's entrance music from now on. It's better than every other theme in every wrestling company imaginable. Omegalovania.

Guys working a good match and then disappearing for a couple of weeks happened a lot on early Nitro too. Granted, they also had Saturday Night to focus guys but I’m sure when Darby is next on Dynamite, he’ll have something new and crazy that keeps him over. I’d rather that than having them burn through all his potential match-ups within 6 months. Also, co-signed on the women’s match. I thought it did a great job of getting them both over and everything looked roughly ten times more accomplished than that sloppy 4-way on Dark. I also really liked the Tony/Cody Limo segment; it came across like a family friend trying to comfort and encourage his younger comrade ahead of the biggest match of his life. Their willingness to lean into history without battering you on the head with it is really refreshing.

WWE.com says ”Natalya and Lacey Evans SMASH BARRIERS in Saudi Arabia’s first ever women’s match” Even the website is impossible to read.

Did they bring in Cain to build to Rey/Brock at the Rumble?!

Mercedes Martinez worked the Dark taping and man, they really need her in the Women’s Division.

Sonny Kiss is still very raw but he’s clearly got everything you need to be a great face so what better way to learn than team with Dustin Rhodes, of all people? That’s the best education you could ever need.

Russo is deeply unlikable on a personal level which is some degree different to getting boos out of a live crowd.

Is this the greatest near fall ever? Bryan (and it had to be all Bryan) subverts the contemporary expectations of Lesnar matches ending quickly and uses it to instantly take a crowd from 0-50. Lesnar's matches against Goldberg had shown that he could be caught quickly if he dropped his guard and Bryan hitting the low blow not only threatened that again but also played into his burgeoning heel turn. What follows is Daniel Bryan: Destroyer as he finally gets to unleash some ROH Wrestling Machine on the WWE, topped off with the most brutal stomps to the face he's ever laid in. He was driving his feet into Lesnar's face like he was in there with Necro Butcher and Lesnar correctly sells the eventual victory like he's just escaped with his life. Lesnar ran this kind of formula with Styles, Bryan and Balor and he's probably not got anyone else on the roster to run it with but it was amazingly fun while it lasted and Bryan worked around it, finding the near falls and offense to elevate it well above the other two. The only Lesnar match I'm really interested in from now on is an eventual match with Matt Riddle but I don't trust them to do anything worthwhile with that, if it even happens at all. For now, we'll have this incredible look into what a fully-fledged Lesnar/Bryan feud could have been in 2014.

Kind of crazy that, even now, Tim Storm can go out there and be the most white-meat babyface in the world, give shout-outs to his momma and everyone watching him at home like a long-lost Von Erich brother and everyone on the internet is calling for him to get a major league run. I'm not disagreeing since he's great in the role but it's solid proof that what worked in wrestling 30 years ago works now.

From a quick Google, it seems like the numbers for the live showing but I actually read your post as THIRTY thousand, not three thousand. I think more people stay up until 2AM watching shopping channels than Raw at this point.

I’ll admit to not knowing when they show it these days (used to be a Friday night on Sky Sports) but is that the ratings for the live showing which we get at 2AM? They show it live and then repeat it later in the week so if it’s the live broadcast, it’s understandable. Who on earth would stay up that late to watch that shower of shit?

Another fun show but there was almost too much wrestling, all full of wild-ass flips and dives. I feel like this could have used a Nyla squash or a couple more video segments to break things up slightly. The Cody/Jericho brawl was fantastic; Cody looks like the coolest guy in the world, making sure to have his buddies as back-up and straight up smashing his way through a window. I love smart babyfaces. Hayter looks like she'd be a really good pick-up since she managed to make all of Britt Baker's Michelle McCool-aping offense look decent for a change. I also popped for MJF calling Jericho "Midlife Crisis Chris" The dude is going to be a star based on mic work alone.

I was thinking about that. This roster needs some more big beefcakes to throw these little guys around the place!

Will anything top last year's 30 minute main event where Kane's hair dropped off?