13 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Nov 27)
Le Champion holds court as Dynamite blows through the Windy City.
Hype is dangerous.
This week's Ups-to-Downs ratio should tell you that last night's AEW Dynamite was a good show, and it was. These were two fun, enjoyable hours of pro-wrestling that passed quickly and yielded enough good content to finish as a comfortable net positive, though its overall quality didn't meet pre-show expectations.
With Scorpio Sky's perfectly-built rise culminating in an AEW World Championship match, Cody's return to television, Kenny Omega out to overturn his All Out loss to PAC, and Chris Jericho's Thanksgiving Celebrashon for Le Champion lined up, Dynamite could have been PPV calibre. It wasn't. It was good, but not great, and that's a shame.
Regardless, most of what went down on this episode made sense. As well as the things listed above, we got Hangman Page vs. MJF for the $45,000 Dynamite Diamond Ring, the next AEW World Title contender's emergence, another sick Dark Order vignette, a new tag teams's debut, and red-hot prospect Kris Statlander's first Dynamite appearance. Plenty to sink one's teeth into, even if it didn't all hit.
It speaks to the brand's quality so far that a 13 Ups/6 Downs show can be labelled anything close to disappointing. Let's find out why...