5 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite 200 (August 2 - Review)
AEW Dynamite celebrates 200 episodes with a mixed bag of action but an ending for the ages.
All Elite Wrestling as an organisation was right to celebrate Dynamite turning 200.
One only need to look upon some of the other Episode 200s over the last few decades to find companies in substantially worse shape than Tony Khan's outfit at the time of the double century.
The 200th Nitro presented a WCW in complete disarray, barely disguising the fact that it was pinished and on the slow-but-quick road to ruin. July 1999 was a terrible month for the company, but in a wholly unremarkable way - every month between January '99 and March 2001 was in some fashion, with the odd shining light obscured by some of the most counterproductive booking in the industry's history.
TNA's 200th edition of Impact found the organisation toasting their highest ever buyrate and rematching the key players, but Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle's televised title clash wasn't a patch on their seminal Lockdown 2008 effort. The commercial peak had literally been passed, and it was hard to spot a creative one in that company without a trough lurking around the corner.
WWE's 200th Raw was a major milestone, but also a panicked necessity. Raw Is War was born on March 10th 1997, but only because the flagship had been roundly humbled by Eric Bischoff's live Nitro for so long that something had to change.
AEW is none of these things. Everybody's mileage may vary on recent creative directions, but the company looks set to secure itself financially forever should rumoured rights fee deals go through, The Elite are staying on board after mild suggestions that they could follow fellow founder Cody Rhodes out the door, and there was the not-insignificant matter of potentially the biggest (voluntarily) attended show in industry history to consider too. That - beyond a specific trios encounter befitting of Dynamite's early legacy - was a major selling point going into this celebratory night. On those terms and others, was this a party show that paid fitting tribute to itself?
For the 200th time, let’s light the fuse…