6 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (28 February - Results & Review)
Sting channels classic WCW Nitro on very, very good AEW Dynamite.
It was all going so well.
Revolution 2024, on Tuesday February 27, was the most well-built AEW pay-per-view in two years. The card looked stacked, but not too stacked. If you're of an anxious disposition, the only worry was the threat (for which there is precedent) of Khan adding too many unnecessary matches to it. Weirdly, it was almost nice to fret over AEW's direction, as opposed to grimly accepting that the action on the night would be great without feeling a great deal of emotional investment ahead of it.
Enter Chris Jericho.
The man who most needs to go away threatened to make his presence felt at a pay-per-view that needs absolutely nothing else added to it. The man who most needs to go away and cruelly did for a brief time was set to wrestle the rave-reviewed Atlantis Jr. on Dynamite last night under the Lionheart guise. There is cute, inspired lore behind the pairing, but even beyond the threat of a post-match angle with Revolution implications, this felt like the sort of random, nerdy, ultimately trivial affair that AEW promotes between pay-per-view cycles.
Last night was the last chance for AEW to drive all the way home that it was back; the unwanted return of Chris Jericho underscored that some of its problems will literally never go away.
Beyond the bleak and more important idea that Jericho may well be at best a creep, he's been as piss-poor as he's been over-exposed this year. For his own good, he needs to take one of his trademark hiatuses.
Was that too harsh? Did he do what Chris Jericho used to do, time and time again, and tell the doubters to "go f*ck their ass"?