6 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Dynamite (27 Oct)
The Elite and Dark Order play dress-up, Serena Deeb and Hikaru Shida shine, Jon Moxley mauls.
AEW returned to its usual Wednesday night timeslot for its latest episode of Dynamite, hoping to follow two weeks of strong Saturday evening storytelling with a card that promised much.
This was one of the most hype-worthy lineups the promotion has put together since Grand Slam. CM Punk was on the marquee, wrestling Bobby Fish, while the TBS Championship and World Title Eliminator tournaments were advanced through Serena Deeb vs. Hikaru Shida and Jon Moxley vs. 10 respectively. Elsewhere, TNT Champion Sammy Guevara put his belt on the line against Ethan Page, who'd stipulated that Guevara would have to leave The Inner Circle if he lost, while a Dark Order quarter met The Elite in the main event.
Everything was buoyed by a white-hot Boston crowd that had been waiting for this show since before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold last March. Loud and boisterous from start to finish, there wasn't a single match or segment that they didn't take to a different level, having suffered through multiple show cancellations and reschedulings to finally get their fix.
Full Gear is now just over a fortnight away. The pay-per-view still needs juice, but this show at least pushed it in the right direction.
Let's light the fuse...