7 Times AEW Dynamite Made WWE Mistakes
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"All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite is on the air" was the rather iconic introduction dished out by Jim Ross as the inaugural edition of AEW's television kicked off on TNT.
It was genuinely stirring - Ross' voice was the main reason the company have gone with him as the lead announcer despite middling performances for New Japan Pro Wrestling that presented him as an announcer out of time. WWE's loss has in this case been their new competition's gain - a voice with authority and familiarity for wrestling fans in equal measure, he was all the good from the old guard that was worthy gleaming value from.
This has been the misconception regarding AEW and may yet become something they're undone by. In an effort to do everything different to the establishment, they're going to be investigated for the times they fall into the traps and tropes. Traps and tropes that exist in some cases because they have to.
Nonetheless, Cody, Tony Khan and the rest of the crew allowed themselves to be held to scrutiny on such matter the day they issued their overblown mission statement. They desperately don't want to be WWE, yet sometimes succumbed to the whims of the "Universe" rather than managing to change it.
7. Handshake?
What was @SammyGuevara thinking? Are you watching #AEWDynamite? pic.twitter.com/JIeuU0Ayb9
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEWrestling) October 3, 2019
A frustrating lack of care and attention to a relatively important detail here, but the sort of thing that positions the characters as brainless if the audience chooses to think for more than a split second about their actions.
Cody and Sammy Guevara shook hands in order to facilitate Chris Jericho's run-in assault, but why would 'The American Nightmare' extend this show of respect in the first instance after the key spots in the match?
An honest, hard-fought even-handed babyface match would have justified it, but Guevara had pulled Cody's wife Brandi in the way of a dive (and then taken a high heel to the head in response) just minutes earlier. A d*ck move, and not one worthy of the AEW gaffer's acceptance after the fact.