7 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (1 June)
Hiroshi Tanahashi comes to AEW; CM Punk has a rough night; MJF cuts one hell of a "shoot" promo.
MJF just knocked that f*cker out of the park.
The "worked shoot" promo isn't easy to pull off, especially these days when fans are more in-tune with what's happening behind the scenes than ever before. Of course, the rumour mill does feed that beast to an extent, and Mr. Friedman (speaking as Mr. Friedman) used that to his advantage on Dynamite.
AEW produced a rough-around-the-edges but totally newsworthy episode on Wednesday night. Major debuts happened, build for Forbidden Door, Blood & Guts, Road Rager and more got some airtime, and Tony Khan even found time to usher back one of those ex-WWE stars MJF was complaining about during his expletive-laden tirade.
It's rare for AEW's product to rock more for angles/promos than matches, but this was one of those broadcasts. Being fair, some of the in-ring stuff did grab attention - Daniel Garcia, in particular, can be real proud of what he achieved here.
All Elite's main goal for Dynamite was to roll out of Double Or Nothing with some momentum, and they certainly managed that. Here's all the good and the bad from the company's latest.