10 Ups & 1 Down From AEW Dynamite: Blood & Guts (May 5)

Downs...

1. The Bitter End

A misfire of a finish and poorly-framed post-match angle marred the Blood & Guts bout.

MJF holding Chris Jericho at the edge of the cage, threatening to shove Le Champion off if his team didn't surrender is a great idea that wasn't executed greatly. At one point, Santana and Ortiz were shown scaling the cage, then stopped without explanation, returning to the floor. They could have prevented this from happening but chose not to. Tully Blanchard locking the other wrestlers back inside the cage after MJF and Jericho's climb would have mitigated this but instead, Sammy Guevara's meek "we surrender" was all we got.

Jericho taking that fall at 50 years old is to be commended, and twisting the knife after already winning the match made MJF look like AEW's grandest bastard. It's just unfortunate that the camera was framed to show Jericho clearly landing on a nice, soft, padded section of the "ramp," diminishing the spot's impact.

These bumps are always given soft landings (nobody's calling for Jericho to drop onto hard steel, wood, or concrete!) but explicitly showing this is an issue. Creative camerawork from a different angle could have hidden the sight of Jericho clearly landing on what looked like a pile of mattresses. While said pile of mattresses is essential, we don't need to see it.

That these closing moments will now be weaponised against AEW by the company's most tribal critics is a shame, as Blood & Guts was broadly great. Still, the criticism are valid. A potential great fall from a ballsy performer was marred by its framing.