10 Ups & 1 Down From AEW Dynamite (Feb 19)
4. A Hoot
While AEW doesn't have the best history when it comes to booking good battle royals, last night's was a hoot.
It would've been easy to mess this up. The sheer volume of competitors in the Tag Team Championship contendership bout could have rendered it a sloppy, unengaging mess, but they pulled it off. This was a fun, varied, character-filled match full of cool moments.
The Dark Order made an appearance at ringside with Raven watching on in the background as Alex Reynolds and John Silver lobbed a distracted SoCal Uncensored over the rope, only for Scoprio Sky to leap the barrier to get at Evil Uno and Grayson. CIMA and Trent had a stiff chop battle. Proud and Powerful played it smart, hanging out on the outside while the other teams wore each other down, only entering when absolutely necessary. CIMA took a Dark Order mask, teasing his #STRONGHEARTS group's assimilation. Luchasaurus and The Butcher beefed the beef off each other. Orange Cassidy caught Trent on his shoulders; later, The Bunny kicked in the sisters. Ortiz's sell of Matt Jackson Superkicking him out of the ring was a thing of beauty. Fun!
Matt took the bout for The Young Bucks, single-handedly dealing with both Proud and Powerful members to earn a shot at Kenny Omega and Hangman Page. Was it the right result? Well...