Setting the tone for the whole evening, the San Diego audience took an angle that had played as mid and forced it into feeling main event.
Good booking helped too. Jay White and Juice Robinson were rewarded for their awesome sh*t-talking last week by getting an in-ring segment to do more of it, and raised the ire of new rivals FTR in the process. Free for new business after their win over Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal, Cash and Dax answered the call, and new ally Ricky Starks saved them from a Bullet Club Gold sneak attack to set up one last singles match with ‘Switchblade’.
Everybody to a man felt part of something heated, and in the case of all but the Tag Team Champions, for the first time in a while. In terms of sequencing and protecting the meritocracy, this was an enormous step up from prior weeks, and the simple folding of an old story into a new one was a welcome sight for a show loaded with freewheeling midcarders for far too long.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett
