3 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Royal Rampage (July 21)

1. An Obvious Winner

Darby Allin was perhaps the only one in the opening match lineup who felt like a viable TNT Title contender. Swerve Strickland possibly met him halfway (just about), but even he's been struggling for house room on AEW TV lately, and feels just as directionless as many of the other mid-carders.

The fact that Allin came out first and was clearly booked to do some sort of quasi-Shawn Michaels in mid-1990s Royal Rumbles underdog babyface stuff gave the game away. Darby was relentlessly double and triple-teamed by heels, but consistently found a way to survive.

He was always winning, in other words, and everyone knew it.

Now, Darby moves on to a TNT Title crack at All Out on 3 September in Chicago. This all comes out looking like a 'been there, done that' scenario for Allin though - he dabbled with World Title contendership, and is now right back where he started in the TNT mix months later.