4 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite (15 Feb - Review)

Ups...

4. Texas Tornado: Good Brawl, But That's It

The Texas Tornado match was good without ever feeling like a tumultuous storm of action.

It was a hard-hitting and over contest, hence why it appears in the 'Ups' section, but it didn't approach its ceiling. AEW has a remarkable gift of crafting a sense of unbridled chaos, but that difficult magic spell was not cast here. That this ran through two commercial breaks didn't help the vibe nor the tone; it could never feel like a wild, animosity-drenched frenzy that utterly consumed the characters when the heel team had to slow it all down and pause before the final third, but in general, this wasn't close to bottling the energy of AEW's best brawls.

Blood was shed, chains were wrapped around faces, and certain sequences threatened to drag this into awesome territory - but it never really clicked into a pulsating squelcher of a fight. At times, it tried much too hard to feel like a war. Jon Moxley kicking out of a punch with chain wrapped around Vance's fist might have worked, but the moment was much too rushed. It didn't approach feeling like a shock result. The shot itself wasn't registered well enough for dramatic effect, and the near-fall did not feel last-gasp.

Not the best night for Preston Vance, who had shown promise in the heel role. Weirdly, given his immense size, he's far more convincing at taking a beating than distributing one.