4 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite (12 Jan)

Downs...

6. A Backdrop Of A Main Event

Sammy Guevara and Daniel Garcia worked a good interim TNT Championship fight rife with the guile, skill, and explosiveness you'd expect from such a pairing. The challenger's trademark aggressive grappling and striking took centre stage for long periods, with Garcia staying right in Guevara's face in an attempt to wear him down and nullify his strengths. Guevara was willing to match him in bullishness, however, and after almost falling to a particularly close two-count off a piledriver, he scored the win via GTH.

A strong match from two great wrestlers, both of whom worked hard.

It's a shame, then, that AEW framed the match as a backdrop to the ongoing Chris Jericho/Eddie Kingston storyline, which feels completely needless at the moment.

A backstage segment in which Kingston interrupted The Inner Circle ahead of the match told you this was going to happen. Eddie warned Jericho away from it, then sowed dissent in the Circle, telling Santana and Ortiz there was only one reason (Jericho) they weren't Tag Team Champions. Both parties were then involved during the match and after, beating 2point0 up between them before going face-to-face as Dynamite came to an end.

The TNT Title felt unimportant as a result. For a belt that is so often trumpeted as "not just a secondary championship", this isn't good enough.