5 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (2 Feb)

1. A Complete Mess

Dan Lambert and Brandi Rhodes are two of the most polarising figures in AEW, for a variety of reasons good and bad, but whether you like the duo, the characters they play, and the verbiage they use or not, their Dynamite segment was an objective mess.

Both played heels here. Brandi began her promo by shooting for host-city heat, meaning Lambert (a self-confessed "rich, angry, sexist, anti-AEW old man") got a babyface pop when he interrupted her. He ranted about "cancel culture" and effectively called Rhodes a prostitute, plumbing his usual depths, while Brandi blasted back by aiming at Ethan Page and insulting Dan herself (not as crassly, fortunately).

This was a vehicle to reintroduce Paige VanZant. When Brandi slapped Lambert, Dan said that while slapping her back was on his bucket list, he had a better idea. Enter the former UFC fighter, who brawled briefly with Rhodes before the women's locker-room emptied to separate them.

Structurally, this may have worked if Lambert, a total heel, was tee-ing up a killer to attack a babyface. But he wasn't. Brandi wasn't even skirting the line here. There were no shades of grey, no tweener-isms, no Cody-esque meta-play.

She presentation was heel. Her promo started with her insulting Chicago. There's nothing wrong with Rhodes playing this role, but it has to be put against babyfaces. People the audience are on the side of.

Not anti-AEW Cornette-ian Dan Lambert.

There's nobody to cheer for, no reason to get behind any of these characters, and no sign of this ever getting better, unfortunately. A muddled, confused, dysfunctional segment, poorly-written and conceived, performed mostly by two people actively trying to get the audience to jeer them.