5 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite (June 28 - Review)

1. Bored & Guts

All Elite Wrestling finally paid an overdue penalty on Wednesday's Dynamite, and one can wonder if they knew it was coming.

Following The Elite's victory over The Dark Order, The Blackpool Combat Club launched in with the weapons-assisted beatdown, Evil Uno and the lads left them to it, and Jon Moxley called for Blood & Guts on July 19th. The crowd went mild.

What was once set to be an unthinkably violent dream match, humorous gag at Vince McMahon's expense and a grisly exhibition of why The Elite's saga booking worked so well all rolled into one has now become just a match. And not because it's the third one, though the contest being calendar-driven does have echoes of WWE booking Hell In A Cell matches because of the month rather than the match.

For different reasons, the stipulation has missed the mark twice, and this year's build faces a few uphill struggles before the clash itself. Eddie Kington will be working the G1 Climax for New Japan Pro Wrestling so can't feature in the payoff even if he's integral to the run-up. Bryan Danielson's injured and Kenny Omega might be, and even then the feud itself has never felt colder. Consecutive pay-per-view multi-man matches have effectively explored the physicality, but whatever original point of contention once existed between the two sides feels mostly played out. Moxley was bleeding as he called for the match too - has AEW's excess contributed to such things not feeling anywhere near as special four years in?

Kingston and Moxley are the glue, and perhaps that's why the latter chose the date. Did he purposely try and avoid working the 'Mad King' having listened to his better half?