5 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite (May 12)
Miro flattens Darby Allin, Orange Cassidy gets hurt, The Pinnacle take a bubbly bath.
Last night's Dynamite card had all-time-great potential, as AEW presented a loaded lineup highlighted by SoCal Uncensored's last stand against The Young Bucks, Miro's TNT Title match with proven quarter-hour draw Darby Allin, Jon Moxley and Yuji Nagata's IWGP United States Title fight, a big Cody Rhodes, announcement, and more.
Instead of an all-timer, we got perhaps the most inconsistent episode of Dynamite since the brand launched in October 2019. This was the best and worst of AEW wrapped up in two hours.
Great in-ring action was tempered by some baffling creative decisions in the night's biggest segments. An overcooked episode of Dynamite suffered mostly for its needless, disruptive bells and whistles, many of which reeked of the promotion this company presents itself as an alternative to, dragging the earnest efforts within those segments down. Elsewhere, an unfortunate injury hampered what could have been one of the night's most adrenaline-pumping bouts.
A disappointing show, particularly after the flat Blood & Guts ending last week. The next couple are now crucial if AEW wants to avoid developing the reputation that it can't stick the landing and deliver on big expectations. Double Or Nothing cannot be a Revolution 2021 or All Out 2020 calibre show: it needs to be a home run now.
Let's light the fuse...