5 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Apr 7)

1. Melodrama Comes To Jacksonville

Obnoxious "gritty" production aside, everything that made One Last Beat such a disaster for NXT last year was present as The Young Bucks and Jon Moxley faced Kenny Omega, Karl Anderson, and Doc Gallows in the Dynamite main event.

This was a melodramatic mess. So-so six-man action gave way to bad acting and hammy facial expressions as The Young Bucks struggled to come to terms with having to hurt their friend, Kenny Omega, who had no qualms about doing the same to them. This made the Jacksons look silly for getting caught up in their emotions while Omega was fighting to win, but this was far from the only problem here.

The key issue, unfortunately, is that the Jacksons aren't good actors. We already knew this from the lacklustre build to the FTR dream match, throughout which they flip-flopped across the alignment scale without ever convincing on either side, but it was hammered home again last night. The duo pulled out of big moves over and over. Cameras zoomed in on their conflicted faces, worsening the pantomime, and the whole thing was so on-the-nose and explicit that no part of it felt authentic. When the Bucks "turned" and reunited with Kenny and co., it felt like more flip-flopping rather than the result of two complex characters finally coming to terms with who they really are.

Jon Moxley played his role well here, and was a good no-nonsense foil to the, well, nonsense around him. He couldn't save it, though. This was bad NXT-style at its worst and though this Bucks/Omega story is informed by years of history, the TNT version of it is a lot less compelling than the old BTE/NJPW combo.

Overcooked and overbooked, this can't happen again.