6 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (14 Sept)

Downs...

2. De-Escalating Hobbs Vs. Starks

Powerhouse Hobbs flattened Matt DiMartino in a quick, two-move squash culminating in his awesome, industry-standard Spinebuster, then cut a good promo on Ricky Starks, claiming he was moving on from his former Team Taz stablemate.

So far, so effective, but what happened afterwards felt like the de-escalation of a hot program.

Starks came through the crowd, looking like a million dollars as the entire building rose up around him. He was very, very over in that moment and when he hit the ring, the place was ablaze. Only for the moment to come back down as Hobbs bailed out after getting struck by a microphone.

A very WWE Raw angle, this, and a real bucket of cold water. After losing at the pay-per-view, Starks would have been better served by showing some fire here. One of his energised babyface promos after frantically battling Hobbs away, putting the bigger man on the back foot, would have been optimal. Instead, we got a minor development that barely landed.