6 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Dynamite (15 Mar - Review)

2. Excellent Trios Main Event

The Elite Vs. House of Black Vs. Jericho Appreciation Society three-way Trios title match was tremendously exciting - even if it didn't quite hit its ceiling.

They effectively worked around the necessity of a commercial break by crafting a sequence so layered and so exciting - all nine men distributed and took huge moves in a breathless and complex three-minute rush - that it justified the halt in momentum. This was probably the peak; they didn't reach this level of excitement near the finish. Nothing was over-sold before the break in a distracting, contrived way - although Malakai Black and Buddy Matthews were told to spend a bit too long on the outside before winning deeper into the match. The immersion was broken and the finish was telegraphed there.

The action was otherwise great, though. The Winnipeg fans got the best of both worlds with Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega (who, incidentally, was on sensational form).

This is where the set-up revealed itself; the three-way match, in addition to being a title match on the sports-oriented show, was a means by which to allow Omega and Jericho to both fight and team together. This was great; fans loved the retread of the Wrestle Kingdom classic, Omega bumps for the Codebreaker better than anybody, and the match was laid out in such a way that their temporary alliance felt like an organic necessity. Brody King, put over huge again, needed two men to put him down.

A brilliantly crafted and complex match precision-engineered to reward the audience - without eliciting the heady rush of the very best Elite bouts - the anticlimactic finish didn't help, either.