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

1. Soft Sell

AEW had the opportunity to hard sell the Full Gear main event - and they got it wrong again. Perhaps it couldn't be rescued.

The stakes feel minimal, since nobody gives a toss about belt theft, and AEW has already signposted that MJF has much to do as champion beyond Full Gear. If a swerve was afoot, and Jay White was due to win, at this point, you'd expect that plan to be abandoned. Jay White is an absolutely superb details-obsessed in-ring craftsman, but is feeling less and less like a top star.

MJF entered the ring for his main event promo. Instead of focusing on White, he again repeated that he has a horde of challengers intent on knocking him from the mountaintop. He said that it would take an army to do that, and he said it with his trademark world class delivery so everybody in the building cheered, but it only reduced Jay. Again. White is just one of many threats.

What's worse is that, in addition to Joe's squash match promo in which he said he was inevitable, AEW screened a video package in which Wardlow promised to expose Max as the devil. MJF telling his several stories was counterproductive and pointless here. AEW had already told them throughout the night, and White needed the hard sell as a threat. When Jay arrived in the ring, he too insisted that MJF was the Devil.

What does he care?

Why couldn't he have reminded MJF that he wins major matches when few expect him to win? Or say anything that might have halfway convicted fans that true hatred exists here, or that a title switch was a very real possibility? Bullet Club Gold beat MJF down to close the show. It felt more obligatory than heated.

This, sadly, is the worst thing MJF has done in an otherwise glittering four year run.