6 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (1 Dec)

1. Burned Alive

Cody Rhodes and Andrade El Idolo worked extremely hard in their Atlanta Street Fight, putting their bodies through all kinds of gnarly bumps to match the intense atmosphere in the arena. Rhodes' crowd reactions are mixed, yes, but that's likely that AEW is shooting for. The promotion will argue that the level of engagement is more important than the specific response - and the noise itself is undeniable.

And yes, the effort is commendable. They went through a flaming table for our entertaining. Cody got set on fire! Props to them.

But as a match, this wasn't great.

Rhodes pulling out the golden shovel was a nice self-aware pop. That aside, watching the sausage being made is no fun. From the moment it was clear Rhodes was working with some kind of substance on his back, you knew a big spot was coming. It's great that he took precautions, of course, and this is a lot better than him melting his own flesh, but when you've got Taz speculating that the trash can Cody had bumped into contained a bottle of glue (!), it removes the suspension of disbelief.

That Cody was effortlessly able to score the pinfall despite taking the entirety of the flaming table bump was problematic, too. Andrade missed the majority of the flames but still ate the pin seconds later. Something must have gone wrong. If that's the case, they didn't adjust in an effective way.