6 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Dec 23)

Downs...

5. Sting In The Tale

Team Taz Sting Darby Allin
AEW

Perhaps it's all that fake snow, but a cold snap has now descended on the warmth that greeted Sting's original arrival.

In an effort to understandably maximise all of 'The Icon's uniqueness, his intentions and future plans have been staggered up to this point. Last week's appearance bordered on a bait and switch, and while this week's chat with Tony Schiavone went a long way to rectifying that, the tone and direction all remained the same.

Some nice sentiment about Dusty Rhodes fed into a predictable Team Taz interruption, a predictable Darby Allin save and the predictable Allin/Cage match confirmatiom. All functional, but not that fun. If the one thing about Sting that's for sure is that nothing is for sure, why did all of this feel such a sure thing?

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 7 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back almost 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 60,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett