6 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Jul 29)

4. Welcome To The Impact Zone

It's impossible not to feel happy for Matt Cardona, who has always seemed like an earnestly good guy and a hard worker. Building organic popularity and momentum is no small feat, particularly in a system that oppresses creativity and freedom like WWE's, so he deserves all the props in the world for getting over before getting turn down in Vinceland. That his methods were so similar to those used by The Young Bucks in creating Being The Elite (and, by extension, AEW) bodes well for him here, making this more than a situation of Cody giving his old friend a job.

But again, these shows have to be judged on what happens on air - and this wasn't a good introduction.

Debuts are difficult in the Empty Arena Era and you'd ideally want Cardona to show up in a big building crammed with fans. That's impossible at the moment, so we can't criticise AEW for that, though this would have reeked of "what is such-and-such doing in the Impact Zone?!" regardless. Cardona just walked out to no fanfare, saved Cody from John Silver and Alex Reynolds, and posed. It was in and out in about a minute and left no lasting impression.

Cardona will likely do well in AEW, starting with next week's tag against Silver and Reynolds. Fingers crossed he successfully becomes the next AEW wrestler to overcome a less-than-stellar introduction.