7 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Dec 7 - Review)
1. FTR Vs. The Acclaimed Is Close To The Best Version Of Itself
FTR Vs. The Acclaimed seemed like strange business.
The proximity to Final Battle caused anxiety within some fans, particularly since this match, certainly worthy of the long build to Revolution, was also a week removed from Winter Is Coming. What was the rush? Why did it have to happen last night?
So that the Gunn Club could interfere and set up a match at the ROH show, was the cynical answer.
And the wrong one; instead, to establish this as a World Tag Team title reign as great in the ring as it is entertaining outside of it, the Acclaimed went over FTR clean. And it was amazing.
Cash Wheeler deserves to work as many singles matches as Dax Harwood in 2023 because, in less than a minute, he worked an early exchange with Anthony Bowens so pulsating and close and urgent that it was as if they were career rivals born to wrestle one another. That incredible exchange felt so thrillingly real; when Cash hopped over a leg sweep and instantly trapped Bowens in a gator roll, he presented himself as nothing less than a master and a monster at the same time. When he took the fall, it legitimised the Acclaimed as the undisputed kings of tag team wrestling. This excellent story was told across every second, and the twists that cast doubt over the notion that the Acclaimed could truly hang at this level were off the charts incredible.
Dax pretending to botch so that he could wrong-foot Max Caster and kick him on the arse and into Bowens was a sublime moment of heel deception. The finishing sequence was scorching, and in the most subtle - and best - Bret Hart tribute of the year, Cash sold the pin with resigned devastation. He had been out-wrestled. To him, that is the ultimate shame.
Are FTR doing business on the way out? Or is talk of their exit being filtered, carefully, to put over a redemptive triumph on pay-per-view next year? Or did Tony Khan simply decide to book a very bold finish in response to the campaign to give FTR an AEW World Tag Team title shot?
Transfer sagas played out in the media are tedious, one involving Dax Harwood a particularly brutal prospect, and on their seven star form here, the idea of FTR leaving AEW is soul-crushing.