7 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 2022

Downs...

2. F*ck Finish City

Chris Jericho Ocho
AEW

The first three matches of five all ended with chicanery of some sort. All three finishes made sense in the context of the respective stories.

Chris Jericho is the sports entertainer carny sullying the purity of Ring Of Honor. He had to cheat.

The Acclaimed and Swerve In Our Glory first associated as mates. Swerve Strickland then broke the gentlemen's agreement at All Out by targeting Anthony Bowens' suspect knee. In the sequel, Billy Gunn avenged that - and equalised Swerve's attempt to cheat with the boombox - by influencing the outcome, thereby creating scope for another sequel.

PAC cheating to win the competitive, serious match he asked for over two years ago was great character work from a proper bastard.

The issue is that doing this across three consecutive segments detracted from the old AEW ideal that there's no shame whatsoever in clean, hard-fought defeat. Also, it was redundant.

Too much of anything is bad; too much WWE sh*t is inexplicable.

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!