7 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Dynamite (1 Sep)

1. Heat Turns Cold

Overlong and overcooked, the big heat angle that closed Dynamite didn't hit the desired level.

On the positive side, this was an effective way of establishing that nobody is getting inside the steel cage when The Young Bucks face The Lucha Brothers this weekend. A horde of babyfaces, from Marko Stunt to Frank Kazarian, tried to get in the structure after it descended upon The Elite and Christian Cage. When they were repelled, AEW told you that All Out will avoid the tiresome trope of wrestlers flooding into a match that's supposedly custom-built to keep them away - which often happens in that other promotion.

But the angle was too long, too tongue-in-cheek, and leaned too heavily on Kenny Omega's attempts at drawing meta heat to work.

Omega wasn't entirely convincing while directing traffic here. He was on the microphone, calling the shots for the duration, commentating his squad as they beat Christian down in what was likely designed to conjure building-shaking jeers in Chicago. It didn't, though. At least on television, the reactions were muted and mumbled, not roared. There was a clear gulf between the idea and the execution - and it came off poorly and to the detriment of this well-built storyline.