7 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Dynamite (6 March - Review)

1. Samoa Joe & Swerve Strickland Vs The Kingdom

Starting a brand new era off with a decidedly Monday Night Raw-feeling opening wasn’t ideal, even if there were some good intentions flowing throughout Samoa Joe and Swerve Strickland’s impromptu tag match against The Kingdom.

Adam Cole wanted to celebrate his stable’s (first?) good night, and was decent foil for a quippy Swerve Strickland who had only arrived to challenge Samoa Joe once again. But awkward questions were left unanswered by the presentation. Why was the man considering himself the uncrowned AEW Champion accepting a tag match alongside the man sitting on his throne? If impromptu matches are now being dreamt up by Tony Khan, why didn’t he land on the money singles offering rather than the makeshift tag? And here in reality, why book a match that effectively squashed core members of a stable the same segment was striving to promote?

The whole thing wasn’t without merit. Revolution didn’t leave much remaining interest in a Swerve/Joe programme, but Strickland’s formal coming out party as a babyface here brought that back to life, assuming there’s no title change last week. And on that, The Undisputed Kingdom having actual enemies has been a necessity since they launched and that was established here too, even if it was only in service of a Wardlow/Joe match that - on prior evidence - has a relatively low ceiling.

Some big swings and more misses than hits, then. Was that not the biggest criticism of MJF’s title reign and the justification for Joe supposedly stabilising the scene?