7 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (9 Mar)

1. A Dysfunctional Title Switch

At its core, Dynamite's main event was a decent idea. Sammy Guevara was hoisted from his own petard, taking two or three risks too many, resulting in him losing the TNT Championship with a nice side salad of heel f*ckery thrown in. Scorpio Sky, meanwhile, guarantees that his undefeated singles streak will extend beyond a year and gets to hold his second piece of AEW hardware.

But despite a good Sky performance, this didn't work. It was clear from the near-silence at the first bell that the crowd weren't invested in the program. While this improved slightly as the match went on, the beats were all over the place.

Guevara looked like a dumb TNT Champion not only for 630 splashing through a table he'd set up himself, but then trying to do a Shooting Star Press later on, even though we were led to believe that he was once on the verge of being unable to continue. Either the selling was inadequate, or Guevara is stupid for going back to high-risk when high-risk had already failed him.

The stoppage portion was disruptive to the match's flow as well, reducing it to stodge early on. Again, Sky worked his ass off, but it wasn't enough to compensate.

Another supplement Up has to go to Paige VanZant, though. Literally signing her AEW contract on Tay Conti's ass ruled. She was a no-brainer acquisition for AEW who, if they can teach her even to work an okay match, will have a major star on their hands. PVZ possesses the kind of traits that can't be taught and can be tutored in everything else.