8 Ups & 1 Down From AEW Dynamite (29 March - Review)
6. Compelling Show-Long Storytelling Continues
More effective show-long storytelling highlighted this week's Dynamite via the hard-nosed business of the Blackpool Combat Club.
With Kenny Omega an important player and voice in the room, AEW feels more fascinating and connected. The Blackpool Combat Club defeated Dalton Castle and the Boys in a brief massacre of a squash before heading backstage to beat up Hangman Page. It was a massacre, all right; a cruel and unceremonious beating that effectively put over the BCC as a squad of nasty ars*holes revelling in violence.
They targeted Don Callis, too. This makes sense from a character perspective - the BCC are indiscriminate ass-kickers, ugly men who can't deal with losing - and fuels the intrigue of the Elite saga at the same time. Last week's main event angle was criticised by some people who still have WWE brain nearly four years into AEW's run.
Of course they weren't going to proceed as if the misunderstanding between Omega and Page couldn't have been clarified by watching the footage back. Before Callis was decked, Callis explained that he fell over like an idiot last week and was embarrassed. This, after questioning why Kenny Omega would be suspicious of Page.
What's Callis up to here?
He's playing a complicated game in the shadows, pitting people against one another, but for what purpose?
Is he trying to prevent Page and Omega from reuniting, knowing that his cut isn't the same if Omega isn't working singles? He's desperate for the old Omega to return, after all. It's a more lucrative proposition.
Or is he actually trying to draw Page and Kenny Omega together, encouraging them to bond over a misunderstanding? And again: for what purpose? Possibly because he thinks the Bucks, who lost the Trios titles, are holding Omega back - and he knows Omega and Page can beat them?
Or, is he trying to accelerate Omega's physical decline, milking his cash cow of the his last drips before moving onto Konosuke Takeshita?
The mystery remains sprawling, slippery, like we are nowhere near any of the endless possible answers. If you're not into the melodramatic inner turmoil aspect of the Elite's storytelling approach, and prefer your wrestling to be more violent and less corny, you were in luck later on...