8 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (26 Jan)

Downs...

2. Lights Out Falls Flat

Intended to strike a lighter note than the grisly brawls the Lights Out stipulation is typically attached to, Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy fell flat on the night.

This is partly related to the point made in the next entry. There's more to it than that, though. Danhausen's debut would've been better suited elsewhere in the show, as it sucked any sense of bitterness or hatred from a bout that struggled to generate these things thereafter. For as hard as they worked, nothing that Cole or Cassidy did made this feel like the kind of nasty, heated wars we associated with the Lights Out stipulation, even when they dropped the big bombs.

Cassidy's nonchalant dropping of Cole from the tunnel and through part of the stage was a nice visual to close the match on. Regardless, the use of the 'Lights Out' stipulation was too cute here. AEW transparently wanted to give OC something from the Cole feud without putting a loss on Adam's record, presumably so that he can keep his lofty ranking and potentially challenge for the AEW World Championship. This is fine. Technically, the defeat doesn't count.

But visually, we've just watched the guy get pinned by his rival on television.

At the end of a plunder brawl lacking in heft, that's far from ideal. Let's see how Cole and AEW style their way out of it.