8 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Dynamite (11 Aug)

5. Jericho Reaches The Final Stage

Chris Jericho defeated Wardlow to pass his fourth labour, guaranteeing him a singles match with MJF on next week's episode of Dynamite.

The catch, as outlined by MJF, is that Jericho must go Judas-free. That means no entrance theme (setting things up nicely for the entire building to sing it to Chris regardless) and no Judas Effect, the move the veteran has used to pass these labours. The Salt of the Earth is forcing the Inner Circle man to adapt his strategy and delve deeper into his bag of tricks again, having already cut a tremendous promo to open Dynamite, warning Wardlow against failing him again.

Wardlow did fail - but it wasn't his fault. He had Jericho dead to rights when MJF started screaming for him to inflict more punishment following the F10, leading to Jericho working his way back into the match. Had the big man gone his own way, he would have won. Instead, he ended up paying too much attention to his boss and paid for it, with Jericho using the baseball bat to set up the winning Judas Effect.

Wardlow now has a legitimate gripe with MJF, and MJF thinks he has one with his muscle. That's a nice, layered dynamic to explore on future episodes.

Nonetheless, while the work in the match wasn't always perfect, Dynamite was a net success for this program as a whole.