8 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Dynamite (6 July)

1. Let It Land

The quick, snappy, and excellent video package highlighting Blood & Guts was a breath of fresh air from a promotion often accused of not letting its big moments land. Its inclusion helped sell the impact of what should be one of the weightiest wrestling matches of the year. It was balanced, too, getting to the point without overstaying its welcome.

This is the kind of recap that AEW should be doing more of. It's disappointing, then, that it was followed by the opposite.

Invited to the ring by Tony Schiavone, Eddie Kingston cut a brief promo congratulating Wardlow on his TNT Title win, then addressing Blood & Guts, congratulating all of his teammates (including Claudio Castagnoli). That he couldn't make Chris Jericho bleed made Eddie a liar. That doesn't sit with him, so he's still out for Canadian blood.

Cut to a pretaped segment featuring the Jericho Appreciation Society and Ruby Soho, who has been loosely aligned with Kingston throughout her run and cemented this at Blood & Guts. Wobbly and prone, she had her arm slammed in a car door by Tay Conti, which resonated for only a few fleeting moments before the cameras hurriedly cut away.

Not letting these things land remains a big problem. A longer stretch showing a furious Kingston's reaction, Ruby selling, and the JAS sneering, before Kingston ran to the back to check on his friend, would have done wonders here. Instead, a show that was likely running long (the main event went about a minute over the allotted airtime) skipped away in a dash. One of the night's other pithy backstage segments could have been chopped instead.