8 Ups & 4 Downs From AEW Dynamite (May 20)
1. This Build
The build to Brodie Lee vs. Jon Moxley hasn't been one befitting a major title fight on what would normally be AEW's biggest pay-per-view of the year.
Crowd reactions are the truest gauge of whether something is hitting the mark or not. It's hard to judge how well a storyline, wrestler, or feud is faring without them, so there's every chance Lee vs. Moxley would be hitting big in AEW's trademark red-hot arenas. This doesn't feel like it's the case, though. Nobody's buzzing for this feud, nobody's getting fired up for the match on social media, and while "heel challenger steals the babyface champion's belt" is a solid angle we've seen many times before, it has come off flat.
On top of this, Lee still feels like he's being hot-shotted to the top. Leapfrogging the rankings and creating his own challenge by smashing Mox was fine but if you're going to do that, you need to put extra work into making Mr. Brodie look like a force. That hasn't been the case here.
A solid enough Lee promo opened last night's Dynamite, as he played up the twisted cult leader bit to decent effect. Adjectives like "solid" and "decent" aren't enough, though.
There's no way this match can main event Double Or Nothing.