9 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite (23 August - Review)

4. A Cracking Brawl

Swerve Strickland and AR Fox Vs. Darby Allin and Nick Wayne was a seriously impressive match. Not reliant on plunder, in a rare display of restraint from AEW with Stadium Stampede mere days away, it was instead worked as high spot-heavy match - and yet it was never spectacular for the sake of it. There was no dissonance between the tone and the style; this was a heated, violent match that just happened to sprinkle a load of deranged dives and head-drops in place of weapon shots. It had little right to work as well as it did. One element did not betray the other.

As mentioned, the post-match was all kinds of bizarre, but Christian Cage was on bravura form in his role as the man who likes it when your father dies. He was a complete prick here in the best way. He wasn't just cruel about Buddy Wayne's passing in and of itself; he said he'd never even heard of him, so he mustn't have been very good.

That was deliciously callous: if you're going to go the cheap heat route, you have to do it well, and this was unconscionable.