9 Ups & 5 Downs From AEW Dynamite (Aug 12)
1. MJF Drops The Ball
MJF's promo delivery was fine, the payoff (with 'The Salt of the Earth' sending his goons to cut Jon Moxley off in the bleachers, only for Mox to attack from the tunnel) was well-played, and Moxley's epilogue promo hit the right notes, but otherwise, this campaign update was a colossal misfire.
The whole thing was built around insider nonsense that hasn't been edgy for at least 20 years. Genuinely, this was Russo-tier. When Dynamite is at its best, it feels like when WCW Nitro was really cooking: here, in this segment, we got Nitro at its worst.
MJF insinuated that the only reason Jon Moxley had got to where he is in AEW was that his opponents lied down and did jobs for him. He got on his back to illustrate this point, continuing his diatribe while staring at the lights. Mox, he claimed, wasn't used to dealing with somebody more talented than him who wouldn't do the job, encouraging the AEW Champion to fork the keys to the kingdom over to him at All Out, before Jon's arrival broke everything up.
Wrestling is scripted. Everybody knows this, just don't explicitly remind us of this during the show. Imagine James Gandolfini turning to the camera in an episode of The Sopranos, winking, and saying "hey, I didn't really order a hit on my nephew, it's all scripted!". Guff like this makes the suspension of disbelief impossible and it'll always be a Down in this column, particularly as MJF's original campaign statement was so strong.