AEW Vs NXT - The New Wrestling War
The assumption that AEW are the babyfaces in some sort of battle for wrestling's soul isn't a hard story to sell to audiences desperate to believe such a thing even still exists, but many older fans are more likely to buy Orange Cassidy's kicks than Cody's brand of bluster.
His throne theatrics at Double Or Nothing were on the biggest nose in all of wrestling and popped the sh*t out of the Las Vegas crowd, but in targeting Triple H, was he in fact making a point about the first real blow AEW needed to land on WWE in order to actually leave a mark?
Cody's match with Dustin, like Double Or Nothing itself, was a triumph beyond even lofty expectations, and its placement just a week before a rushed and underserved NXT TakeOver card was a stroke of fortune for the nascent brand. It was a painfully ironic pill for the black-and-gold brand to swallow - moved as result of WWE's revolting relationship with the Saudi Arabian Sports Authority, the show was bounced around until settling upon a June Saturday in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The sins of the Father had cursed the Son-In-Law. Countless NXT loyalists had just had their head turned by a magical show under the bright lights of Las Vegas, with the task at hand now to lure them back to a pitch black production that had for so long been deemed pitch-perfect.
So said the online narrative anyway.
It was as if fans as a collective couldn't come together and thank their lucky stars that the industry was about to serve up two scintillating spectacles in seven days.
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