AEW presented Dynamite: Grand Slam Mexico last night in Arena Mexico in one of the best shows All Elite Wrestling has ever held.
I originally had some GrapPro pieces planned to discuss various things I thought would be good to talk about. None of it was really big picture stuff. You know me and the details. It just feels better to me to instead talk about exactly why I thought Grand Slam Mexico was so great for AEW.
For starters, what a partner Consejo Mundial De Lucha Libre (CMLL) has been for All Elite Wrestling already. AEW had an early relationship with Asistencia Asesoria y Administracion (AAA) in their beginning, with the Young Bucks as AAA World Tag Team Champions and defending the titles against the Lucha Brothers at Double or Nothing 2019. Kenny Omega was AAA Mega Champion for 765 days, and multiple AEW wrestlers used to go to AAA for their shows. AAA didn’t feel like a partner to All Elite Wrestling the way CMLL feels like a partner. Sending QT Marshall and Jeff Jarrett to be heel foreigners isn’t the same as Bryan Danielson facing Blue Panther.
Running this show in Arena Mexico, the love and adoration they gave to Blue Panther and Místico and many more, it just feels like AEW is trying to embrace CMLL and pay tribute to them instead of just using them as an international partner. There’s just a much different level of respect and that respect shines throughout the product. This wasn’t just AEW showing up in Mexico. This was AEW working with CMLL to present All Elite Wrestling in Mexico.
I also think it’s important to make clear the distinction that this wasn’t AEW trying to emulate a CMLL product but All Elite Wrestling bringing their AEW product to Mexico to the acceptance of CMLL and Arena Mexico.
The one thing AEW did do make this show feel different was the lack of backstage promos or interviews. Promo time was done in ring like Hangman Adam Page and Toni Storm’s Carmen Stormdiego video for Mercedes Moné. Keeping everything in the ring likely simplified things and allowed the show to be more about a product everyone could understand in any language: pro wrestling.
I’ll also add that I watched the show with one of those legendary and hard to find “casual wrestling fans”, someone who only started re-watching pro wrestling as an adult because WWE went to Netflix Canada. By the end of the show he had no doubt in his mind that AEW was a better product than WWE. It probably helps that AEW actually shows you a wrestling match in the time WWE is simply showing you a wrestling entrance. Anyway.
The Best Hangman Summer
Nobody is happier right now to eat crow than me when it comes to Hangman Adam Page’s treatment so far since winning the Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament. I actually come from the “Crow Capital of Canada” in Chatham-Kent, Ontario (if someone from Victoria, British Columbia disagrees I’ll go with Crow Capital of Ontario) so I’m good with snacking on a juicy crow here.
There has been times in the past weeks I wonder if we’re getting enough Hangman on Dynamite but him opening this Grand Slam Mexico show to cut a promo in Spanish and end the show finally going punch for punch with Jon Moxley and celebrating standing tall with other babyfaces on the show? That leaves me more than satisfied enough that he’s being treated as the top babyface star of the company.
We used to hear women scream at the sight of Hangman Page like he was a possessed monster ready to cause destruction. Now they scream in love of him coming to save the day and represent All Elite Wrestling.
Page cutting his promo in Spanish is honestly an incredible move as a babyface star and telling a personal story to express how much he both relates and respects the people of Mexico. It reminded a lot of when Kenny Omega cut a promo in fluent Japanese in New Japan Pro Wrestling, and this I feel takes that to another level due to political tensions between the United States and Mexico. Hangman is coming out as the representative of AEW, their current number one babyface, showing respect to the people coming into their hallowed ground and speaking their language to open the show.
This is shaping up to be the best summer of Hangman Adam Page’s wrestling career.
Místico and MJF
I loved this match.
It might be one of my favourite matches of the year at least for television.
I thought both men played their roles perfectly. This was a great wrestling match on the mat but the psychology, the character play, the performance itself, and the way the match told the story? Exactly what I want.
MJF walked into Mexico with the Hurt Syndicate as his armour. Nothing could bother him. Nothing could get to him. There was no pride before the fall for him. There would be no fall because MVP, Shelton Benjamin, and Bobby Lashley were there to keep from any fall happening.
And then the music hit.
Místico’s theme being sang by Arena Mexico was a special moment, and it had Místico looking like the biggest star in pro wrestling. He arguably is, but he absolutely looked like it on that entrance. The camera at some point cut to Maxwell Jacob Friedman and the armour he wore in his entrance had washed away. It was a look of doubt that MJF has perfected.
Throughout the match, MJF kept allowing that pride to get to him. MVP kept trying to warn him to stay on Místico and not get too cocky. Maxwell Jacob Friedman had the ability to defeat Místico clean if he didn’t let himself get in the way of it. Every time he’d get a little too cocky he’d find Místico finding his way back into the match and taking the advantage.
Eventually MJF realized he just couldn’t win. He allowed Místico to come back one too many times and his momentum now was just going to be too much. That’s when Max hit the low blow kick to lose by disqualification. He ripped the mask of Místico off, only for appeared to be a fan giving a new one to Místico before Speedball Mike Bailey could run down and give him one. I thought it would have ended up with him wearing the Sin Cara mask he removed in his entrance, but this worked too.
I’ve complained in the past that AEW relies too much on the heat of a mask removal in matches against lucha wrestlers and I want to see it less. I’m sure there’s a veteran in the back who keeps telling Tony that it’s a “sensible” thing for someone to do and that’s why they keep going to the well on it, but here it works. You can definitely feel there’s going to be a rematch, and in this rematch? Místico is getting his revenge.
A hair versus mask match will allow MJF to go bald like the other members of Hurt Syndicate and truly fit in.
I’ve already gushed about it, but I want people to consider that Maxwell Jacob Friedman wanted to join Hurt Syndicate to help him become AEW Men’s World Champion again. They were supposed to get him back into title contention. Instead he’s embroiled in a feud with the biggest wrestling star in Mexico and pulling Hurt Syndicate into it. If Bobby and Shelton end up losing the tag titles to Kevin Knight and Speedball it’s likely due to letting themselves get caught in Max’s petty feuds.
This I believe is all part of the process to make MJF the top heel once there’s a babyface champion. His mistakes today will help him not make those mistakes tomorrow.
More Gold For Moné
Mercedes Moné won the CMLL World Women’s Championship against Zeuxis in a very good match. I thought Zeuxis was excellent. I loved how the match started with Zeuxis essentially hitting her best offence against Mercedes to essentially “showcase” her to a TV audience that wouldn’t know who she was before they really got the back and forth going on the match.
It may be strange to some that Mercedes is out there wrestling for other titles instead of being focused on Timeless Toni Storm but that’s the point. Mercedes is an unstoppable machine trying to collect as much gold as possible. Toni’s gold is just the ultimate gold. Mercedes is soon to need a wheelbarrow to carry all of the gold she has. She’s like Kenny Omega in 2021 for AEW right now.
After the victory we got Toni Storm doing her best film noir before giving Mercedes a sniff and going to war. Toni said it best: “Let the games begin.”
Mercedes has had her time collecting gold all over the world. She had the NJPW STRONG Women’s Championship but lost it in May. She carries the title representing her win at the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament. She holds the RevPro Undisputed British Women’s Championship. She won the EWA Women’s Championship in a triple threat match in Vienna, Austria. Now she has the CMLL World Women’s Championship won in Mexico. Oh, and don’t forget the TBS Championship.
Winning the AEW Women’s World Championship would be the crowning moment of her career after WWE, and certainly make her the most accomplished wrestler today.
But for all of her time globe trotting and title chasing she now has to go up against the woman who represents All Elite Wrestling’s women’s division better than anyone since Hikaru Shida during the pandemic. She has to face someone who represents not just women’s wrestling around the world but represents AEW.
Toni has held that championship more times than any other woman and longer than any other woman. The old saying was to be the man you gotta beat the man. To be the woman? You gotta beat the woman. The woman is Timeless Toni Storm.
“Let the games begin“
AEW has an interesting journey to Y’All In Texas coming up.
We have Collision on June 21, Dynamite on June 25, and Collision again all in Kent, Washington. Next will be a combo Dynamite/Collision in Ontario, California that just so happens to be the 300th Dynamite and 100th Collision. AEW will then be in Garland, Texas for Dynamite on July 9 and Collision on July 10. ROH Supercard of Honor on July 11 and Y’All In Texas on July 12.
That means we have four Collision’s and three more Dynamite’s before the big show. Last I checked on WrestleTix, Y’All In Texas was at 17,485 for tickets sold. They sold 1,406 tickets since last update, and that was back on June 11. It will be interesting to see if they can sell another 1,000+ tickets every week or not. If so they could easily get closer to the 25,000 number which I think they need to be at for this show to be a success. The final week will likely sell 3,000+ tickets so the closer they get to over 20,000 before that? The better.
The company has done a great job building up the top three matches, but we should see coming out of Grand Slam Mexico more matches get announced. I figure we get Adam Cole versus Kyle Fletcher for the TNT Championship, Jet Speed versus Hurt Syndicate for the World Tag Championship, Death Riders versus The Opps in a Trios Championship rematch, another Casino Gauntlet, possibly MJF versus Místico in a hair versus mask match (unless CMLL gets that), and a huge tag match where the Young Bucks face Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay.
It would be really disappointing if Athena isn’t on the show somehow. We need another women’s match and it’s not just because she’s local to Garland, Texas but because they used her a lot in the promotion of the show from its first announcement to today. I really did think they would be going with her versus Moné and if they don’t I think they should still get her on the card somehow. Whether it’s a Casino Gauntlet or an ROH Women’s World Championship match? I want to see her on the main card.
This has been one of the best build ups to an AEW pay per view ever, and having a show like Grand Slam Mexico before we get to the real build up (when the real games begin) has me higher on the product than I have in a long time. I’ve long felt that the product wasn’t as bad as some had felt it to be in 2024, though I understood the negativity. I got very low on the product going into 2025, but I feel like the company listened to the criticism and has made great strides in ensuring that AEW is a product that both provides you great professional wrestling and great entertainment without trying to sap your humanity and leave you as miserable as the real world can.
You know what? I can’t end there. Too happy. Too rah rah. Too much lip service and not enough scathing criticism.
The lack of Kemonito and Kemolito on the main show was inexcusable, unforgivable, and deplorable. Shame on AEW. Shame on Tony Khan! Atone for your sins!
