It is customary when starting an article that is heavily critical about All Elite Wrestling and AEW fans to extend an olive branch in some way. An explanation that you’re not just trolling, paid by a Legentil, “hating just to hate”, “adding to the discourse”, you know. All of the things that get said when someone is critical of the product.
Even if you do all that, you’re eventually going to be told to wait to see how the story goes. I’ve often expressed this myself, but it’s always in the benefit to the story. When someone wants to see something, I tend to ask, if you do this, does that not peak the story early? If a babyface gets too much of a comeback, if a heel destroys the face, and you still have weeks to go? You often lose whatever you were building.
When others criticized the softer landing to Orange Cassidy versus Jon Moxley in building to Full Gear I defended it. I believed they were getting beyond simply showing a beating and getting closer to the concepts and philosophy of the program. The Death Riders were trying to break people in All Elite Wrestling and force them to fight for everything. Orange Cassidy rejected this, his belief in AEW unwavered, and stayed exactly who he has always been. Sloth kicks and sunglasses still intact. Jon Moxley may have defeated OC at Full Gear but he didn’t break the man. At least not yet.
The pay per view ended not focusing on this part of the story since they decided to slam right into Christian Cage with his stupid instant title shot briefcase, Jay White, and Hangman Adam Page all making a ruckus at the end of the match. There was no way to let this story beat complete.
Hangman and Jon Moxley confronting each other in the ring was a special moment due to their history, but it was also special because Moxley essentially waltzed into AEW and took Hangman’s spot as the top heel of the company after Page defeated Swerve Strickland at All Out. Whatever road Page was on to the World Championship got derailed having to tie loose ends with Jeff Jarrett and Jay White. Moxley meanwhile stole a title shot from Darby Allin and ended Bryan Danielson’s full-time career.
I’ll get to Dynamite shortly, but I just wanted to spotlight that to get to it later. The pay per view ended with the Death Riders trying to do their usual getaway, only for Darby Allin to recklessly ram a car into the truck in hopes of taking them out. It failed since they just commandeered a new vehicle, but it served to centre the focus on Darby Allin’s rise.
Even this Dynamite last night was about Darby Allin. His loss to Brody King is about starting him at the bottom of the 2024 Continental Classic and giving him a mountain to climb. No different to Eddie Kingston last year, or Tetsuya Naito at many recent G1 Climax round robins. We’re more invested in Darby’s next match knowing he was brutalized in his first and lost to Brody King, and now if he loses he’s likely out of his shot of winning it all.
Apart from maybe another mediocre MJF/Cole segment (I didn’t dislike it as much as other segments they’ve done) and about the angle I’m about to discuss, I really liked Dynamite last night. And usually I try to be the person who looks at all two hours of a show and reviews it based on a balance of the merits and malice. In doing so this was show was definitely a success, with every match in the ring strong, the main event strong, and no issues with promos or angles throughout. The show was a success. But the show has a problem.
That’s our AEW Men’s World Champion?
I’m not talking in the sense of how dare he dastardly heel. I’m talking in that’s your presence on the Dynamite after Full Gear? After you just won in the main event against a top babyface? This was supposed to be for the soul of AEW.
And your entrance was to make a save so Marina Shafir doesn’t eat a Blade Runner?
You don’t say anything really all night. You don’t address the live crowd. You just take part in beating up Jay White, with the majority of the violence inflicted by your bodyguard. There was so much focus on that segment on Marina Shafir it felt like she was the AEW Men’s World Champion and these were her bodyguards.
Jon Moxley didn’t look like a champion. He didn’t look like the Ace. He didn’t look like a conquering king. He looked like a generic soldier.
It also doesn’t help that it’s clear they are building to Cage versus Page versus White versus Mox. Christian Cage wasn’t even on the show. Jay White just recently turned babyface a few months ago and is still struggling to get the crowd behind him. So who is the crowd going to cheer in this? Who is the guy who feels right to go after Jon Moxley?
Why of course, it’s the AEW Original in the match! The former AEW Men’s World Champion himself: Hangman Adam Page.
The Chicago crowd identified it quickly on his promo as well. No matter what Page tried to do to look like the bad guy? Chicago identified him as the AEW Original who should be fighting Jon Moxley for the soul of All Elite Wrestling. A man who should not be complacent. A man who has proven he will set a house on fire to get what he wants.
Who went down easy being bonked in the head by a briefcase by Marina Shafir.
Page is still selling his leg as he has been for what feels like a solid month now, so he’s a wounded animal on top of everything. And oh yeah, I forgot. HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A HEEL.
Page was supposed to be one of the top heels in the company after burning Swerve’s house down and beating him in the Lights Out cage match. A monster was created at All Out. If AEW had deftly played into a story of the monster being set loose on the Death Riders I would be okay with that to a point, but it’s still about a heel versus a heel at the pay per view. Heck, it’s two heels in Cage and Page, and then a babyface not properly over.
And in this situation, from the messy end of Full Gear to the beatdown on Dynamite, it’s no use telling me to wait and see, because everything so far has put AEW further and further into a hole in how to build this to World’s End. How do you salvage this? You have to make these guys credible threats to the World Champion but that’s been killed in week one. You can’t just have Moxley lose matches to both guys.
You’re almost in a situation where it would be better to just turn Page babyface, have him team with Jay White and fight Yuta/PAC, and keep the main event a singles match between Christian Cage and Jon Moxley. At least Cage has that stupid briefcase as legitimacy to a title match. Just create a situation where he’s forced to cash in when they tell him to. Marina Shafir can actually be effective for once and not just be a poor woman’s version of Chyna bodyguarding Triple H by having her physically intimidate Mama Wayne so Christian feels compelled to cash when they tell him to.
It of course means you’re once again running a heel versus heel story but at least it’s more focused and you can work to making Christian Cage a babyface instead. Maybe in the end when he loses the match you can have Adam Copeland make the save and finally reunite the two on-screen brothers.
But that’s likely not to happen. I’ve heard rumours that Jay White and Adam Page were originally going to be in the Continental Classic, and the decision was made a week prior to Full Gear to instead make it a four way match. The goal is to have both men get their AEW Men’s World Championship shot. And the way the company is doing it proves they absolutely suck at booking a four way title match.
I’m already close to 1,500 words but we all should remember the build up to Double or Nothing 2023, how it should have just been Darby Allin versus Maxwell Jacob Friedman. The stupid mini tournament. Sammy Guevara turning heel to team with MJF and having chemistry only to drop it to turn him back babyface, which killed his good will with the fans to the point where he had to take a break and is now rehabilitating as an ROH guy who only works AEW TV to lose.
That segment last night did so much damage. Hangman Adam Page the monster heel is pretty much dead. He’s chosen by the fans to be the AEW Original who faces Moxley next no matter what they try to book. So he’s basically a tweener hobbling around on one leg getting beaten up by Marina Shafir. Jay White got absolutely destroyed for essentially threatening to Blade Runner Shafir, so in some people’s minds a guy got his ass kicked for putting his hands on a woman. Wow the Death Riders are chivalrous. Great heel work.
What was most frustrating was going on BlueSky (I don’t discuss AEW TV in real time on Twitter anymore. Check me out on BlueSky) and hoping to see others express similar issues only for everyone to just be horny for Marina locking Jay White in the Mother’s Milk. Nobody really cared about the segment. How it built up the contenders. How it made the champion look. It was just a Boner Jam segment for them. Wonderful crowd. It makes me wonder if some people just shut their brain off when an AEW segment goes wrong and searches for something to feel different about. But that’s my annoyance talking.
I don’t know what AEW does going forward with this. If it was up to me (and it never will be) I would just go all in on Adam Page as the AEW Original that’s going to stop Jon Moxley. I’d have him beat Christian Cage clean for that stupid briefcase and put it up at World’s End. I would centre this around Hangman Page being the monster that can stop a monster in Jon Moxley. Christian and Jay likely have to be there so I’d have them as wrinkles in the angle with the goal to pairing them against each other later.
But what I expect to happen is the odds to be evened up once or twice against the Death Riders with nothing really done to even the imbalance of this angle, and once we get to World’s End? Jon Moxley will know there’s nothing in beating Jay White. He’s already massacred him. Christian Cage is too slippery. But that Adam Page? That wounded animal? That’s the guy to eventually beat. Then he can gloat later about it being another AEW Original down. Show’s over. Welcome to 2025.
It was a good Dynamite. That segment? Pretty clear evidence that AEW knew how to start the Death Riders, knows where it ends, but has no clue what to do in between.
