Just caught up with the show. A bit of a breakdown:
Loved
-Wardlow/MJF/W. Morrissey/Shawn Spears. This is the hottest thing in the company. The crowd is hungry (and thirsty) for the Wardog, and they've been nailing this almost every step of the way since the turn at Revolution.
-Hangman's promo. FINALLY a meaty segment where he just gets to talk! Great intensity. I'm incredibly curious to see what they're trying to accomplish here. I kind of want Hangman to beat Punk, but I just don't know if that's going to happen. I actually wouldn't mind them running it back at All Out with Punk winning THERE after turning heel.
-Ruby Soho getting to cut a promo and sounding great doing it. I've been a big supporter of hers since her debut, and I'll keep beating that drum. She's good! REALLY good, in fact! Put her on TV! It's actually going to help Toni Storm, too, who has shown that mic skills aren't her forte just yet.
-Acclaimed/Gunn Club backstage segment. LOL. These guys are great together. Biggest laugh of the night for me.
Liked
-Thunder and Serena getting legit promo time and building on their history. They both need to work on the mic aspect of their game. Hope Tony gives them the room to develop it. This was a bit clunky, but I'm glad it was on the show regardless.
-Sw3rve and Keith Lee. Work on that Sw3rve in his glory catchphrase, though.
-Jurassic Express/Ricky/Hobbs. Ricky is so damn good. I hope they know what they've got in him. Easy top 5 guy in the entire company.
-Dante vs. Fenix. There's a version of this match where it ends up in the "loved" category, but it just felt like the pacing of this one was a bit off at times, and some of the timing between them didn't hit. Run it back and I'm sure they can put together something truly great. Glad the fans liked it.
-BCC vs. Butcher/Blade/Angelico. They showed the video package, too! I think everyone's ready to see what's next and who's going to step up to the BCC. I'm still calling a New Japan stable coming after them, though it would be pretty cool to see Danielson and Moxley team up with Eddie's crew for a spell.
-Jade. It's Jade!
-JOKER tease. Joe vs. Claudio in round one?
Indifferent bordering on didn't like
-Fish vs. Hardy. I hope Jeff Hardy is for somebody because he's not for me. This match was just kind of there.
-Jericho vs. Santana. This thing just plodded along for me. Also felt like it was just kind of there and I was waiting for it to end.
-House of Black/Julia/Varsity Blondes/Death Triangle. What an awkward finish to zero crowd reaction. :-/ And then Julia's still there when they're setting up the Dante/Fenix match? Just bad from a production standpoint. Varsity Blands don't do much for me, and it doesn't sound like they do much for most fans.
-The main event. I hate that this is here. There were some technically fine moments, and I REALLY enjoyed Deonna's last match against Taya Valkyrie, but there was so little heat to this match that I just couldn't ever really get into it. I don't think Tony did enough to make fans pick a side. Why not do an angle where Deonna takes out Mercedes or something? Even if it's a pre-tape. The post-match was emotional for Mercedes, which was nice to see, but then you just had JR talking over it and going on about Darby Allin and the show just cutting him off mid-sentence. WTF? They haven't shown us enough about why we should care about Mercedes Martinez either. This thing was a bummer despite having some things to like about it. :-/
I'm generally positive on AEW, but overall tonight, I'd give this show a 6/10, which is disappointing for a Dynamite, though I'm still glad I watched it. The three matches mentioned above just ate up SO much time and I didn't feel any of them were particularly exciting. Even the match I was looking forward to the most, Dante/Fenix, didn't meet my admittedly lofty expectations, though I did still enjoy it. This show broke a hot streak for me that goes back as far as February for this company. They've just been killing it so regularly that less-than-amazing shows stand out more.
Rampage looks like a nice bounce-back show, and next week's Dynamite already looks better on paper, too.
Time to read back what I missed in the thread. :) Hope everyone's having a good night.