AEW Dynamite 08/09/23: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s review of "The MJF and Adam Cole Show," known to some as "AEW Dynamite!" Coming off last week's milestone 200th episode, the march toward Wembley Stadium continues, as three more All In matches were announced, and even a match for the Zero Hour pre-show! Meanwhile, Anna Jay got a Women's World Championship shot against the newly-crowed Hikaru Shida, the Jericho Appreciation Society officially crumbled to the ground, and former WWE Champion Rob Van Dam saw his first (and perhaps his last) AEW in-ring action in an FTW title match against Jack Perry.

What did we think of the entire affair? It's all laid out for you here. As opposed to the rock-solid slab of fact that makes up our live coverage, which you should definitely go read if you haven't seen the episode yet, this column is all about our subjective feelings. It's now time to find out the three things we hated and the three things we loved from the 8/9/23 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

There was nothing really wrong with the Jericho Appreciation Society mandatory meeting segment that opened "Dynamite" this week, but we struggle to see the point. It took up the entire first quarter-hour of the show and was essentially comprised of information we already knew. Like, the other JAS members formally walking out on Jericho was technically new, but it was just the natural culmination of the segments leading up to it. We already knew each member's issues with Jericho; they could have walked out on him during a match or something and the same effect would have been achieved in a shorter period of time. We didn't need Jake Hager to talk about his hat again.

It seems fairly obvious that Jericho is going to reject Don Callis' offer next week, just because it would be anti-climactic to have him lose the JAS and then just be like "Alright, I'll join Don's family, I guess," but we suppose there's a few different ways they could go. It all depends on what they're setting up for Jericho for All In — Jericho vs. Konosuke Takeshita or Jericho vs. Kenny Omega both sound plausible. One thing is certain, however — this segment officially put the last nail in the coffin of the "is Daniel Garcia a wrestler or a sports entertainer" storyline that was the best thing AEW had going last year before they screwed it up. If Garcia is no longer in the JAS, that conflict is gone entirely, and even if the JAS gets back together, now they're babyfaces and there's no satisfaction to be taken from Garcia rejecting them and embracing being a wrestler. So please, AEW fans, stop trying to tell us that the story is going somewhere and we just need to let it play out. It's over. They botched it. Moving on.

We were somewhat critical of Rob Van Dam's AEW debut in this column last week — not because we dislike Van Dam, but because we're over nostalgia acts, and ECW nostalgia acts in particular. Writing a story that requires a Rob Van Dam match is simultaneously not writing a story that could make use of an actual member of the roster, and in 2023, we'd rather see the latter. That said, the Van Dam match is what we got, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that "The Whole F'n Show" still has some moves in him.

This is the most we've enjoyed a Jack Perry match in some time, and a big part of that was the experience of watching 52-year-old RVD fly around the ring like he's ... well, not like he's 25 or anything, but maybe like he's 40! He clearly doesn't have very many years left in him, but it's just as clear that he's still operating on a higher level than we have any right to expect. You can really tell that he hasn't gone a full year without wrestling, despite slowing down. The spot where he did the spinning leg drop off the apron with Perry draped over the barricade was sick, and for all our whining about nostalgia acts, we popped hard for the Rolling Thunder on the chair. If we had to come up with a complaint, it would be that needing a ref bump plus grabbing the tights to beat a 52-year-old Van Dam doesn't make Perry look very good, but we're not invested in Perry looking good, so who cares?

Also, Tony, if you're going to flaunt your ECW nerd cred by buying the rights to "Walk," you should probably have also had Van Dam get the visual pin on Perry after a split-legged moonsault, his original ECW finisher that WWE wouldn't let him keep. Having him get the visual pin after a frog splash makes you seem like kind of a poseur.

The match between the Lucha Brothers and the team of Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli was good for what it was, but we're not really sure what to think of the BCC right now. Everything lines up in terms of how we got to where we are from Blood & Guts — PAC abandoned the BCC in that match, leading to their Death Before Dishonor confrontation, leading to the BCC feuding with the other members of Death Triangle — so it makes sense, it's just not terribly compelling. It really sucks that PAC got hurt again right after coming back, because he would make this feud (if it really is a feud) more interesting. We love the Lucha Bros, but AEW has never used them to their full potential or even really done anything with them, character-wise, beyond "how do they feel about using hammers," and as we've discussed recently, the BCC's whole thing right now seems to be "We don't have character arcs, we are the obstacles in your character arc." Put those two thing together and there's just not really any reason to care. The money is in getting back to the feud between the BCC and Orange Cassidy, but Orange his defending his International title against Johnny TV on "AEW Rampage" this week for some dumb reason and didn't appear on this episode at all, so maybe they're not doing that? Especially because Claudio took Penta's mask after the match, which practically demands this feud continue? Who knows, it's very confusing and at the moment there doesn't appear to be an endgame beyond "How do we get Jon Moxley on the All In card?"

And by the way, Tony, you're slipping into your old habits again. First you had BCC win this match by grabbing the tights even though Perry had already done that in an earlier match, then you have Claudio take Penta's mask despite the fact that you literally just wrapped up an "AEW Collision" story about a heel stable stealing a guy's mask. It's Full Gear 2022 all over again; come up with some new material, man. This is why wrestling needs editors.

Heading into this past weekend, it was safe to say both WWE and AEW had a storyline that was firing on all possible cylinders. In a post-SummerSlam world, though, with the Bloodline story appearing to have thrown itself bodily over the proverbial cartilaginous fish (no, we will not go even one review column without mentioning how disappointed we are about the Tribal Combat match, leave us alone) the story of MJF and Adam Cole might be the best thing going in professional wrestling right now. That continued this week in two different segments: one taking place in the ring, the other taking place in "Trampoline Park."

Both segments were interesting for different reasons. In the ring, we got another incredible promo from MJF, whose work has absolutely sky-rocketed since he was given more to do than just snarkily heel all over everyone — the reactions of both men to MJF's "may God strike me down" line was top shelf — and we got the set-up for what seems like an MJF/Cole vs. Aussie Open match for the Ring of Honor tag team titles on the All In pre-show. Fascinating idea. First, it makes total sense for Cole to value those titles and want to win them. Second, without even saying his name, it brings up the specter of Kyle O'Reilly, who was Cole's primary tag team partner back in their ROH days. O'Reilly hasn't wrestled due to injury in well over a year; you'd think he would be due for a comeback soon, and if this feud is hinging at all on Cole's old friends and ROH, he would be a logical guy to include. And third, it dramatically expands your options for how to play the situation at All In, since you have two matches to work with instead of just one.

As for the Trampoline Park segment, besides being just being hilarious, it seemed like another potential harbinger of a Cole heel turn. In the scene, Cole is bouncing around and smiling like a little kid. He loves trampolines and video games and dodgeball, he's having the time of his life. But at the end, he's confronted by an actual kid telling him, essentially, that he's too old to be here and should start acting like an adult. We don't think that was an accident. Depending on how things play out, Cole could very well find himself abandoning his childish babyface persona for something that seems to him to be much more grown up: manipulation and betrayal.

Anyway, our working theory right now is that MJF loses the ROH tag title match just like he lost the AEW tag title match, and then Strong and O'Reilly help Cole beat him for the championship in the main event. We'll see, though. There's a lot of time left, and if the Bloodline has proven anything, it's that you can't judge how good a wrestling story is until after it's over.

While we could not be more excited about getting two MJF/Adam Cole matches at All In, the rest of the card is looking ... pretty mediocre so far.

As you may have noticed, due to scheduling issues (and the fact that we don't like looking at either CM Punk's face or his fake Elon Musk title belt) we are no longer reviewing "Collision," at least for the time being, so we didn't get the chance to write about the planned FTR vs. Young Bucks match. While we're sure the match will be nothing short of great, it's also the kind of match that gets set up for the reasons we hate most — not because it makes logical sense in terms of stories or characters, but because somebody backstage (in this case, we all know who) thought it would be cool. It's happening, as so many big AEW matches do, to pop the internet. It'll be a good match, but it won't be a compelling one.

We also now have Swerve Strickland and AR Fox teaming against Darby Allin and Sting at All In. We don't really care about this one, either, since it's just an excuse to get Sting on the All In card — the story would dictate that Allin team with Nick Wayne for that match, but Nick Wayne isn't a big enough name to sell those last few tickets, so here we are. Oh, and also it's a coffin match, for no reason. Sigh. We are aggressively over watching Sting wrestle and we thought the segment where he appeared "unexpectedly" was more funny than anything, so mark us down for "not excited."

FInally, we have the women's title match. Oh, the women's title match. It's a four-way, of course, and rather than tell any actual stories to get us there, we're just doing a tournament, which is awesome because it's been three whole weeks since the end of AEW's last tournament. Except it's not really a tournament, because one of the people involved has to be the champion, and Toni Storm gets a bye to the All In match because of her rematch clause, so really the "tournament" is just two matches to see who fills the other two spots. If you're wondering whether they couldn't have just said "Storm has a rematch, her rematch is at All In, and now we're going to do some actual build to that match over the next couple weeks," keep wondering, because it's a great question. We're assuming that Saraya is wrestling in England and thus not losing to Skye Blue, and we're assuming Britt Baker is going to go over *checks notes* The Bunny, so presumably this match will try to resuscitate the whole "Outcasts vs. Originals" thing, but that story has flatlined at this point and it's not coming back to life. But hey, great job getting out of doing something actually creative with the women's division, guys, well done.

Now that we're done yelling about the booking of the women's division: Stop the presses, Tony Khan had the women's division main event "Dynamite" two weeks in a row.

Was it perfect? God, no. While this may have been Anna Jay's best singles performance to date, she really doesn't have any business main eventing TV at this point in her development, and several times in this match, she showed us why. The finish was also extremely weird, from Shida kinda whiffing on her Katana kick finisher to ... whatever the hell Angelo Parker thought he was doing during the pinfall. (We've watched it back a few times now, and as far as we can tell, he halfway slides into the ring, jiggles Anna's arm for no reason, then slides back out. We don't even know what it was supposed to be. But credit the ref for keeping his cool and counting the three despite the confusion.) Also, in case anyone was wondering, putting the women in the main event twice in a row is (a) not what "booking the division better" actually means, and (b) is less impactful when it's still the only women's match on the card, because the central problem is the amount of time and effort being put into stories for the women's roster, which remains very little. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows this doesn't mean all the problems have been solved, and it actually doesn't mean any of the problems have been solved.

That said, f*** it, we'll take it. It's two women's main events in a row, that's something. Pretty sure it's never happened before — certainly not in AEW and probably not in WWE. We didn't see it coming, and we appreciate it. At least AEW is trying to put on the appearance of caring about the women's division, which is more than they had been doing prior to last week. We're also just absurdly happy for Shida, who looks like she's having an absolute blast being women's champion with fans around to enjoy it. She rules and we only ever want good things for her, so we were thrilled to see her main-eventing again, and we're so glad she gets to work All In.

Now if one of those good things could just be an actual storyline, that would be awesome.