Biased Thoughts: AEW Dynamite #201
Nationwide Arena, Columbus. Ohio. 4k Tickets Sold. August 9th 2023
Jericho Appreciation Society MANDATORY meeting, this was very good and is on how serious this thing was portrayed that made me liked it. Still I think this type of segments are better on other spot than the opener of the show that I think should always start with a match.
Man does this show has people I´m not interested in (Hardy´s, Anna Jay, RVD, etc.)
The Hardy´s vs The Young Bucks (***1/4) The Hardy´s as a tag are 100% merch sales because they are too old and can´t deliver at a high level neither in singles or tags. Glad the Bucks got their win back and we can get this stuff done. Now into FTR vs The Young Bucks 3 at All In.
Will be a four way for the AEW Women´s World Championship, my guess it will be Shida vs Storm vs Saraya vs Baker. The top women´s are on this match but Saraya has been so bad she really don´t deserve a spot, Baker is meh, Storm is very good and that´s why I would have prefered a singles rematch but either way i think this four will be capable of something acceptable.
MJF and Cole pretapes and this one as well as the previous ones was bad. I don´t really like this type of pretapes but their in ring segments have been phenomenal. This first 40 minutes of the show have been really weak, hopefully gets better soon.
Another strong promo from BCC. PAC will miss Wembley, something that sucks.
Jack Perry vs RVD for the FTW Championship (***1/2) RVD was very good here and Jack Perry did well in his second match as a heel. This worked, hopefully the next match is vs Masato Tanaka and then go directly to Hook in Wembley because they are the only two capable to deliver something good.
Now the real stuff, a MJF and Adam Cole IN RING segment, this was great and with an interesting twist when Cole proposed MJF to challenge for the ROH Championship in All In: Zero Hour. Also MJF eat Roddy for lunch. Great things going in the IN RING segments.
BCC vs Lucha Bros (***1/2) This had his moments but the finish was odd, the post match beatdown was cool with Claudio stealing Penta´s mask but yeah. BCC going strong to Wembley.
Mogul Embassy been really proud that they beat the shit out of little Nick Wayne, that pretape was awesome by the way, Darby appeared to confront Mogul Embassy and then Sting appeared to challenge Swerve Strickland and AR Fox to a coffin match, great angle.
Hikaru Shida vs Anna Jay for the AEW Women´s World Championship (**1/2) Shida gave it all. Happy that she main evented the show.
Rating of the Show: 6/10
This wasn´t the home run that you would want in the Road To one of the biggest shows of all time but it had some good matches and angles that were great. Need Hangman Page in the show building for his match because he is a main star and is one of the best wrestlers in the world. All In card looks great and the addition of rumored matches like Takeshita vs Omega and Kingston vs Moxley will make it an all timer show. I might have rated this show as mid but I´m 10/10 on excitement for Wembley.
Extra Notes:
- Almost 80k tickets distributed for All In, makes me think they could put over 90k people in that stadium.
- Need better built for some of the singles matches, but hey if they end up been tag matches for this show I won´t be mad for example if it is Takeshita, Ospreay and Jericho vs Omega, Hangman and Ibushi.
- AR Fox having a match in front of +80k fans is something awesome.
