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Welcome to the #AEWeekly review discussion where PWM contributors reflect on the highlights of the last week in AEW. The eligibility week always includes the most recent episode of Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision, plus any social-media exclusives up until publication.
This week’s contributors are Tim [@TimmayMan] covering Match of the Week, Sergei [@SergeiAlderman] talking Best Interview and key Story Beat, Peter [@PeterEdge7] with the Moment of the Week, and Sergei also giving us the MVP of the Week.
A page of links to prior installments may be found here: #AEWeekly
Death Riders vs. The Conglomeration
"Ending the Week with a Bang!"
by Tim.
Pro-wrestling is probably my favorite form of escapist entertainment. A good book is hard to beat, but unless I have time set aside it’s harder and harder to get lost in one. Television and movies feel like they peaked a decade ago, everything is reheated IPs or just insultingly low-bar. Pro-wrestling gives me a quick solid laugh, a bolt of amazement from an incredible move, or a level of engagement from a well-worked match. This past week I was in need of escape, so a match that featured some of the best workers involved in a title match was very much appreciated.
Death Riders (...almost typed Death Triangle there!...) are currently locked in to arguably the hottest angle in AEW right now. All three guys deserve their flowers and it’s great to see them in a high-profile spot. They working together like a finely-oiled death machine — a simple maneuver like running strikes in the corner looks brutal when done repeatedly and in quick succession. Yuta and O’Reilly have a fun sequence that results in a double down. (How fun would these two be against each other in a singles match?) A frothing-at-the-mouth O’Reilly makes a tag and in comes the Stone Pitbull. The veteran holds his own, delivering suplex to all three Riders. Up next is Mark Briscoe as he peppers both PAC & Claudio with his Redneck Kung Fu. The Conglomeration looks really good and the win is almost theirs after a top rope elbow from Briscoe, but PAC breaks it up. Things break down quickly, and then all six men are down.
I do enjoy how often these matches fall into a flurry of moves, to the point I quickly forget who the legal men are. But wait! The king is here, as Jon Moxley makes his way to the ring (accompanied by the dangerously alluring Marina Shafir). Then a wild Orange Cassidy appears! If you measure value by how many wrestlers can be featured in a segment, then we are wealthy as fans. Cassidy and Moxley stare each other down on opposite sides of the ring, like a pair of naval captains peering through telescopes as their frigates exchange broadsides.
Oh yeah, there's a match going. Yuta and O’Reilly are the legal men and O’Reilly gets Yuta in an ankle lock. This leaves him open to a clean thrust kick from PAC, but it’s not enough to break the hold. Ishii deals with PAC, Briscoe deals with Claudio, things are looking good for O’Reilly until he finds himself on the outside and it might as well be a pit of komodos dragons. Interference from Shafir, back into the ring and O’Reilly is hit with a Busaiku Knee from Yuta (Danileson’s body isn’t even cold yet and his move set is being picked apart by Yuta) who scores the pinfall win for the Death Riders.
All six men should be candidates for this year’s Continental Classic. Doubtful that Death Riders will be, though, as they hold the Trios belts… (unless they want to wager them, which I doubt). This match hit the sweet spot for me in terms of storyline development, work-rate, and fun. For 20 minutes or so I enjoyed some wrestling, some character work, and the distraction.
Christian Cage
"Not-So-Cheap Heat..."
by Sergei.
There are only a few speakers in pro wrestling today who are on the level of Christian Cage when it comes to inspiring the hate of the crowd. To my mind that list includes Don Callis and MJF. I think it's revealing that in spite of this Callis has yet to get promo of the week and Christian on a couple of times. And that's because, while evoking anger and boos from the audience is important and valuable, by itself it's a pretty low bar. Some are better than others, but anybody can insult local sports team. And there's a fine line to walk between cheap heat and "X-Pac" heat — between the fans wanting a babyface to shut you up and the fans just wishing you would go away… (... ahem: Chris Jericho).
A heel promo needs to make the fans boo, that's the floor of adequacy. But to be a great heel promo, the villain needs to do more, whether that means exploring character, advancing the plot, something truly intriguing that rises above forgetting city name. Max Friedman is one of the greatest interviews in wrestling today, but when he cuts a big interview and doesn't get my pick? (And he's batting 0.00 with me since his return.) …It's not because he didn't get heat, but because he (mostly) merely wallowed in cheap insults.
What raises Cage's promo from last week above that level, is how he simultaneously did an excellent job of cleverly explaining recent plot developments. ICYMI:
Firstly, Christian addresses the open question of how Kip Sabian had gone from seemingly being a thorn in Cage's side to evidently a trusted member of the Patriarchy. The Patriarch revealed that, rather than costing him the opportunity to take the World Title from a weakened Danielson, in fact he had saved Christian's shot from being used up then blocked by the BCC.
He goes on to set his "sons" against each other, proclaiming that Kip's actions were more than "any of his other sons" had ever done for him. The glare passed between Sabian and Wayne over Cage's shoulder as he goes in for the hug to his newest son was strongly in the running with Peter for Moment of the Week, too.
(One may wonder why Christian Cage engages in such morale-sabotaging favoritism in the first place. He had done the same with Nick Wayne and Killswitch before this. But I think it's actually quite logical. Cage has issues with self-worth that he projects onto the world, and one of the ways that manifests is in being suspicious of the loyalty of his own men. But, rather than trying to prove he's worthy of their loyalty, he negs them to test that loyalty and also to tear them down… to make them think, "I accepted that treatment from him, so I'm the kind of person who will take that kind of treatment." On top of that, it sets them against each other, which in Christian's mind just means "better than united against me!"
Then Hook interrupts, and Christian Cage gets to the best part: his reason for attacking Hook's father Taz. It was never about any issue with Taz or wanting to provoke Hook, it's because he wants Hook in his faction. And this is the part that clears up everything Christian has been doing lately. At first, the whole Patriarch deal seemed to be simply a case of Cage getting a surprisingly strong reaction saying something rude about Jack Perry's dead dad, and going back to that well for cheap heat whenever the opportunity presented itself. But now it's finally clear why he wants to surround himself with orphan boys: because of his toxic low self regard, he can't deal with any protege potentially having any advice other than his own. So when he wanted Hook on his team, he had to get rid of that voice in his ear.
Lifting the Patriarchy concept above cheap heat makes this segment BOTH the Interview and Story Beat of the week!
Kazuchika Okada
"Gunning to be Mr. December..."
by Peter.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
…I'm obviously talking about the Continental Classic.
Once Full Gear is in the books the final 6/7 weeks of the year will see AEW television dominated by what will hopefully become the long-standing tradition that is the C2, and this past Wednesday we got our first chatter on AEW television about the tournament and the man who will be the final boss if the form book is adhered to.
In a vignette that played out, the current reigning and — for the 7 weeks after Full Gear — defending Continental Champion, Kazuchika Okada was showcased as the man to beat.
Jim Ross, a man who has seen the majority of men that you would put in a wrestling Hall of Fame in person, came out and told us that Okada is one of his favourite talents he has ever seen, and Excalibur talked about Okada being on the verge of equalling Masahiro Chono's five MAJOR tournament victories. Note the emphasis of the word major.
In a business that is based on promoting, where one of the tricks of promoting is the use of subliminal messaging, the use of the word "major" here has to be noted. In a business where tournaments have been looked down upon by American wrestling promoters, using the word "major" with the Continental Classic is helping teach fans that the 6 weeks after Full Gear will be a big deal, like the PGA Championship is in the sport of golf, the French Open is in tennis, or the Southern 500 is in NASCAR.
With Okada leaving New Japan Pro Wrestling with four G1 wins on his palmarès — one shy of the five held by Chono, the man they call Mr. August — Okada has a chance to stake a claim to be Mr. December… and for those that might feel that Kazuchika hasn't quite got out of third gear yet, with a title on the line and a mantle to uphold — with the departure of The Young Bucks, and with Jack Perry looking to feud with Peter Griffin on Collision, (Jack's looking to get vengeance for the episode about his dad in Season 1 of Family Guy I'm guessing) — Kazuchika might need to press the accelerator as we get to holiday season if he wants to hold onto the Conti. And after the 77-second vignette played, the prestige of what will unfold can't be denied, and neither can the fans' anticipation
Jon Moxley
"The Antagonist..."
by Sergei.
It almost goes without saying that, realistically, Jon Moxley is the MVP of AEW every week, arguably since his return from injury in late August. He is the fulcrum that moves the plot. It is his vision of the future of AEW that the actions of almost every other character is in reaction to.
Because of that, and because we don't want to make this section of AEWeekly boringly repetitive, Moxley gets graded on a curve: sure your the keystone and everything in the promotion relies on you, but what have you done for us lately? And this week, the answer was: not a lot. Since winning the world title and tossing it into a gym bag a month ago, Jon Moxley has been in exactly zero matches. This week he didn't cut any big promos, and he let his soldiers do most of his fighting. The tableau of he and his challenger at Full Gear facing off from opposite sides of the ring made for a memorable moment in Tim's Match otW, but that's not why he's MVP this week.
What Moxley did for us lately is give a really fascinating interview to the New York Post that really highlighted how his current role in AEW encompasses both kayfabe and non-kayfabe. Icymi:
The first part of the interview focused on the kind of things that Moxley might say in character OR out of character, kind of blurring the lines. For example:
There’s just a lot of noise in the world, and sometimes, you really got to do something drastic to really get everybody to stop what they’re doing and look in your direction to make a point, and I’m absolutely not afraid to do that.
Speaking about the plastic-bag attack on Danielson with those words could be taken as a competitor justifying a violent attack, but could equally be seen as the reasoning for presenting a shockingly gritty segment of fiction. Moxley goes on:
I see a world where everyone is successful, where everyone can be successful, where the talents are fostered and their growth is fostered, and talents are set up for success and set up for growth to be whatever it is they can be, where their strengths are brought to the forefront and utilized, and we mine their value out of them and give them the opportunity to be whatever it is they can be.
This part sounds a LOT like the pep talk that he gave after his win over Danielson in the back of a pickup truck. At the time, I called him a hypocrite (appropriately, as the heel) for then deriding "dancing when there's no need for dancing." What if someone's strength IS dancing? But in this interview, Moxley seems to clarify what he meant by "unnecessary celebration":
There’s been a lot of, kind of in the previous AEW, in the past, you know, there’s been a lot of sitting around celebrating, just treating it like this stuff just happens. Like, oh, it’s just success, just, you know, happens, and this is the way it’s supposed to be, and it’s not gonna go anywhere. Like, this can all go away tomorrow.
So Moxley never actually meant "nobody have fun," or "this is not a place for an act to dance to their entrance music, or do goofy sketches" like Private Party or MXM Collection do. But rather, that getting a massive contract from WBD doesn't mean "we won, let's have a party" but "we have a massive opportunity, let's work our asses off and prove we're worth what we're getting paid."
But by the end, it's clear that the interview with the Post is at least more shoot than kayfabe. Addressing lower-card talents' issues with not getting enough support from creative just doesn't make sense coming from a kayfabe perspective. Which just underlines that the Death Riders story is even more meta than I had realized, blending real and fiction, with Jon Moxley in the technical role of antagonist in both — not so much a villain as an obstacle to spur growth.
It's possible that this will ultimately grow to be too meta, and lead to a muddled story where we're not sure who to root against or why? But for now, I want to see where Jon Moxley is going with his vision for the future of AEW.
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