Detroit loves AEW.

Everyone loves the Acclaimed (or maybe just scissoring?).

But Tony Khan really loves Detroit.

Make fun of Tony for his fervent hugs and social awkwardness, but when he’s hyped for something, Jesus, don’t you know it. Tony came out of gorilla throughout the debut show at Little Caesars Arena to cut promos about what we’d see next to try to get the crowd as jacked as him. Before the start of Rampage in particular, he was pogoing something hardcore.

Tony didn’t need to convince this crowd to react. Everything and everybody was over. That’s seldom that you encounter that at a wrestling show, where it’s legit hard to say definitively which acts got the best reactions. This was a great audience, eager to cheer their asses off and chant vulgarities at Dan Lambert and Sammy Guevara. For years, since AEW’s inception really, the Motor City has been waiting impatiently for AEW to make its debut in Detroit. We felt like we were being passed over. But by TK’s comments off-camera, he’d been waiting to give us a special event, to give thanks to the city and its’ automotive industry that allowed his family to succeed. It was a touching little aside, as introspective as the moment could provide considering he was hopping around a millisecond later and bleating motherfucker at least twice. But that’s why we love the guy.

Some random odds and ends to note:

-The bottom bowl in the arena was entirely sold out (albeit one section behind the stage was a bit patchy) the upper deck had empty sections in the corners on the side of the hard camera. As mentioned, the crowd was hot. A well behaved audience that made the desired reactions, I can’t remember obnoxious smart mark fan chants or self-referential singalongs.

-Continued miss opportunity in terms of merchandise. There seemed to be only a few tables with like 7 different options to purchase from that had too long of lines to reasonably wait for. The same thing happened when we went to Beach Blast in Cleveland, but we just assumed they were just traveling lightly because it was a smaller-ish show in a smaller college basketball arena (not that that’s right). Clearly I don’t know the economic hit of it, but you’d think they’d have at least a stand in the Biergarten, or just rip off what WWE did at WrestleMania and let you buy merch off an app and arrange to pick it up later.

-You hear it all the time from vets in the Attitude Era, but holy shit Billy Gunn really is as big as a horse. And Satnam Singh is impressive as hell, clearly.

-Max Caster had the lines of the night, referencing the Malice in The Palace, the Flint Water Crisis, the cultural phenomenon that is Juggalos—he didn’t even have to try with this embarrassment of a state.

-It’s embarrassing to admit this but I never put 2 and 2 together that Orange Cassidy’s shtick was a pastiche to Andy from Wet Hot American Summer. What a dumbass! Perhaps the No Change Police hated it, but “Jane” as his entrance is great fun.

-Luchasaurus as an easily manipulated 1998 Kane will work. Me thinks they might be missing out on an opportunity with him tweeting far-right views like a Colbert Report version of what Glenn Jacobs descended into today.

-What a change of perception by the fans towards FTR. When we went to AEW in Cleveland, they seemed to get an unfairly, pithy reception for some of the best heels on the roster, but at Blood & Guts they were given a hearty welcome, especially considering fans may have wanted Hook instead.

-Royal Rampage worked as AEW’s cross between an old fashioned two-ring rasslin’ battle royal and Royal Rumble. This was when it really hit me that every wrestler felt like they were over, the crowd had every reason to be burnt out after a long celebration and tear down after Blood & Guts, but dammit did it seem like anyone could win, which is all the more impressive given the roster has been hobbled by injuries.

-Blood & Guts was hard to gauge. The heat was undeniable. Moxley got maybe the best reaction of anyone on the roster. Claudio came off like a superstar. Eddie Kingston gave us brilliant little moments like tapping people with his kendo stick and laughing hysterically at Sammy getting the Mick Foley treatment off the structure. But some things fell flat where I can’t in good conscience go 4 stars. The table outside the cage was a dead giveaway for the spot that would come later. The first thing the mouthbreaters behind us said when they found their seats was that Sammy would end up going through it. You’d think after how lame the last Blood & Guts match ended, you’d just skip that as a bump entirely. A water bottle that was supposed to be gasoline or alcohol or chloroform or whatever fell out of the ring and it was silly watching Aubrey scramble with Tay and Jericho to retrieve it. Jericho and Kingston seemed legit scared shitless to be up on top of the cage, and walked around it like it was made out of ice. When the action moved to the top of the cage, Moxley and Yuta literally were just relaxing. I thought I saw Moxley going through his pockets for something and he put his feet up on the ropes at one point. I get you’d have lulled moments because of the necessity of commercial breaks but I’d agree with wrestling Twitter and say this would work better on PPV where it’s not being shot for television where so many guys have to sleep and not do anything after a certain point. Was it too violent? It’s Detroit, the home of the Sheik, you knew what you were getting with Blood & Guts. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how funny it was for Claudio to run around the top of the cage to pose after how freaked out everyone else was on it.

Tony hinted we’d get more shows in Detroit. Even hinting future PPVs. The crowd was one of the largest in company history, I think in its top ten in terms of attendance. There’s no way it wouldn’t sell out and gross over a million dollars if it were, oh I don’t know, the first week in November when nothing else is booked in LCA…

Here’s where we landed with the latest Dynamite and Rampage matches this past week. Curious how we rank matches? We’ve got a rubric for that.

AEW Dynamite - 6/29/2022

Orange Cassidy def. Ethan Page: ★★
Luchasaurus def. Serpentico: ★
Danhausen and FTR def. Max Caster and The Gunn Club: ★★
Jade Cargill def. Leila Grey: ★
The Blackpool Combat Club, Eddie Kingston, and Santana and Ortiz def. The Jericho Appreciation Society: ★★★