AEW Dynamite 10/26/2022 Match Ratings and Commentary
Ethan Page and MJF (Credit: AEW)
Here’s where we landed with this week’s Dynamite from Norfolk, VA. Curious how we rank matches? We’ve got a rubric for that.
AEW Dynamite - 10/26/2022
Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta def. Chris Jericho and Daniel Garcia: ★★★
Swerve In Our Glory def. FTR: ★★★★
Bryan Danielson def. Sammy Guevara: ★★★
Jamie Hayter def. Riho: ★★
Jon Moxley def. Penta El Zero Miedo to retain the AEW World Championship: ★★★
Keith Lee over FTR (Credit: AEW)
Show Highlight—
Swerve In Our Glory/FTR. Match of the night and certainly one of those matches that’s a sneaky classic bound to be forgotten then discovered again. It’s such a good pairing and they picked up some fantastic near falls where nobody had a clue who would win. FTR needed to get the number one contender tag taken off them months ago if they weren’t getting a run, so like it or not, this was the right outcome. I imagine they do some sort of four-way tag team match at Full Gear with the Gunn Club and The Acclaimed lurking on.
What Worked—
BCC over JAS. Very good match, now for the love of God let this rivalry end. Even if it means we forgo logic to bypass the Claudio/Jericho rematch that Claudio should have earned, please move on.
The Mongo Position. That’s an awesome tribute. The bar is so low in wrestling for how the industry treats its untimely deaths but AEW continues to do class acts such as this.
Wheeler Yuta isn’t a kid. There’s been a concerted effort for all the non-Yuta members of the BCC to call him “a kid” and “young” and other junior-y titles to infer he’s the lowest rung in the ladder. His pushing back has been brewing and like any good wrestling turn, his justification for said turn is totally, uh, justified.
Elite Vanished. Nice production touch. Who knows where this is leading too but it was a gnarly, nifty trick. I wonder how they’re going to explain this and capitalize off it. There’s all the potential in the world to do something big with this and turn a huge negative into a positive, and get their own post-Montreal boom (of course, nobody can rationally expect the same outcome).
MJF/Renee segment. Goddamn, this is why Renee was needed. Not only did she tell Saraya and Britt to shut the fuck up in the segment before, but she was the perfect straight-man to MJF in his interview.
MJF was on some Fall-of-1998-Rock-shit here. He CAN be the babyface AEW needs. As smart as the AEW audience purports to be, funny how nothing is a bigger crowd-pleaser than a sing-along, chanting catchphrase. Even though MJF’s the most effective and creative heel in the history’s promotion, he can still be an asshole that’s cool, just like the Rock was back when he got the belt in 1998. Oh, and his impression of Moxley was great, what with Mox’s derpy Connor McGregor poses being low-hanging fruit for a snarky asshole. A great little promo on the stage that was expertly situated there so the audience still got Max, but he didn’t have to follow-up the impossible to follow-up interview from the previous week.
Nice Eddie. Great little character-based segment. Eddie bottling-up his temper and rage will be a fun little arc for him in the weeks to come.
What Didn’t Work—
That fucking bucket cap. Why doesn’t Garcia wear the purple hat now? Talk about heel heat.
Show Cringe—
Credibility Hayter. I know I know I know, it’s professional wrestling and it’s fake and inherent in that is the suspension of some forms of reality…but Jamie Hayter should be able to gobble up Riho in seconds. I can’t find Riho credible or believable. Had Riho gone over the backlash towards her would have made Marko Stunt seem seven foot tall. As mentioned in previous AEW TV reviews, what worked well was the tension during every near-fall, and the outcome suggests that finally Hayter will get her big title shot and spotlight, preferably at Full Gear.
Jamie Hayter (Credit: AEW)
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