All Elite Wrestling

I liked it, but I wasn't, like...blown completely away by all of it. Some of the matches could have USED a heavier-handed agent - they used a very slight variant of the Young Bucks' finish in the OPENER, for example. I did like the Japanese women's match a lot, and the surprise entrant (I can't do spoilers from my phone) in the other women's match was really cool.

I'd never seen a full Young Bucks match before. Can't say I dug it. I do like Pentagon a lot, though.

-SINCE I CAN'T SPOILER TAG RIGHT NOW, SUPER SPOILER WARNING-

I actually think Jericho/Omega was pretty mediocre. Other than Kenny doing some crazy stuff and looking like he got his nose broken...I don't know. Super underwhelmed by Jericho's much-vaunted new finish, too. I like the idea of still changing things up at almost 50, but I feel like I could kick out of that elbow, let alone Kenny Omega. Still, the post match surprise appearance was pretty damn cool, didn't ruin the match we got, and made me want to see the match it's setting up, so job well done on that front.

And, I'm mentioning this last because it's the most positive, Cody vs Dustin was fucking fantastic - THAT is how you tell a story. That was...a LOT of blood loss. Like, I was starting to get legitimately concerned. It made their "I'm gonna put the old dog down" story hit even harder, though. Baby Earl (I HATE Earl Hebner) didn't even fuck it up too much. And the post-match was super emotional - I legit teared up a little bit, and I can count on one hand the events in all of wrestling history that I can say that about. That's pro wrestling right there.

So there was some stuff I really didn't dig, but there was a legit "remember forever" moment and they had a handful of other moments that made me want to watch the next one, so I'd call that a success at the end of the day.

I was at DoN, very interesting night. I enjoyed the show but didn't think it was particularly good, most things I disliked had everything to do with how it's their first show and they have to establish everyone. The excessive amount of near-interchangeable MOVEZ showcase matches had me slipping into indifference more often than you'd expect, and I try to adopt a completely different mindset when I go to shows. Plenty of promotions manage to deliver great cards, top to bottom, but AEW at least ensured nothing was below-average. MOTN for me was Cody/Dustin, without a doubt. I wouldn't recommend anything else from the show but I have not re-watched anything yet. 

Thoughts on the wrestling quality aside, they did everything they could do. The cards never even have to have consistently good wrestling, so long as they establish acts worth following (which they've put some nice work into already) and know when to give the fans what they want. The US wrestling market is almost certainly theirs for the taking. 

There's other things to address, like how the management says one thing (Serious Sports Presentation) and does another (as much as I like him, booking Orange Cassidy, among other things) but I'll save those for when I'm bored and not marveling over how I'm pretty hyped for the next show. 

So.......Jon Moxley and NJPW huh?

I guess NJPW has a new American favorite (I can't imagine them working with both ROH and AEW)

Moxley signed for NJPW before AEW. I don't think this changes their ROH relationship just yet.

I really don't like how AEW does there battle Royale to go on top of how bad they were at tracking the action

The crowd has never shown any investment in Adam Page and putting him in the main event of a nearly 5 hour show was a pretty good catalyst for a dead crowd. And it's a shame because it was a pretty good match between him and Jericho but he's just not getting the reactions that his hype is suggesting that he should get.

Overall, it was a solid show. Nothing particularly spectacular but nothing mind-numbingly terrible either.

My favorite moment of the night happened in the Cody/"I'm not Tye Dillinger" match and it wasn't anything from either of them; I'll just leave it at that :D