RADICAN: AEW Dynamite Blog (2/19 episode) – tag team battle royal to crown #1 contender, Moxley vs. Cobb, Page & Omega vs. Lucha Bros. Cody vs. Wardlow Cage match

by sean Radican, PWTorch Columnist (Twitter: @sr_torch)


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RADICAN’S AEW DYNAMITE BLOG
FEB. 19, 2019
ATLANTA, GA
AIRED LIVE ON TNT

TAG TEAM BATTLE ROYAL – Winner Earns Title Shot at Revolution PPV

I enjoyed the action in this match from start to finish. The match did a great job of laying out the various personalities in the tag division and presenting them in a way that was easy for the audience to understand their various storylines and motives. The Dark Order segment of the match with Raven in the background sitting in the crowd was a great red herring.

The Young Bucks winning got a big reaction from the crowd and it makes for a really interesting match at Revolution against AEW Tag Team Champions Hangman Page & Kenny Omega. AEW has done a good job of making you wonder which one of them is going to turn, although my guess is that it will be Hangman.

KRIS STATLANDER vs. SHANNA

AEW seems to want to overplay the alien aspects of Statlander’s character and a lot of the time she seems more like a cartoon than the credible badass she was on the indies last year. For a company run mostly by wrestlers that had their ear to the streets and knows what fans want, the women’s division has been largely disappointing. Brit Baker, who has been fantastic on the mic, had a forgettable turn on commentary here.

JON MOXLEY vs. JEFF COBB

This was a tremendously booked TV segment all around. Even though it makes no sense that Inner Circle would have to buy a ticket to sit at ringside, the fan response to Jericho making his way to his own seat with a ticket was awesome. I love that singing Jericho’s theme has become part of the fan culture in AEW.

The match itself featured 13 minutes of really good action between Moxley and Cobb. Cobb is playing his role as a heel well, which is surprising since he’s a really nice guy. Moxley got the flash pin, which gives Cobb an out for taking the loss.

One thing AEW does well is spotlight their wrestlers in a great way through post-match segments and tonight was fantastic. Moxley took a beatdown from the Inner Circle after the match, which set up Dustin Rhodes coming out for the save. He was overwhelmed and although the lights out trick seems overplayed in AEW, it worked once again to bring out the returning Darby Allin to make the save. I would love to see Moxley and Allin teaming together going forward.

AEW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS KENNY OMEGA & HANGMAN PAGE vs. THE LUCHA BROS.

This match gave the fans in Georgia an amazing 15 minutes of tag team action. This was an incredible TV match that had the crowd rocking. Even when Page and Omega aren’t on the same page their screw ups come off so smoothly and don’t seem contrived. The V-Trigger/Buckshot lariat finishing combination from Page and Omega is incredible. It’s one of those finishers that makes you want to pick up a videogame and execute it against your friends. That’s how exciting it is.

The awkwardness between Omega and The Young Bucks after the match was nicely executed. I also enjoyed Page leaving the somewhat awkward scene to have a beer with the crowd.

CODY vs. WARDLOW – CAGE MATCH

Cody shines in his role as a babyface and his feud with MJF has been so well done. They mapped the feud between MJP and Cody really nicely to build up week by week. This week the bus stopped at Cody’s Cage match against Wardlow and the crowd was pumped for it. It’s refreshing for a major U.S. wrestling promotion to map things out for its viewers and give them a journey to watch play out with multiple stops over the span of several weeks building to a big match on PPV. This is what AEW has done with Cody vs. MJF.

I didn’t like that MJF was so easily dispatched at ringside during the course of the match, as he was last seen being tossed into the crowd by Arn Anderson, but the match itself was way better than I was expecting. Wardlow dominated Cody in the cage and Cody bled, which added to the drama. The moonsault finish was insane with Wardlow catching all of Cody coming off the top.

CODY’S POST SHOW PROMO

This wasn’t shown on TV, but if you’re wondering what makes going to Dynamite tapings live so much fun, just check out Cody’s post-show promo once Dynamite went off the air last night. Incredible stuff below:

Contact Sean at radicansean@pwtorch.com. Follow him on Twitter @sr_torch. 

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