HEYDORN’S DYNAMITE RECEIPT 6/22: Decent go home show can’t fix messy Forbidden Door build

BY ZACK HEYDORN, PWTORCH ASSISTANT EDITOR

Jon Moxley to appear at major NJPW show.
Jon Moxley (media photo courtesy AEW)

SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...

This week’s episode of AEW Dynamite has wrapped. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and relive some of the madness.

-Pretty good promo from Bryan Danielson to open the show. Unfortunate news and the fact that he hasn’t disclosed what the injury is, is even more unfortunate. That said, Danielson did his job. He gave the bad news and then did his best to sell the Zack Sabre Jr. match on Sunday. Mission accomplished.

-Jon Moxley promos are the best. They are crisp, authentic, intense, and sell what he’s pitching in a very effective way.

-The way Will Ospreay has been featured and integrated into the AEW ecosystem is a damn travesty. He’s blending in with some of the lowest of low card New Japan guys. Not a good run for him, though his match with Orange Cassidy at Forbidden Door will likely be a MOTN contender.

-Not digging the Sonjay Dutt/Jay Lethal stuff. It’s like they’ve cut the same promo week after week without anything going anywhere.

-Bravo, Christian. That’s a heel promo, folks. It got heat, there was nothing cool about it, and it put over both himself and the babyface, Jungle Boy. It was a very good piece of work, his best yet in AEW. So good, that it didn’t need the Jungle Boy Dad stuff. Too much and didn’t add heat to the segment.

-Ok, so The Young Bucks are on Forbidden Door. Who are they facing? Yes, I know who they are facing, ok, I’m just kidding, but it took a while to remember.  Those shouldn’t be words uttered concerning The Bucks. On Sunday, they’re in the crash course match of the night, a style they enjoy and do well, but one that’s likely to blend in by the time the end of the marathon show rolls around.

-A solid little match between Penta and Malaki Black. Nine minutes was all they got and the made the most of it. Question really is whether or not those two should be having a “solid little match” rather than something meaningful. The All-Atlantic Championship is 100% not that.

-Silas Young should not have been on a show that was already stocked with talent had been unceremoniously introduced to the audience. Adam Page beat him clean, but if you have no clue who Young is (and most don’t), you’re really scratching your head as to why the guy is taking Page to the limit.

-Okada was a fun treat. Certainly not how I would have introduced him to the TBS audience, but nonetheless he was needed on this show. The fatal four-way with him, Jay White, Page, and Adam Cole for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship has gaping holes in terms of logic, but there is simply too much talent in that match for it not to be excellent.

-Athena is going to have a hard time trading verbal strikes back and forth with Jade Cargill. Cargill 1, Athena 0 after this week.

-I think the Marina Shafir AEW experiment needs to be finished for a while. Not to be mean, but there is nothing going on there. Nada. She had a match with Toni Storm, but there isn’t a connection worth anything between Shafir and the crowd. That music is brutal, too.

-Jon Moxley and Hiroshi Tanahashi teaming up was a fun novelty heading into the PPV on Sunday. There seems to be some chemistry there and its certainly the match I’m most looking forward to seeing play out at Forbidden Door. They stared at each other in the ring as the brawl broke out around them for a LONG time. An awkwardly long time. Ahh well. Pretty much sums up the build to this show.

-Who’s ready for Forbidden Door build to be over? Raise your hand. Mines up very high.


CATCH-UP: HEYDORN’S NXT 2.0 RECEIPT 6/21: Messy booking leads to poor episode

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