PARKS’S TAKE: It was one glitch and miss and stumble after another in the AEW Dynamite main event, the final pitch for Redemption

Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite was the last chance AEW had to sell a large portion of its audience on a new pay-per-view, Redemption, taking place this Sunday. Much of the build on TV since Forbidden Door has focused on All In: London at the end of next month, and for good reasons: It’s a stadium show, annually one of if not the biggest on AEW’s PPV calendar, and there are still many tickets to sell to get the place to look as good as possible on television.

All of this has made Redemption come off as a lame duck. This event was originally where Kenny Omega was scheduled to beat MJF for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship before facing Will Ospreay at All In. When that title bout was moved to Dynamite, Redemption lost a lot of its cache.

Which brings me back to Dynamite. For those on the fence about whether this PPV is worth buying – and there may be more AEW fans in that camp than usual this month – the show-closing match and angle on Wednesday was unusually disjointed and rough. Consider:

-The issues seemed to start during the match itself. At one point, Omega held Brian Cage for Jon Moxley to hit a running boot. That boot showed about a foot of light, something you rarely see to that degree on national television these days, especially from a tight worker like Moxley.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

Check out the latest episode of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post-show covering the latest episode of Dynamite: CLICK HERE (or search “wade keller” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)

-Later, Hechicero went to the top rope and the spot clearly called for Moxley to knock him off. Moxley was at ringside watching as if he had forgotten the cue. By the time he got to the apron, it was too late and Hechicero had to wobble and fall himself.

-After the match, the storyline problems on the babyface side continued to simmer. Moxley and Omega got into a dispute after Omega accidentally delivered a V-Trigger to Moxley during the match. Ospreay got in the middle and Omega “pushed” him aside, causing Ospreay to crumple to the mat. I use “pushed” in quotes because watching it back, it was as gentle a jostle as you could imagine, yet Ospreay fell like a World Cup player whose team was down 1-0 in the waning moments. On first watch, I didn’t even think Omega pushed Ospreay at all which shows how subtle it was.

-In the post-match fracas, which eventually included the Young Bucks coming out to play peacemakers, Jake Doyle of the Don Callis Family strangely arose from ringside to briefly get involved, trying to pull Omega off the pile, only to be pulled out of the ring himself by his stablemate Cage. I’m not sure what that was supposed to be about, if anything.

In totality, these were a lot of little things that, for me and perhaps others, added up to a messy ending for a Dynamite – and angle – critical to build fan interest for a card at a time when many are already looking ahead to All In.