AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Swerve Strickland is seeking power and figuring out how to get heel heat; Josh Alexander need to heal and then find a tag partner to regain traction

Welcome everyone!!!

If you have been watching AEW since its inception, like I have, then you know what the Dynamite after a PPV use to be. For you who haven’t been watching that long, let me lay it out.

Dynamite would start, Excalibur or Tony Schivone would say “we had a great PPV Sunday, now let’s get to the ring.” That was basically it for the mention of the prior weekends PPV. It’s a little hyperbolic, but close to what it was like. Very little mention of the PPV and it was on to the next thing.

The issue would be that the Dynamite following a PPV would also have zero star power, which was mostly because AEW PPV matches tend to have the wrestlers leave everything in the ring leaving a lot of them not ready to compete in an AEW match just 3-4 days later.

Bringing us to this past week’s Dynamite, which felt like a much better PPV follow up than most. Also, the PPV must have had buzz because more people watched Dynamite last Wednesday than have for 9 months.

Let’s see how I felt certain wrestlers did this week.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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RISING STAR OF THE WEEK

SWERVE STRICKLAND

This one might be a controversial one because I am not sure what most people think of Swerve’s heel turn. For me, this one has to be a wait and see approach. His initial turn worked, his first heel promo was okay, but should have been tweaked, and now the most recent promo we have a mission statement. Regardless of what you think of Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks bringing their EVP status to television, it is part of AEW cannon and Swerve trying to take Omega’s EVP status away is true to Swerve’s character.

If you recall at All In Texas, “Hangman” Adam Page took the AEW Title from the grasps of Jon Moxley and the Death Riders, but something else with long term storyline implications happened at that show too. Swerve a&nd Will Ospreay defeated The Young Bucks and with that win stripped the Bucks of their EVP status. Back then Swerve was thinking and acting a little differently and he let the Bucks EVP titles just go away. Not this time.

Swerve came out and hit hard on how he wants “power.” Not surprising, because he’s now a heel and the dude is freaking huge now, making him more physically powerful. So why not add some political power to that physical power, right? That’s what Swerve wants now and this works for me. Swerve not knowing he was the no. 1 contender to the AEW World Title was a little ridiculous, but nothing is ever perfect in storytelling.

One thing I didn’t like about Swerve’s physically sitting sit-down promo was he still used his “Whose House” line to get the crowd to say Swerve’s House, which was out of place and frustrating because earlier in the promo the crowd tried their hardest to get the worst chant ever going – “What?!” As the crowd tried to get it going, Swerve did what I’ve heard Wade Keller say you should do – Swerve just slowed down while also speeding up his cadence. It worked and the crowd stopped after its 6th or 7th try.

So now we get another big match happening on Dynamite between Swerve and Omega: No. 1 contendership versus an EVP Title, winner take all. This is what you want in a main event no matter what show it’s on. Stakes. Will this become Swerve’s climb back to the title or Omega’s? I for one can not wait to find out.

P.S. If you are wondering who I’m pulling for personally I have to go with Swerve. Anyone who has read me here or watched me on a Wade Keller Post-show after Dynamite has heard me gush about my love of “Swerve” Strickland. That said, I think having Omega win works as well and gives you a great next person for MJF to defeat.

FADING STAR OF THE WEEK

JOSH ALEXANDER

Let me start by saying I was a big fan of a tag team in TNA called The North consisting of Josh Alexander & Ethan Page. They were used perfectly as heels during their run, winning the TNA Tag Titles together. The two had been tagging together on and off for years before this and it showed. Ethan Page has gone on to thrive, or at least do well, in NXT and Alexander succeeded in TNA, but like Ethan, has not done nearly as well in AEW.

Alexander debuted last April during the Owen Hard Foundation Tournament. Was he the underdog winning matches from underneath to go deep in the tournament? He could have been, since he was just coming off a TNA run where he was their World Champion. Maybe he just dominated and went deep in the tournament? See my prior reason as why you might think that. Sadly, neither were true as he debuted and lost to Hangman 13 minutes later.

Since that time he just merged into traffic, as they say, to become another guy in the Don Callis family. We hear how tough he is and how great of a wrestler he is, but let’s be honest. Alexander is a Jobber to the Stars in the AEW world.

Case in point, this former TNA World Champion has two singles wins during his AEW career. TWO! The first one was a month after his debut when he defeated the always defeated A.R. Fox. His next singles win was last October when he got a countout win over Kota Ibushi. Since then he has lost singles matches to Swerve, Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, and Claudio Castagnoli. Like I said, jobber to the stars, and Claudio. Sorry Claudio.

Now we go to the “main event” of this past Sunday’s Collision and it saw Alexander go down with a possible knee injury. A knee that he has personally said has been bothering him for 6 years. So who knows how long he will be out, but hopefully when he comes back AEW can give him some better direction. Personally, I think he needs to be in a tag team with a guy who can talk on the mic. Not that Alexander is terrible on the mic, but he needs to find his new Ethan Page.