AEW ‘Dynamite’ preview: New champ Darby Allin to defend AEW title

The already-too-long reign of Darby Allin as the AEW world champ gets under way in an actual match on this week’s “Dynamite.”

Allin, inexplicably booked to win the belt last week, in an even more inexplicable manner, a squash, over Maxwell Jacob Friedman, will defend the title for the first time against former TNT champ Tommaso Ciampa.

This is good booking in terms of trying to make Allin somehow look legit, getting the 170 pounds-dripping-wet skateboard #SpeakingOut alum a win over Ciampa, who is just beginning to get a build toward being a main event-level guy in AEW.

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ICYMI

• Darby Allin was named in #SpeakingOut: Whatever happened with his case?

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A lot of what Tony Khan has been doing of late has felt like hotshot booking – putting Allin over MJF, keeping Jon Moxley hot at the expense of Will Ospreay at the last pay-per-view.

Ciampa’s 10 minutes or so with the TNT belt was, itself, bad booking – he won the belt only to lose it back to Mark Briscoe, so that Briscoe could lose it to Kyle Fletcher, who then, bad luck, ended up getting hurt, which TK decided was a good excuse to have another gauntlet match.

I really, really want this product to succeed, in spite of itself.

Schedule note

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AEW is heading to Richmond for its Wednesday, June 3 show, at the Siegel Center, the home of the VCU Basketball program.

The June 3 show would be in between PPV events – “Double or Nothing” is Sunday, May 24, and “Forbidden Door” is Sunday, June 28.

So, nothing special for us there, necessarily.

Tickets: click here.

ROH update

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I watched the new Ring of Honor weekly show last week, and I have to wonder – who is booking that one for Khan, because if he’s doing that, he needs to follow the formula he has there for the shows that are airing on actual TV.

They had Lee Moriarty-Marshall Von Erich in a Pure title match, AR Fox, who I can’t figure out why he doesn’t get booked better, Athena-Zayda Steel, a bunch of matches to set Athena’s title defense at “Supercard of Honor.”

The pacing was great, the announce team of Ian Riccaboni and Caprice Coleman is the best in pro wrestling.

It helps that it’s on streaming, so, no commercials.

But also: no Excalibur, no Death Riders, the world champ isn’t a gimmick.