AEW ‘Dynamite’ review: Mercifully, an end to The Elite-Blackpool Combat Club feud

The news about AEW handing down a new set of rules about what the guys can’t do in matches was the wrestling media letting itself get worked again.

That much was obvious from the nearly hour-long Blood & Guts match on Wednesday’s AEW “Dynamite,” which featured anything and everything that had supposedly been placed on the forboten list.

And it started early, with Jon “I’m Going to Drink Your Blood” Moxley introducing broken glass a few minutes in.

There was also a bed of nails, not expressly forbidden, but, come on.

Piledrivers, thumbtacks, plenty of moves on the ring apron.

If Tony Khan and whoever produced the match would have had to approve everything that was done in this one, we’re talking hours for them to go through it all.

So, yeah, the journos, who really aren’t journos, but rather are stenos, got worked again, which is how things work in the ‘rasslin news business.

The match itself was predictably whatever it was. I’ll be interested to see how the quarter-hour ratings hold up, given that it was obvious from the ring intros, which began just after the 9 p.m. ET QH, that we were in for the long haul.

I know at my little watch party, my wrestling buddy and I ended up talking baseball trade deadline stuff for a while, before shifting to working on our Moxley impressions (“I’m going to drink his spinal fluid”) around our bathroom and snack breaks, before finally settling down in the final QH, or rather, around the end of the last commercial break, circa 9:52 p.m. ET, to see how it would play out.

Even the anticipated debut of Kota Ibushi turned out to be a big dud, with Ibushi showing up way, way, way out of shape, and putting in the barest of bare minimum efforts, taking the shine off what AEW fans who cut their teeth on the strong style had hoped to see out of him.

The conclusion – surprise, The Elite came out on top; yeah, you didn’t see that coming, the company EVPs putting themselves over – is most meaningful in that, we can hope, Khan will finally move on from this snoozer of a top-line feud to whatever is next.

Quick hits

• MJF and Adam Cole won the blind eliminator tag finale, defeating Sammy Guevara and Daniel Garcia with, yes, they did, with a double clothesline. FTR then came out to help get us ready for the July 29 match on “Collision” between the two teams for the AEW tag titles. This storyline with Friedman and Cole is the best thing going in AEW right now, but it has to be coming to an end soon. Or, does it?
• Jack “Don’t Call Me Jungle Boy” Perry won the FTW title from Hook after a ref bump and a shot with the title belt that took Hook out. Good work on the mic by Taz to sell how upset he was/is at his son dropping the belt. You get the sense that Taz might break the fourth wall and get involved in this one physically at some point soon.