AEW vs NXT Round 3 - The Dark Match Rises

So we're now just out of week three of AEW Dynamite and NXT going head-to-head, and it's been crazy and fun and weird and, quite honestly, invigorating.

Yes, Dynamite is still beating NXT in the ratings. Last week, Dynamite snagged 1.014 million viewers, slightly down from the 1.018 million it had in week two. And NXT sagged again with 712,000 viewers, down from the previous week of 790K, bringing them another 10% drop-off in viewership.

I have lots of ideas why NXT, an existing product with a history of being more critically acclaimed than the other members of the WWE family, is losing this ratings war, and I've waxed intellectual about some of them in previous columns, but I'm about to throw another one at you, and it seems to be quite clear. NXT is a show with an extremely devoted fan base. Personally, I haven't missed an episode of NXT since sometime in late 2016, and it's only gotten better. All the WWE merch that I buy is just from NXT (I just got a Keith Lee shirt and an Io Shirai shirt last week). The best live wrestling events I've ever been to were NXT. And since NXT has debuted with the full two-hour live shows on USA, it's been tearing it up with some amazing matches and storytelling.

But...

AEW is the antidote to WWE, and like it or not, WWE includes NXT. Every wrestling fan I know could pretty much take or leave the main roster stuff, because that's Vince's bullshit up there; we know how he micro-manages everything and everyone and we know he has a prepubescent boy's sense of humor that can be very grating, but everyone I know loves NXT. They love the match quality, the character work and the storytelling, and their characters stick to their stories rather than changing with whatever direction the wind blows. NXT also has the best announce team in all of pro wrestling. But if I had not had the Network for so long and had only watched their main roster programming, or just had the Network to watch the main roster PPVs (or new episodes of SWERVED and CAMP WWE), I'd desperately be looking for any alternative to WWE's brand of wrestling. Hence AEW and the accompanying excitement it's generated. Something new doesn't necessarily translate to something good, but in this case, it's translating to great. And the other thing that's great about it is that it's causing NXT to up their game, and vice versa.

The first week of NXT's two-hour live broadcast, they had a show that was TakeOver-level great with three championship matches and they all kicked ass. The second week, there were also a bunch of good matches, but had two huge returns with Finn Balor going back to NXT full-time as well as the much-earlier-than-expected return of Tommaso Ciampa.

But AEW has been bringing us something similar but with an altogether different feel, and that brings me to something I have yet to talk about, and that's AEW Dark.

AEW Dark is something that is just... honestly, it's wonderful. Sure, not all the matches are great, but I've always been a little bitter that you would hear about these dark matches that were on WWE main roster shows, and it's a great thing to give to the paying crowd that will leave them with that, "I paid to be here, and I got to see something the people at home didn't" kind of feeling of superiority, but here we have AEW bringing these dark matches and putting them out for the whole world to see, and not just people who have TNT or whatever they're watching it on in other countries; if you have YouTube unrestricted access, you can watch AEW Dark for free, and that's just fucking awesome. And thankfully, the matches that have been on AEW Dark have usually been really good. Last week's with Omega vs Janela in a Blackout/"Hold Harmless" match was terrific, and we also got to see more Sonny Kiss, and I love him. Also, unfortunately, AEW Dark gave us the only time we've seen Luchasaurus in a match that wasn't a PPV and because he's suffered an injury, who knows when we're going to see him again? I hope it's soon because I fucking love Luchasaurus and if you haven't listened to the Talk Is Jericho episode with him, you should because he's just a fascinating dude. So yes, AEW Dark is a gift that feels similar to the gift of NXT or NXT UK, but you don't need to pay $10 a month to see these, and yes, these are all people that are on the same roster. Again, similar but different.

I'm really hoping that this is a trend that could continue on WWE's part as well, at least as far as NXT is concerned. I've been hoping for the last few years that they would throw the occasional NXT house show up on the Network, just to give people an idea of what that environment is like because it's so far from being the product we normally see on TV; the closest thing to it is NXT UK. You know how those crowds are always fucking insane? That's a lot closer to the feel you get at an NXT house show. The wrestlers aren't trying to kill each other and trying to put on 5-star matches; they're having fun. And the idea of a pro wrestler in WWE having fun is about the furthest thing from what we can imagine as well.

Since the debut of Smackdown on Fox, morale in the main roster locker rooms has apparently been terrible (this is per Alvarez at WOR, so... y'know... grain of salt). Instead of people getting more opportunities with this supposedly more defined brand split, Fox and USA are now competing with one another and I would say that, for now, we're not going to be seeing the people that we might want to see. Take the last episode of Smackdown for example. It started with a match between Roman Reigns and Shinsuke Nakamura for the IC title, and ended in a stupid DQ schmozz when "King" Corbin attacked Reigns because apparently Corbin was upset with Roman's placement on the draft. This led to a three-on-one beatdown with Nakamura, Corbin and Sami Zayn (poor Sami) beating up Reigns, and this led Daniel Bryan to come in and try to make the save. Numbers game... blah, blah, blah... our main event is Reigns and Bryan vs Nakamura and Corbin. And Kofi Kingston apparently doesn't give a flying fuck that Lesnar beat him for the WWE title in less than 6 seconds because he's back to making pancakes and staying positive.

And then there's Bayley going full heel in a way that started out really well (which lasted all of about a week) and has progressed into what I'll call "Nega-Bayley", and instead of her being really fired-up about being a heel, she just looks like an emo brat who is playing with eyeliner and talking like she's just come from a Lars Von Trier film festival after stopping at a Leonard Cohen acoustic set. She's not bringing the same energy that she had as a babyface to being a heel; she just looks and sounds depressed. Not angry, not energized by her newfound freedom, not loving being able to cut loose and call everyone "bitches"... just depressed. And guess what? That's not fun to watch! I might feel bad for Sami Zayn that he's not really even wrestling anymore, but at least he still looks like he's having a fucking blast out there. Bayley just seems really sad, and whether that's the sadness of turning her heel, or whether that's the direction they told her to go in; either way, it sucks and this is not the heel Bayley anyone wants.

Meanwhile, over on NXT, we were again treated to a terrific show where we had a bunch of matches and promos that all worked on a storytelling standpoint. Ciampa destroyed Angel Garza (and his pants) in his in-ring return, Io Shirai made Kayden Carter look really good while still getting the win, and can we talk for a moment about how awesome Shirai's moonsault finisher is? It's not the standard floating moonsault, but it's like she whips her whole body downwards on her opponent, which is why it looks great as a finisher. I just love her and then when she cut her promo about also wanting a piece of Shayna, Rhea Ripley interrupted and I felt so alive. My murder queen and my destruction goddess are going to go head-to-head and I cannot fucking wait. We had the triumphant return of Tegan Nox who reintroduced Taynara (who has been getting so much better in the last few times I've seen her) to the Shiniest Wizard picking up the victory, is then greeted by her pal Dakota Kai and then is verbally dressed down by Shayna, telling her that's she's "running out of limbs to rehab" and that was one of the best moments of any heel promo I've seen from NXT lately. We also had Undisputed Era putting Velveteen Dream on the shelf at the behest of Roderick Strong because he said Roddy was a short-short man (again, not exactly high-brow stuff). We were also treated to another barn-burner between Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic that Mr. Regal indicated was now going to be a #1 Contender's match for the North American title instead of just a rubber match. In just this match we're treated to how Regal is a necessary figure of authority (and not an "Authority" figure) but how he wields that power to maintain balance and fairness and to look and sound awesome when he does it, because when Strong decides to interfere in the match causing the No Contest, Regal tells him that he can kind of appreciate what he just tried to do, but now I'm going to make this shit real because in his next title defense, Roddy is going to face both Lee and Dijakovic in a triple threat. It honestly stuns me every time that we get a match with stakes that also makes total storytelling sense on a WWE-branded show. Just look at that booking for a minute. It's A plus B equaling C, and if the fucking main roster would not keep trying to either book title matches without purpose or book them in a way that is overly complicated, it would be so much better. Fuck their soap opera/reality show bullshit booking. Have rivalries that mean something. You have this massive roster and most of them have history of some sort; build from there. And hey, WWE, you can actually build rivalries out of stuff that happened back in NXT and discuss that history on the main roster because it might get more eyes on NXT!

But to top this show off with a cherry, they gave us a terrific match between Pete Dunne and Damian Priest, and for the first time since he started in NXT, I finally feel like I understand Priest; he's a giant and he's an asshole who will cut corners. It's pretty much just been little more than squash matches for him so far, so to have Dunne come in and put him over makes Priest feel like a big deal even if the only way he could beat the former UK champ was to hit a low blow when the ref was trying to get out from between them. Dunne sold the whole thing like gangbusters and it felt like this was the first time we were seeing the character NXT wants Priest to be, and that's a big plus going forward for him.

Over on Dynamite, there was some really good stuff and something that highlighted an omnipresent problem they've been having and a new problem they keep having.

We started off with another tag team tournament matchup, this time between SCU and Best Friends. Before the match could even start, the Lucha Bros entered and took out Christopher Daniels by Package Piledriving his bald head onto the entrance ramp. Scorpio Sky would come out in his street clothes and take over for Daniels alongside Frankie and they had a good match against Chuckie T and Trent. A few things surprised me, though: first off, I've been hearing things about AEW is looking to not have any clear babyfaces and any clear heels; they're just competitors. So that's a little surprising, but I get it. Watching Best Friends fight heel in this match was just... weird. It felt off considering that Best Friends have been positioned as being babyfaces, but looking at last week's match between the Young Bucks and Private Party had the Bucks fighting heel, I guess it all makes sense. Also, where was Orange Cassidy? He's been affiliated with Best Friends since the premiere episode, so to not see him there was just kind of off. But I also get that they're a new company and they're trying to do things differently, which is why Scorpio was basically staying out of the tourney because AEW doesn't want to fall into that whole "guy standing outside" thing that we see all the time in WWE with a member of New Day or The OC. Anyway, it was a fun match with SCU getting the win, and right now, it couldn't feel more obvious that the story is leading up to the finals being Lucha Bros against SCU and that makes sense. Then up next were the former LAX, Santana and Ortiz vs guys that feel like they're probably better-known than they were but were really just jobbers and the Inner Circle tag team fed these guys their own hearts as they just destroyed them from bell to bell.

After that match, though, Jericho appeared on the Tron to invite the Bucks to take on Santana and Ortiz at Full Gear, but during that taped promo, the duo kept screaming "THE BEST! THE BEST! THE BEST!" over and over again into the live mic, and it was so annoying that you could barely hear what Jericho was saying on the Tron. Whether that was an issue with the technical side of the show, or if it was just Santana and Ortiz trying to be cool, it didn't make me smile.

Following that was a championship match between Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs Riho for the Women's title, and again, this was another fine match where both competitors had their spots, and I love the Lockjaw as a finisher for Baker (it's a cool dentistry-based variant of the Mandible Claw), but I have no idea why we were getting this match as a championship match. This felt way, way too early, and it highlights one of AEW's biggest problems since its inception, which is the biggest problem for literally every wrestling promotion that isn't an all-female roster, and that's the lack of depth of their women's roster. Each women's match on the show so far has included Riho, and there's only been one match a week. I know that Kenny and Brandi have the book for the women's roster and they should be working harder to put the women over. This is supposedly one of the reasons AEW exists. They're supposed to be offering an alternative to the same problems WWE has. I think that they might be biting off more than they could chew as far as the whole tag match tournament and having these matches that extend the storytelling of the men and kind of leaves the women as more of an afterthought. That's something that, once this whole tourney is over, they need to fix. Speaking of which, next up was another tag tourney match, but this was between Lucha Bros and Jurassic Express... but without the "Jurassic" part because, as mentioned before, Luchasaurus is hurt (insert sad face gif here). So Marko Stunt subbed in for the big man and both he and Jungle Boy showed a metric ton of heart against the lucha libre murderers that Fenix and Penta are. Again, this was another very enjoyable match finishing with Lucha Bros hitting a tag finish double-stomp/package piledriver on Stunt, and after slapping the three count, ref Aubrey Edwards honestly looked like she thought they killed Stunt with that move considering that Stunt is three feet tall and weighs about a gallon.

Just after that was over, we got another tag team match but this one was more about character and story rather than solid tag wrestling since it was Kenny Omega and Hangman Page vs Jon Moxley and PAC. This all came to a head when Page and PAC were on the outside and Omega and Mox were in the ring and Omega had thrown the barbed-wire broom and bat into the ring fixing for a brawl with Mox. Mox picked up his weapon of choice (insert Christopher Walken dancing gif here) but PAC came back in the ring to grab both weapons away and throw them outside the ring because PAC has made an issue out of the whole "wins and losses matter" thing and doesn't want to get disqualified. But Mox made it clear that he doesn't give a flying fuck about that, gave PAC the twin birds, Paradigm Shifted his head through the mat, and left the man that gravity forgot to fend for himself. Omega and Page picked up the win after a V-Trigger and a Deadeye, but the biggest props of the match have to go to good ol' JR who actually pronounced "PAC" correctly the whole show!

To cap off the night, we had a Philadelphia Street Fight (where surprisingly no competitor had to eat horse shit) for the AEW Championship between Jericho and Darby Allin, and fucking hell, Darby is going to be a huge star. For the last five minutes of the match, he has his hands taped behind his back, and is still able to do things, like a fucking lionsault, with those hands still taped. I am here for Allin. He has been one of the guys that has made AEW feel really fresh and fun because I'd never heard of him before a few months ago and now I'm just in awe of the dude. That's how you make a star. Of course he still lost, but it took an assist from Jake No Swagger to pick up the win, and when he won, instead of looking immediately triumphant, he looked shocked and desperate to hang on to his title. That's how you sell how close you were to losing. Jericho is the GOAT.

But Christ almighty, do they need to fine tune the actual television direction. First off, when JR says that you're going to commercial, don't show another 10 seconds of the show before you finally cut. Second, don't find the person in the crowd who looks like they've been staring at their phone the whole match for your reaction shot. Third, the camera people and director need need need to know when a really awesome move is coming up, because there were about seven times during this episode alone where the only time I could see a really awesome spot was in the replay.

So what do we have to look forward to this week? Well, there is the triple threat between Lee, Dijakovic and Strong, not to mention Ripley vs Belair and Moxley vs PAC.

Goddamn, it feels good to watch the wrestling that's on Wednesday nights.

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