AEW stands for All Elite Wrestling, a new promotion founded by Cody Runnels, the son of the late Dusty Rhodes, and Matt & Nick Jackson, collectively known as the Young Bucks. Following a series of pay-per-view events, AEW, funded by the Khan family, owners of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, landed a deal with TNT to bring pro wrestling back to the network for the first time since World Championship Wrestling shut its doors after being bought out by Vince McMahon in 2001.
AEW Dynamite, which bowed Wednesday, is aimed squarely at fans who are either tired of the same, tired, recycled dreck McMahon is selling on Raw & Smackdown, the latter marking 20 years on the air by moving to Fox as of tonight, or are fans of the Bucks and other independent stars such as Sammy Guevara, whose previous national television exposure had been a brief stint on Lucha Underground a year or so ago. While it appears that Lucha Underground may have breathed its last, many of its personnel have moved on to AEW, WWE, Major League Wrestling, or Impact, or even the NWA, which is rebooting and getting back into the television business with a YouTube show launching on Tuesday.
Guevara wrestled the first match on Dynamite against Cody, so he'll be part of the answer to an inevitable trivia question. However, it's what happened after the match that started people talking.......
Chris Jericho (nee Irvine), a former WWE champion whose resume also includes stints with ECW, WCW, and New Japan, won the AEW title at All Out at the end of August, but this iteration of Jericho is far from the jokey free spirit who arrived in the then-World Wrestling Federation 20 years ago. Instead, as announcers Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, & Excalibur stressed, Jericho is unwilling to face Cody for the title at their next PPV, scheduled for next month, and will go to any lengths to eliminate the competition. Hmmmm, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Of course.
In 2000, Jericho's dogged pursuit of then-champion Triple H was stifled on the air by the power-drunk champion, who had an iteration of Degeneration X to back him up. By the end of Wednesday's Dynamite broadcast, Jericho had assembled his own army to protect him. Guevara turned full heel on Cody. Former Impact tag champs Santana & Ortiz, the last men to use the Latin American Xchange label there, were Jericho's tag team partners vs. the Bucks and Kenny Omega, who was taken out of the match by Jon Moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose in WWE), leaving the Bucks alone.
The final piece of the puzzle was Bellator fighter and former WWE champion Jake Hager (formerly known as Jack Swagger, and who was also, as Jake Strong, the last Lucha Underground titlist), who has complemented his MMA schedule by a stint with Major League Wrestling. The former All-American from Oklahoma figures to be one of the linchpins for AEW going forward.
Why all this help? Jericho is also the frontman for the metal group Fozzy, and records his own theme music. Fozzy goes on tour periodically, and Jericho works around the tour schedule to appear for AEW. The casual fan who is familiar with Jericho from his years with WWE will see him as more of an arrogant, self-serving bully this time around, the same kind of villain Jericho himself had to fight. What comes around, goes around, ya know?
However, the best match on the night, for sheer drama, was the women's title match between Nyla Rose, posited as a monster heel, and Japan's Riho, who looks like she stepped out of the pages of a manga novel. Nyla is also a transgender woman, so there's a story to be told with her that will make headlines. Apparently, that story is not ready, as Nyla was defeated in her quest to be the first AEW women's champion.
We'll take a look at the retooled NXT another time.
Rating: A.
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