AEW Dynamite (July 28th, 2021): Garbage For The Sake Of Garbage

That Shaq banner perfectly sums up my reaction to this episode, which may very well be the worst episode of Dynamite that I've seen. One of the rare misfires from AEW as of late, but I think we can safely say that we have established a definite bottom to this Cracker Barrel.

That big ten-man elimination match that saw Hangman Page and the Dark Order lose? Man, what a downer that was and I'm probably thinking that was done just to swerve folks or because plans change to make way for [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] to possibly show up. Hey, if they find a way to course correct this, then that's a-okay, but this was only the beginning of what has been a largely mediocre night.

FTR defeated Santana & Ortiz in a pretty good match, Thunder Rosa made short work of Julia Hart, Lance Archer retains the IWGP U.S. title over Haku's kid who is large and beastly... and probably didn't have the time to showcase what he could do, so this was kind of a letdown. The six-man between Jungle Boy & the Dinosaurs against the Hardy Family Complex or whatever they're called was a fun little piece of business.

And then there was the main event between Chris Jericho and Nick Gage in what was essentially a less violent Nick Gage deathmatch disguised as a no-DQ match. Light tubes were broken, glass was splayed all over the place, blood was spilled, and Jericho eventually spits out some green mist before hitting Gage with a Judas Effect for the win... and this is why I don't want GCW. There are death matches, there is garbage fucking wrestling, and then there's garbage for the sake of garbage. Bless Jericho for doing something he's never done before and bless Nick Gage for getting the big stage to showcase what he does best... but this shit ain't for me.

And look, it's not like I'm abhor the deathmatch style of wrestling. I don't mind that sort of thing when it's done well and there have been a few over the years that I've seen that I thought were really, really good, including a couple in AEW no less. For some reason, though, this Jericho/Gage match didn't click with me and actually made me shut the show off after it was done, meaning I missed out on MJF announcing Juventud Guerrera as Labour #3. Cool.

Yeah... so this wasn't a particularly good show. Started with a downer ending in a so-so Survivor Series style match, ends with the epitome of garbage wrestling that even I couldn't stomach. This is perhaps the worst episode of Dynamite I've seen... and that's an event in itself because AEW has yet to put out a truly terrible show... but we've hit that point now. We've set that barrel bottom with this show, but at least next week looks like a step up.