AEW’s future will be defined tonight in Milwaukee! Wait, really?

Milwaukee has their Bucks, but the YOUNG Bucks are sitting back and feeling good watching the AEW World Tag Team Eliminator Tournament continue! Plus, CM Punk makes his Dynamite debut, and Jericho speaks on his future!

OFFICIAL RESULTS

• Orange Cassidy VS Matt Hardy; Cassidy wins.
• AEW World Tag Team Championship Eliminator Tournament: The Varsity Blonds w/ Julia Hart VS The Lucha Brothers w/ Alex Abrahantes; Lucha Bros win and face Jurassic Express in the finals.
• Red Velvet VS Jamie Hayter w/ Britt Baker & Rebel; Hayter wins.
• Six Man Tag: Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston & Darby Allin w/ Sting VS The Wingmen; Moxley, Kingston & Darby win.
• Six Man Tag: Gunn Club VS The Factory; The Factory wins.
• Malakai Black VS Brock Anderson w/ Arn Anderson; Malakai wins.

MY REPORT

For more information as to why Play By Play is put on hold, please refer back to this article.

As with NXT yesterday, I got caught up with AEW things today before tonight’s episode, and AEW again brings out some surprises. I didn’t think Jericho was going to lost the Fifth Labour and then he does, so that really hyped up tonight’s episode and Jericho’s announcement. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long, it was right after the opening match. Jericho is still Jericho so he tore it up, MJF still plays off Jericho very well, but he kinda makes himself sound weird. He said he was a cash cow with sore udders and he gave Jericho a “fast” rub…? Hmm… But while Jericho’s career being on the line might sway the math in other companies, this could be a true coin toss right here.

Speaking of, Cassidy VS Hardy was an amazing opening match. Both men being so great at character work, it makes a lot of sense. “DELETE!” “SHIN!” was going through my mind right as they started off, and then I went, “Oh hey. Delete shin is deletion.” So now that Cassidy won with a quick pin, I want a Broken Hardy level cinematic match, perhaps called the Freshly Squeezed Deletion. I like that the Varsity Blonds are getting more unified in their gear, Julia included, and they framed their promo very well. It was also good detail that Jurassic Express and The Elite decided to watch this ringside, since who wouldn’t scout their competition?

Blonds VS Lucha Bros was of course great stuff, too, even if the Blonds couldn’t always keep up with the brothers’ speed. And you know Penta was having fun wearing his Joker gear again. Lucha Bros win since they really needed something to keep them going outside of the building story with Andrade. Plus, Jurassic Express VS Lucha Bros is just going to be amazing stuff to lead into All Out’s Steel Cage tag title match. The Bucks stirring up trouble only to get karma was great stuff, too. It doesn’t matter who meets the Bucks in Chicago, that is also going to be MOTY level stuff. We also got a good segue here to PAC VS El Idolo and a rather impressive vignette.

The Women’s Division got a fairly sizeable segment tonight. The Women’s Casino Battle Royal is a great Buy-In match, and Conti has a good promo with Bunny Allie. Baker, Hayter and Rebel already make a good trio just on personalities and presentation, and Hayter VS Velvet was a pretty good match for Hayter to return with. I had never seen someone sell a tope quite the way Hayter did with just falling over. Though, Velvet did have that botch on her standing moonsault, but she wasn’t winning anyway. Little TNT miscue saying there’d be picture in picture and then doing that like a minute later, that’s still something AEW and TNT need to figure out. But it was a logical move that Britt would want to beat Velvet up and Statlander would show up to run her off, per their coming title match.

Oh no is there a Dark Order Civil War brewing?! I don’t know if I want that or not, but it brings back some real depth to the group again. I could see Hangman coming back to get the group to stick together, or even be involved in a 4v4 inner angle. Hangman, Cabana, Uno & Stu VS Reynolds, Silver, Angels and Vance, where it doesn’t matter which side wins, they all stick together in the end. I feel like that’d be a great feel-good feud while Hangman and Dark Order OG wait for another chance at titles. CM Punk getting to keep just about everything he had in the WWE here in AEW is great stuff. I don’t know the business part of it but obviously we can all thank Tony Khan for it happening.

Obviously being one of the biggest name on that list of “wrestlers freed from WWE,” he was of course going to take his jabs where he could, but that’s been one of AEW’s bad habits this whole time. At the same time, now it’s like all those moments have been justified and vindicated. Though, I did like his tease that a certain “YES! YES! YES!” could be on his way. To me, CM Punk being back isn’t going to change how anyone sees Punk, as it doesn’t change how I see him. I will still enjoy seeing Punk in the ring as I did before, so Punk VS Darby is gonna be a lot of fun. Mox VS Kojima is going to be great, and plugging it here really helps the bond between AEW and NJPW.

Miro continues to be a genius with his promos, and I really hope Miro VS Eddie Kingston happens for All Out in just a brutal slugfest to open the main PPV. And I like that Mox, Kingston, Darby and Sting are sticking together as an unofficial faction. Give me some kinda Full Gear Blood & Guts match of those four against any four of The Pinnacle and that’ll be a great night. Though with Danny Garcia going after Darby, maybe just give Garcia and 2.0 a fourth man and we’d get the same great Blood & Guts. Good to see the Gunn Club back in full, and great to see that the full return was against The Factory in an extension of the Nightmare Family feud. It was also kinda hilarious how QT’s distraction backfires and makes it so HE loses the match!

I wanted to say this about last week so I’m glad I get to say it about this week: The Dan Lambert “talking down on AEW” was and is a rather stupid storyline in my opinion. Do we really need someone going “BLAH BLAH YOU SHOULDN’T LIKE THIS!” when we all know we all really really like this? Feels more like a move WWE would try to pull to get that reverse psychology boost. If they wanted Archer to feud with the Men of the Year, they could’ve just done that. If they did want an MMA VS AEW thing, they could’ve just done it. Lambert just comes off as a cringe filled old man calling things “woke” and “snowflake” cuz he doesn’t get what those terms really mean.

We got a very powerful promo from FTR, those two could leave the Pinnacle to be faces and I think it’d work. We got a fired up promo segment from Omega, Callis and Christian Cage, and I like that they referenced just about every wrestling management figure ever. Elite Hunter Kaz being back is great, I hope he gets something for All Out. Malakai had another great promo and it really hyped up tonight’s main event. Obviously Malakai was going to win, but what great story of Arn having the towel but refusing to throw it in so his son could see it through. Malakai putting the entire Nightmare Family on notice is also great stuff, I definitely want to see Malakai VS Dustin Rhodes before this is story is over.

My Score: 9.1/10