AEW Weekly BreakDown June 10-16

Written by: Danny Albers 

AEW Dynamite 6/12 

Swerve Strickland kicked off the show. I loved his appearance as he looked like a champion in this segment. He cut a promo insulting the EVPs, and they cut him off. Okada, The Bucks, and Jack Perry came down to the ring to the 4 on 1 advantage. But the Acclaimed and Daddy Ass came out to even the score. Just before things could break down, Christopher Daniels forced them to clear the ring and made the TNT Ladder match qualifier between Jack Perry and Dustin Rhodes. We went to a commercial break and when we came back Dustin Rhodes was beating on Jack Perry. The size difference was extremely noticeable. Perry’s style of wrestling is unbelievable with his size, especially against a guy who makes him look like a child. Jack Perry got the win which was obvious, and he probably will win the ladder match at Forbidden Door. Besides my opinions of Perry, I think that AEW booked this opening segment very well. Their young stars came out looking really strong. 

We came back after an unhinged Mark Briscoe backstage segment. Rush was beating on a jobber. He put his foot on the guy's head and started to insult Americans when MJF came out for the babyface save. A little strange as MJF tried to get over as a heel last week, so being the “good guy” in this segment made him seem like the company's top face. It just contradicts what we saw last week. 

The next match saw the Don Callis family face Kyle O’ Reilly, Orange Cassidy, Shibata, and Mark Briscoe. This was a crazy match that gave us a little bit of everything. Kyle Fletcher was my MVP of this match. The kid is capable of crazy things in the ring. He got a pin over Mark Briscoe. As much as I love Briscoe, I think Kyle Fletcher needs the ROH Championships. That is what ROH is supposed to be all about, young stars shining and developing so they're ready when called up by AEW. The show kind of went to the shits from there. Samoa Joe and Hook had a cringy backstage segment, and an even cringier match with the premiere athletes. The mentor stuff that AEW is doing right now doesn’t feel natural at all. AEW did run a vignette of Mina Shirakawa to introduce her to the American audience. I think this went a long way in putting over her title match with Toni Storm at Forbidden Door. Right after that vignette, Mercedes Moné and Zeuxis faced off for the TBS title. I don’t know if this was because of her injury, but Mercedes looks so much slower in the ring. This was an alright match, but I’m still waiting for Mercedes to tap into that Sasha Banks that had a show stealing match with Bianca Belair at WrestleMania. We’ve yet to see that version of her. 

The Learning tree was next up. They brought out Private Party who tricked Chris Jericho into thinking that they were going to join him. Private Party took out the Chris Jericho learning tree. This faction that Jericho is doing just feels like AEW is punishing the fans, and that’s never the way to build heat. This Learning Tree gimmick is so far away from being over. It needs to end right away. Right after this segment Daniel Garcia squashed Nick Comoroto who hasn’t been around with AEW for a long time. It was good seeing him. He has the frame to be a solid worker, I don’t know why he doesn’t get a bigger push. But Daniel Garcia is the focus for AEW. I don’t love two squash matches in one night, but Daniel Garcia seems to be getting over. 

The match ended with Will Ospreay defending his International Title against Rey Fenix successfully. Ospreay and Fenix gave us the expected fast paced, counter to counter style wrestling. Ospreay getting thrown off the top rope to land on his feet, Fenix landing on his feet from a DDT. These guys didn’t sell any of the moves. And at the end of the match, Ospreay completely stoll Swerves momentum holding the belt. They’re trying to kill Swerve before his reign can really begin. They need to stop building Ospreay like he’s some unbeatable wrestling God. He’s good, but he’s not nearly as good as he thinks he is. 

Rampage 6/14

 

Toni Storm opened the show with Alex Windsor. Decent match, Storm didn’t completely bury Windsor. There was a little back and forth. Toni Storm opening the show immediately makes the show a little more important because she’s the Women’s champion. It was a good way to kick off the show. The next match was a trios match between Cage of Agony VS a couple of jobbers. Cage of Agony came out looking like monsters. This was a great showing for the 3 men, but it was the 2nd of 3 squash matches of the night. If you’re watching this live, you’re probably disengaged. They followed up by bringing out Shota Umino VS Rocky Romero. Again, no casual fan will know these guys. You had two squash matches before it, so even though Umino and Romero are known by NJPW fans, you’re catering to a niche crowd. This is a Friday Night time slot, not Monday morning. People could be at home browsing what’s on, and fall onto TNT thinking maybe basketball is on? Morale of the story, no casual fan is making it this far in the show. Especially when following, Satnam Singh is killing a job. That 3 squash matches and a NJPW match. It’s like Tony isn’t even thinking about what people want to see. And the shame of it all was that Pac and Jay Lethal had a really good match. Pac beat Lethal in a competitive back and forth affair. It would have done really well if people were still watching. Also, Lethal still has yet to win a match on television in months. Friday time slot, you’re competing against SmackDown, and this is the best card you can put together. 

Collision 6/15 

Probably the best part of the night came in the opening seconds, when announcer Nigel McGinnes said that Bryan Danielson isn’t a vegas because he “refused not to eat Bri.” Nigel’s hate for Danielson makes for great segments. And the match that followed that comment wasn’t that bad. It was an 8-man tag between Blackpool Combat Club versus TMDK, Lio Rush, and Rocky Romero. You’d probably think this was a TMDK VS BCC tag match because Rush and Romero were nowhere to be found for most of the match. The point of this entire match was for Jon Moxley to grab the microphone and call out Tetsuya Naito at Forbidden Door. 

The Acclaimed showed up to cut a serious promo about the EVPs fining Bowens $5K. The babyfaced are interrupted by Brandon Cutler who’s useless. Christopher Daniels slaps Cutler with a clipboard and if you were taking a shit or a long piss you’d miss this entire segment which is aligned with the biggest storyline AEW is running right now. The reason why you might have missed this is it rolled right into Deonna Purazzo VS Thunder Rosa. A no DQ match to settle their difference. At times it feels like these two really don’t like each other. Props to Thunder Rosa because Deonna Purrazzo is the future star, and Rosa has done really well putting Purrazzo over. Rosa hasn’t always been a team player in her 5-years of AEW after what AEW documented in their own backstage show with Britt Baker. But Rosa is getting team brownie points for me here by saving Purrazzo from getting buried into this roster with Mercedes and Toni getting all the attention. 

The third match of the night was Dalton Castle with the bootleg version of The Boys taking on Hechicero with the Gate of Agony. Hechicero got the win in what was a solid match. But Hechicero hasn’t won at all on AEW television, and Dalton Castle shows up every once in a while to work someone over. The fans disengaged from this match because AEW gave them no reason to care about it. After the match, AEW did the Christian Cage Father’s Day celebration. AEW is really beating this Christian character over the head. They’ve been doing this since Christian turned on Jack Perry with Killswitch. That was almost a year ago. It’s just been the same stuff every week with Christian and this faction. Now they’re going after the Trios Titles which will pin two heel groups against each other since the Bang Bang Gang are currently the unified champions. It’s lazy booking and I don’t think creative is thinking this through. 

The next match was an AEW TNT Championship Qualifier. Dante Martin and Lee Moriarty looked to earn a spot in a ladder match at Forbidden Door to win the TNT championship. Moriarty did a good job grounding Martin. Dante Martin would pull off the victory and Shane Taylor Promotions got involved and started destroying Top Flight. However, Leo Rush who lost earlier in the night came to fight off 4 guys that are way bigger than him, and that seemed to even the odds. Again, what was the point of Rush working his way back onto the show if he lost earlier in the night other than just giving someone something to do. Kyle O’ Reilly beat Anthony Henry in a quick match which was the first time we saw Kyle get the win on TV in some time. If they can get some momentum around Kyle I think they can build him into a star like he was on NXT. The final match featured the Bang Bang Gang and The House of Black. This was a non-title match since Jay White wasn’t present that night. This had a lot of good action, and House of Black got a pinfall victory from a kick from Black to Austin Gunn. Backstage, Buddy Murphy was attacked by Christian, Killswitch, and Nick Wayne. They left a painting of Christian made by Killswitch over Buddy Murphy so House of Black no who did this to them. Again, there are now 3 groups working as heels feuding over the trios championships. It’s confusing booking and AEW does things on a weekly basis without giving you reason to care about it. They will have a guy who lost 6 weeks in the row be the main feature on Dynamite or Collision like they did with Rocky Romero.