Reviews by Dave
By David E Houston II
Show air date: July 6, 2021
AEW Dynamite purposely looks to have a Nitro feel. NXT on USA very often feels a lot like 2004-2008 TNA on Spike, with great wrestling that sometimes gets hampers by questionable (dumb, even) booking. This was a show with a lot of good to great wrestling but with a few head-scratching decisions made that keep it from being an all-time show.
MSK (c) defeated Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher
For the NXT Tag Team Championship
Great, great tag title opener as MSK successfully defended their tag championship against Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher. Perfectly done as both teams played to their strengths: the superior size and brawling of the challengers, the speed and durability of the champs. The more experienced tag team won as they should have. For probably the most legit dude in the match, Zachary Wentz (I think Nash Carter but Idk) probably has the worst “Mean” face since Ronda Rousey used to look too adorable. Now that he’s lost to everyone in every division, Ciampa should be paired with Thatcher and moved to Raw/SmakDown. They need tag teams and he needs something new.
Kross, Gargano Face-Off. Yawn.
NXT champion Karrion Kross had a face-off with Johnny Gargano and yawn. Samoa Joe’s face was how I felt the whole time. Gargano decided to steal Adam Cole’s schtick from last month.
Joe is the special guest ref for the title match next week. Fine All these nose-to-nose confrontations better mean Kross vs Joe and soon.
LA Knight defeated Cameron Grimes
LA Knight continued dominating Cameron Grimes, beating him again in a good match. The false count-out finish was a little too precious, but Knight won and now Grimes has to be his butler for however long.
If Rozay Was A Wrestler…
A good-looking lineup for the Breakout Tournament. If Rozay was a wrestler, he would be Odyssey Jones.
Io Shirai and Zoey Stark defeated The Way (c)
For the Women’s NXT Tag Team Championship
They aren’t even trying to get Women’s champion, Raquel Gonzalez, a new challenger. What happened over there?
Io Shirai and Zoey Stark won the Women’s tag titles from champions Candice LaRae and Indi Hartwell in what was going as a pretty good match but they had to give us a stupid ending as LeRae was so SHOCKED!! by seeing Tegan Nox standing at the top of the ramp, dressed like she was doing her summer cleaning and decided to pop in at work, she lost all focus and let Hartwell get pinned. Nice seeing Stark win her first title in WWE and a good return for Nox after the match.
Hiiiitttt ROOOOWWWW!
The Hit Row cypher was a weird segment. The actual performance wasn’t bad, in fact, it was pretty good. But it just seemed to go on forever and didn’t fit the flow of the show at all. This would have worked better if just a live performance of the HR theme. Is Ashante Thee Adonis going to be the guy to bring back overhauls?
Main Event: Adam Cole defeated Kyle O’Reilly
Put aside they booked this backward–the flex in 2020/2021 across WWE and AEW–Kyle O’Reilly vs Adam Cole was the strong main event people expected. Why TF Cole won is beyond me. He’s a made guy, O’Reilly is still coming up as a main player. He needed the win. This should have been it, but I can see them being WWE and giving us a rubber match. If that’s where O’Reilly ends this with a decisive win, it will make it all worth it.
This was a wrestling-heavy show and with a roster full of former ROH and Impact talent, it delivered as it had better.
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