AEW Dynamite notes: Inner Circle & Pinnacle to meet, Bucks/Sydals, Britt Baker

Originally published at AEW Dynamite notes: Inner Circle & Pinnacle to meet, Bucks/Sydals

The Pinnacle (MJF, Wardlow, Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler & Shawn Spears) will clash with The Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, Santana, Ortiz, Jake Hager & Sammy Guevara) in a Blood & Guts match on May 5th. On the 4/28 episode of Dynamite, the two groups will meet for a Parley to discuss the forthcoming match.

Hikaru Shida successfully defended the AEW Women’s World Championship by defeating Tay Conti. As Shida was celebrating her victory, she was interrupted by Britt Baker who is the new #1 contender to the title.

There are several matches set for next week’s Dynamite including an AEW World Tag Team Title match as The Young Bucks are going to put their titles on the line against Matt and Mike Sydal. Kris Statlander is scheduled for in-ring action against Penelope Ford, Brian Cage will take on Hangman Page, Penta El Zero M will meet Orange Cassidy along with The Nightmare Family (Dustin Rhodes, Billy Gunn & Lee Johnson) facing The Factory (QT Marshall, Nick Comoroto and Aaron Solow).

On the 4/21 Dynamite, Penta El Zero M defeated Trent with the help of Alex Abrahantes. Abrahantes hit Trent over the head with a microphone.

Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston drove a pickup truck into The Elite’s trailer but when Moxley and Kingston went inside, The Elite were not there.

.@jonmoxley & #EddieKingston (@MadKing1981) letting #TheElite know they're here…and ready for a fight!

Watch #AEWDynamite Now on TNT! pic.twitter.com/gzGPZbcEL7

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) April 22, 2021

Hey #TheElite, where you at?

Watch #AEWDynamite Now on @tntdrama! pic.twitter.com/fyggEwmKLt

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) April 22, 2021

John Pollock and Wai Ting are live with Rewind-A-Dynamite for patrons and that review can be heard at this link.

Let’s see if they can be the first promotion since the originator of the match not to fuck it up by putting a hat on a hat by introducing all the usual lame and completely unnecessary “weapons”. If the “performers” can’t figure out a way to construct a compelling match relying solely on the cage then they aren’t very good “sports entertainers”.

On a related note, who thinks Sammy will turn on Jericho ultimately costing them the match?

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Wait…

After a year and a half of knocking AEW at every opportunity, are you now fantasy booking / at the very least looking to chat with other fans about booking possibilities??

Glad to see you can finally stop hiding your love of AEW.

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AEW are set to have their first women’s champion that has some character. About time.

I think someone on the Inner Circle is definitely turning. Agree it’s probably Sammy but I see big things for Santana if they ever use him in a singles role and he would crush it as a heel

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I think it’s way too soon to split Santana and Ortiz. There is money in a face Santana and Ortiz vs heel Young Bucks.

Could see a face Inner Circle vs heel Elite this summer as a program between big PPVs.

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Oh I agree but it’s just that the AEW tag division is so deep and it feels like they’ve waited forever to heat up LAX as a team. Love both guys.

I think Pinnacle has to win Blood and Guts by nefarious means and Jericho gets pushed into a new blood feud with Sammy or Santana

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I’m really surprised people think someone is turning. Even my dad thinks Sammy is turning. The only turn I see, is if Tyson is there and he helps The Pinnacle.

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I really don’t understand why this match has been booked at all other than it being a classic example of a stadium that needs a match as opposed to a match that needs a stadium.

This should be the ultimate blow-off match to settle a feud as its the only way to settle it. It’s the failure to understand this that leads to fans complaining that the match means nothing until the final competitor enters the match. The whole concept is it’s the opportunity for people who hate each other so much to beat the shit out of each other. Winning the match is secondary.

Which leads me back to my original statement. Why is this match being booked when this feud has barely started other than they were determined to do a Blood and Guts match to try and retain viewers and needed to find two teams to take part?

Its a good thing you dont watch the show, so there is really no need for you to understand.

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It is, in micro, a bit of putting the cart before the horse, but that’s really only if you think of it as an Inner Circle/Pinnacle story, when really, it’s the principles - Jericho and MJF, who the story is centered around and the rest are just the side characters. And it’s only built incorrectly if it’s a stable war and the faces come out on top of it. But I see this as just the blowoff of the group portion that should get them to the Jericho vs. MJF story that has so much more to tell and bigger long-term ramifications for the future of the company than trying to stick to a 10-man story. And in that case, I see it as a necessary climax before the intermission rather than peaking early.

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But the group have barely had any matches to require a blow-off! This should have been booked 6 months down the road after there had been a series of singles matches between Hagar and Wardlow, Sammy and Spiers, FTR and Proud N’ Powerful and various 3 and 4 man matches. It’s totally a hot-shot move for ratings.

Dude, come out, already. For a guy that supposedly hates professional wrestling, it sure takes up a huge portion of your life. Stop denying your love for Kenny Omega and Cody. Live the life that makes you happy.

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There’s going to be some sort of turn I believe which will lead to the feud continuing.

Also I think part of the reason for booking it now is that it may be more difficult to fit the structure in a traditional arena and it seems like they may return to touring soon.

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Yeah, 5 minutes a couple of times a week. Huge.

They’re in the midst of a stable feud. And they’re going to pay off the stable feud. Then you have plenty of time to actually focus on the entity vs. entity feuds like Hager and Wardlow, etc, as feuds that aren’t just general group feuds and more of actual stories. And it can be argued you get far more out of teasing the two of them getting just a piece of each other in this big match and then doing a full big man vs. big man feud afterwards (an individual story Wardlow at this point could desperately use).

Seriously, I don’t think you’re getting anything out of a Guevara-Spears match in the middle of a story not focused on them than you’d get out of any random match you put on Dynamite. You gotta get past this part of the story before they have time to build some of the side characters up.

Could be part of it. I’d also argue if they wanted to do this match in the next month or two, you’re far better off doing it now and maximizing how many people will see it than during the NBA playoffs when the show might be moving around. It’s not going to make much of a narrative difference if you hold it now or later because there’s no other pivot point in the schedule that is better and if you need to sell the effects of the cage, keeping a Jericho off TV during that kind of span is a lot easier to swallow.

If you haven’t built up the individual feuds then you shouldn’t be having a war games style match as you have nothing to blow-off. It’s booking basics which makes complete sense as opposed to jumping straight to what logically should be the final match to settle the feud.

The overall feud is between Jericho and MJF, not the groups. MJF is bringing in a cavalry to help him against Jericho’s backup that he otherwise couldn’t contend with. If the match does what it is supposed to, it can help create the next stories for each of the participants from within it (think about the Women’s War Games two years ago that started off the Dakota/Tegan feud and also realigned Ripley to go after Baszler’s title afterwards)

I actually agree with you that this feud should have been built up for longer before going to the blood and guts match.

But why do you care? The only reason to want a longer built is so you can enjoy it more and believe that this match type needs to happen to bring this feud to an end. But you don’t watch, so you’re only critiquing this to say 'AEW is doing yet another thing wrong and I actually know how they should be booking the show I don’t watch or care about". I just don’t understand your motivation.

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I keep thinking that, in which if anything Sammy could be the only one who could turn. That being said though, the way they built the slow face turn with him it feels a little out of left field to book him as a heel again right after. Then again I may be wrong after the match is done with.