On Tuesday night, AEW taped the matches for this week’s edition of Dynamite as part of the Chris Jericho Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea, which took off on Monday from Miami for the Bahamas.
The show will be airing in its regular timeslot Wednesday night on TNT and below are the results ahead of the show:
*Kenny Omega & Hangman Page over Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky to win the AEW tag titles
*Britt Baker over Priscilla Kelly
*Chris Jericho, Santana & Ortiz over The Jurassic Express
*MJF over Joey Janela
*Jon Moxley over PAC to become the #1 contender for the AEW title
At the end, we were told that Cody came out and announced that the show would air ‘100% live’ on next year’s cruise, which has been announced for the first week of February 2021.
Disappointed with Omega and Hangman winning the tag titles, keeps the tradition of singles stars being better than teams. Scu had a very underwhelming run which to me devalued the title. I mean why did you have them beat the Bucks to weeks ago to have them lose now?
This feels like a very WWE move so much for the vaunted AEW tag division. Most teams are .500 or close too it. The Lucha Bro’s seem very middle of the Road, same with all the other teams. They have a ton of talent on the roster (so does WWE, honestly WWE has just as much or more), but the booking makes the division second fiddle way below the singles division.
Everything else here seems super predictable as far as outcomes go.
They have lost twice once against other singles wrestlers. They are 4-2 by far the best percentage wise tag record. They won their first match, then lost to Jericho and Sammy, then won, then lost to the Lucha Bros, then won against Private party, then got in a number one contenders match, won and won the title. I wouldn’t say they were built up from losing, they were an established pair but they were not framed as a tag team, they are singles guys who have teamed up. They have beaten now every top tag team (though most in that 4 way.) Their recent loss was due to their own mistake. They have been booked stronger than everyone in the tag division by quite a bit especially now with the title win. While this wasn’t “throw them together and give them a title shot.” It still does at this point seem like “we’ll use this tag division and title to build our singles feuds and stories, rather than our tag teams.” For a promotion that made a big deal about the tag division being equal to the singles to have your first champs largely being an after thought and your second champs be a pair of singles wrestlers puts the division squarely as second fiddle.
I think AEW made some errors with their tag division right out of the gate. SCU was not the right choice as champs given how they decided to focus the division, and the show. Given the focus being Inner Circle vs the Elite either the Bucks or Proud and Powerful would have made better first champs. If SCU or any other team were going to be champs you really need to then build up the other teams in the division wanting the title and they really haven’t. They just kind of wrestle then AEW goes “we need a number 1 contender, here is a match with the top teams, winner gets a title shot.”
I don’t have a problem with Page/Omega winning the title as long as they have a plan - and they do. We’re clearly building up to a match with the Bucks and Hangman has motivation to turn heel thinking Kenny is too buddy buddy with the bucks.
From there the bucks can win the titles and tell more stories from there.
Page and Omega winning is like a sports team getting hot. The title win match was excellent too
I’ll buy the “we’re more tag focused” when they are right now they are WWE levels with their tag championship it is a b level title that occasionally gets used to highlight some singles stars. They have done a poor job with the tag division thus far. For all the things they claimed I think you are giving them way too much of a pass on how the division on the whole has been portrayed thus far. Maybe they tell a great story but it is still a story about singles competitors not anyone in their tag division. You also could have told the same story without putting the singles guys over on the whole tag division.