Agree that it was incredible hearing Tony back on commentary, and he hasn't lost a step either. I thought he and JR had really solid chemistry, and Excalibur did a good job of being the fact guy (basically playing the Mike Tenay role from the WCW days). Worth noting Tony has actually been doing commentary for MLW for a little while, so he had some practice beforehand. He's also been regularly announcing sports since WCW died and you can hear that legitimacy in everything he says. WWE are stupid for never bringing him in, frankly. He's still one of the best in the business.
Your comment about AEW assuming fans have prior knowledge of the performers has been mentioned a lot so I don't think it's related to how you watched it. They definitely aren't holding anybody's hand with this one. It was the same with the PPV's - it was expected to some degree that you'd watched or at least knew the basics of Being the Elite on YouTube. I didn't so some aspects of those shows were lost on me. I still enjoyed them but probably not as much as I would have with a bit more background.
Pretty much agree with all of this. It would have been better to leave the Brandi spot out and have the match cut a bit shorter. She recovered almost instantly so there really wasn't much point to the spot. I think the false finishes were designed to elevate Guevara despite the loss, which is understandable as it looks like he's going to be a part of Jericho's heel stable.
Yeah they definitely should have let Cody speak a little before Jericho's attack. They rushed into it a bit which didn't give the crowd time to settle, you could tell they wanted to give Schiavone some love but didn't get the chance.
I haven't watched the ITV version of the show but in the full version the tag tournament was explained via a graphic. I don't think the beef between the Lucha Bros and SCU was explained, but I guess it was just because they're both in the tournament.
Speaking of ITV's cuts, it was a shame they cut MJF's segment but whilst his promo was good his match with Cutler only last a couple of minutes and was nothing special so you aren't missing out on much there. I think the other cut was the segment with the Jay and Silent Bob actors which was by far the worst part of the show so again, not missing much there.
Not sure what was going on with Britt Baker, she sounded drugged up and like she was about to fall asleep. Really strange.
The first half of this match wasn't very good, and I didn't understand why Nyla started pulling out chairs mid way through the match. It made no sense - why would she do something to potentially get disqualified in a title match? It wasn't really explained and I thought that was illogical from a booking standpoint. Second half of the match was better and the crowd were really behind Riho when she pulled out the win. Nyla had a lot of botches in this match which was unfortunate. I think the original plan was to put the belt on Nyla, but she said some stupid stuff on Twitter which might have changed their minds. I think they would have liked to have given the belt to Hikaru Shida, who looks like an absolute star, but I believe she's finishing off a tour with her old promotion which might be why they chose Riho instead. I'm guessing we'll soon get Shida Vs Riho would should be excellent.
The botched powerbomb attempt at the end was a shame, although I thought Schiavone covered for it really well by calling it a double clutch. Just more evidence of what he brings to the table in the commentary position. The Omega save would have seemed weird to anybody who didn't know Omega and Riho's previous history, and was also an odd way to debut Omega on the show.
Honestly I liked the brawl and the table spot, although I didn't like that the production team abandoned the match to focus on it. Should have been a split screen or something similar. The match itself was fine but somewhat chaotic. Jericho is definitely the glue that holds a lot of what's happening at the main event level together.
Having heard Hager's promos in WWE he either needs a manager or to just be the muscle in the stable who doesn't say very much. That role would suit him just fine.
There were two things about Dynamite as a whole that stood out to me, and seperates AEW from previous pretenders like TNA who tried and failed to be an alternative:
1) AEW just feels and looks big league. The production, presentation and design instantly gives the impression of a top tier promotion. It's something TNA and ROH in particular were never able to achieve. Both had some great content at various points in their history but always looked second rate compared with WWE, and it became even worse when TNA in particular started to become WWE-lite towards the end of the 2000s. AEW has WWE's production values but they aren't trying to be WWE. They are a genuine alternative in every sense and it is so refreshing after so many years of the WWE product being front and centre as the only real game in town.
2) AEW's focus on younger, fresh talent sets them apart from previous promotions who relied heavily on older stars and WWE cast offs. AEW has some of these - Jericho, Dustin Runnels, Hager, JR, Schiavone, even Cody - but it's mixed perfectly with fresh talent who are being pushed and utilised effectively.
I'm really looking forward to next week's show, and the future in general. It's like wrestling as a whole has finally woken up from the coma induced by WWE's purchase of WCW back in 2001.