It’s time for a weekly look at the best, the worst, and the weird or otherwise notable—the Hungee—from the latest episode of AEW Dynamite.

The Good

There wasn’t a great match on this show, but Lee Moriarty vs. Jon Moxley, the All-Atlantic triple threat, and the main event were all enjoyable. Brian Cage has impressed since he’s come back on screen – it feels like they’ve better worked in his style of “doing the maximum amount of cool stuff but get winded fairly quickly” compared to his first run.

Lee Moriarty also had a decent showing opposite Moxley. I’m pretty high on Lee – he has some charisma and can go in the ring.

Rick Ross may have cut the promo of the night. He felt extremely natural on the mic.

I’m intrigued by where the Death Triangle strife goes from here. PAC was actually correct on this night, though – Rey Fenix legally could have used the hammer!

I thought Jack Perry looked really good in his return. The cross-body spot off the stage was really impressive.

I had a good laugh at Chris Jericho challenging Lamar Jackson after he very noticeably came into the arena to MVP chants.

The Bad

I was optimistic for the match of Colt Cabana vs. Chris Jericho when it started. And then the Chicago Skyline botch happened. There were a couple other ugly spots – Cabana clotheslining Jericho against the ropes and Jericho not taking the bump over the top rope (maybe because it was on the wrong side of the ring?) and then a sloppy Codebreaker.

The idea of Nyla Rose & Vickie Guerrero haranguing Jade Cargill during her match may have looked good on paper, but this didn’t work at all. It didn’t help that the match was filled with aimless brawling for most of its short length. Taz demurring “I think our jobs are safe, guys,” was extremely funny. And then the camera missed Nyla Rose running away and punking out Kiera Hogan.

The debut of Kole Carter 100% killed the crowd. They didn’t know who he was, and didn’t care.

The Hungee

It’s time to talk about the three debut/returns from last night.

I don’t know if it was intended as such, but the return of Colt Cabana in such a prominent spot felt like a big “fuck you” to CM Punk. I actually believed Punk when he insisted he didn’t have anything to do with Colt Cabana being sent off to the hinterlands of the AEW universe while Punk was on top of the company. But it’s apparent that even if it wasn’t requested by Punk, it was done to appease him. This is just another sign that the AEW-CM Punk relationship is on death’s door.

Katsuyori Shibata debuting to save and then challenge Orange Cassidy was teased at Forbidden Door, but still feels like a fever dream. Putting it on Friday feels like really short notice for a Shibata match in the U.S., but I imagine there are two factors here.

One is Shibata’s schedule; I’m assuming there are limitations on his availability, hence how things are moving here. The other is just how much Shibata’s name means here in the U.S. – maybe Tony Khan assumed that there wasn’t much to be gained from hyping this for weeks.

If Shibata was a fever dream, Jeff Jarrett debuting felt like a bad trip.

I don’t know what to judge him by on as a front office worker – though listening to You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me has reminded me of the regular backstage stories from early TNA about how Jarrett was a bad backstage leader. But I can 100% say that Jarrett on screen does not sit well with me. Maybe if you just do a quick feud involving him and Sting on opposite sides, that will actually be cool in a way, but I don’t think there’s a single Jarrett match I’d be excited for in 2022.

But Jarrett having “My World” (what a bad song, but a great theme) is absolutely perfect.

We’ve solved the disappearing Elite video – Brandon Cutler is just really proud of his video editing skills! Mystery over, everything’s fine.

I wouldn’t say that the Billy Gunn birthday celebration was particularly good – it felt like they ran out of ideas about halfway through – but I wouldn’t say it was bad, either. It was basically there, buoyed by how over they are. I did get a good laugh at Billy Gunn’s Best Dad(dy) trophy.

After the last month plus of the show being extremely heavy on MJF content, it was kind of jarring when he was only part of two short promo segments on this show.

Obviously, we’re going to have Danhausen lead the House of Black after he’s possessed by the spirit of Malakai Black. I will not be taking further questions on this.

Overall rating

4/10. I wouldn’t say this was a good show, and it wasn’t a bad one, either. But it was extremely weird.

Fred Morlan’s Chris Jericho’s Sports Entertainer(s) of the Week

This was a hard one to choose this week without a true standout, but I’m going with Samoa Joe. He was the glue that kept the main event strong and had a very good showing.

Match Star Ratings

  • Jay Lethal defeated Darby Allin: ***
  • Jon Moxley defeated Lee Moriarty: ***3/4
  • Chris Jericho defeated Colt Cabana to retain the Ring of Honor World Championship: *3/4
  • Orange Cassidy defeated Luchasaurus and Rey Fenix to retain the AEW All-Atlantic Championship: ***1/2
  • Jade Cargill defeated Marina Shafir: ½*
  • Samoa Joe defeated Brian Cage to defend the Ring of Honor World Television Championship: ***3/4

You can follow Fred on Twitter at @flagrantrasslin. He hosts  a podcast with Tyler Forness inspired by this article; the latest episode is available here.

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