One thing I really liked about tonight’s episode was the continuity carrying over across this show and from the previous weeks.
MJF’s storyline has been consistently good for months now, slowly embracing the fans while taking on more and more challengers, all the while his past sins catch up to him. MJF searching for his partners bled through the whole show, giving a hook from beginning to end.
The International Title match wasn’t just a showcase match between Orange Cassidy and some random midcarder. The story was more about Claudio trying to get revenge after OC broke Bryan Danielson’s orbital bone, which led into Moxley coming in to officially reignite his feud with OC from the Summer while trying to get the IN title back.
I like the Hangman/Swerve story and the Jerico/Omega/Callis stories bleeding into each other, in particular the interaction between Jericho and the Bucks. They might be setting up a potential feud with Jericho/Ibushi/Omega vs Hangman/Bucks after they’re both done with their respective storylines. The state of Paul Wight’s hips and knees though…
While they haven’t interacted yet, there’s some potential crossings between Shida and Statlander as well. The whole Stat/Willow/Skye/Julia storyline has been quietly building for weeks with a fun twist tonight, all the while Shida has been getting sick of being upstaged by Toni Storm’s antics. Willow challenging Shida tonight has me thinking of a possible match happening between Shida and Statlander down the road, or at the very least, defenses against Skye Blue and Julia Hart in the coming weeks for Shida.
While it’s on its own island, Christian Cage and his kids vs Sting, Darby and Copeland has taken a nice turn with Copeland officially agreeing to fight Christian. You don’t bring up a man’s kids while threatening him.
I really hope AEW keeps up this style of show. Give the fans something to sink into more, and they’ll start watching and attending shows again.
