TONY KHAN ANNOUNCES THAT HE HAS BOUGHT ROH- Hmm… I was waiting for Shad Khan to pop up on the KhanTron and tell Tony that “the name on the contract says Khan, but it doesn’t say Tony Khan. It says Shahid Khan,” but that didn’t happen.
I guess it’s really not worth having much in the way of thoughts on this until we have a better idea of what Tony will do with it... but on a personal note, I will say I kind of hope he puts the name to bed and doesn’t try to use it as a separate brand or something like that. I at the point where I’m just happy for the name to die and its legacy to be its legacy and that’s it (and I’m glad the footage will be in the hands of someone who will appreciate its value and hopefully create a situation where others will be able to pay to see it and discover the greatness that hooked him, me, and many others so many years ago).
Tony notes that Dragon and Daniels were both in the main event of The Era of Honor Begins and claims that not winning that main event has been eating at them for twenty years. I don’t buy that. Also, if neither of them won the match, how is beating the other here tonight going close that wound? These guys have beaten each other plenty of times over the intervening years (actually, it has mostly been Dragon beating Daniels. Daniels hasn’t beaten Dragon since the second ROH show, Round Robin Challenge.
Quite frankly, this whole thing is a good example of why I don’t want Tony Khan running Ring of Honor, and why I don’t think very highly of Tony as a booker. Yes, he wants to give Dragon a win heading into the PPV match against Jon Moxley this weekend, and Daniels is a credible opponent who can take a loss.
But Daniels is in a unique situation right now. Nine and a half months ago he lost a match and walked out of AEW, teasing retirement. This is the first time he has been seen on AEW TV since then. There is a story that could (and should) have been told here! The story of Daniels’ road back to AEW. Of how he rebuilt his confidence and what this new run means for him, and even what his goals will be now that he can’t team with Kazarian anymore, which is literally the only thing he has done in AEW.
And all of that was thrown away for nothing. Why did Christopher Daniels have to be in this match instead of, say, Kazarian, or Christian or anyone else with some credibility who Dragon could beat? And “because of the main event of The Era of Honor Begins is not a valid reason! That fact does not play into Danielson’s storyline in any way.
Yes, I understand that Tony wanted to talk about having bought ROH and that he thought this was a cool segue from that idea into the action of tonight’s show… and that’s exactly the problem. Tony Khan threw away the big potential moments of the announcement of Daniels’ return, his first match back, the potential of telling a compelling story of that return, all for something whose only potential value is “yeah, that’d be kind of cool if we did that.”
It's not even like they have a streaming service to plug where you can go sign up and watch that main event. If you really wanted to book Dragon against someone who was at the Era of Honor Begins, how about Homicide? Not only was ‘Cide on that show, but he has major ROH history with Dragon, and you can probably come up with some way to work it into the Danielson vs. Moxley story, where Dragon is trying to show Moxley how violent he can get by beating Homicide even worse than Moxley did at GCW a few weeks ago.
Or why not bring in Jay Briscoe? He’s going to mostly be a tag guy if he works much AEW so a loss to Dragon here would be totally irrelevant, and you can use his presence to do an angle later on the show where FTR ambush him, starting the build to Briscoes vs. FTR.

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. CHRISTOPHER DANIELS- 7.75/10
The announcers told us that Daniels’ eye is still injured NINE-AND-A-HALF MONTHS LATER after the match with the Young Bucks. If the injury is that bad, he really shouldn’t be kayfabe cleared to wrestle, should he? And if it’s not that bad, pretending it is that bad is ridiculous. Later in the match when we got a good look at it, it was very clearly a contact lens in a funny color, and the announcers looked like idiots for insisting that there was an injury, especially when Daniels was not affected by it at all.
Excalibur noted that we haven’t seen Daniels on Dynamite “in over seven months.” As I’ve stated several times before, it has almost been ten. There is no excuse for Excalibur to have that number wrong.
Speaking of wrong, Schiavone said that Dragon and Daniels “wrestled the first match” in ROH. Maybe he just misspoke, but considering the way he phrased it, my guess is that he doesn’t know that it was a three-way, so he probably doesn’t know it was the main event of the first show, not the opener, either.
The match itself was great, with Dragon winning the Triangle Plus Elbows. He once again left a hold in after the bell while posing.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
Dragon talked about how they used to shake hands in ROH (well… Daniels didn’t. It was kind of a big deal that he didn’t shake hands after that match they were talking about) and he mockingly shook the hand of the downed Daniels… but the noted that this is AEW, not ROH, and he wants to kick someone’s head in, at which point he did the head-stomps. You’d think Frankie Kazarian would have come out to try to put a stop to this, but he was nowhere to be found.
Dragon declared that it would be Jon Moxley’s head that would be stomped in at Revolution, which brought out Moxley to cut a promo on Dragon. From his promo, he doesn’t seem to understand that Dragon actually wants to be friends with him, as he said here that Dragon thinks Mox will lose at the PPV and then disappear. Moxley said he would win at the PPV, and suggested that if Dragon wanted to fight him, he should do so now.
1. Again, he clearly doesn’t understand what Dragon wants.
2. Why would Dragon do that when Moxley is fresh and Dragon isn’t? And trying to put Dragon on the spot in that condition is borderline heelish from Mox.
Danielson made like he was going to fight, but then bailed out. For reason #2 above, I really don’t think one can morally impugn Danielson for not wanting to fight Moxley in this situation, and- as I just said- I think challenging Dragon to the fight makes Moxley look bad. I also think that Danielson’s actions after the match was far too heelish for how AEW has been presenting him in this storyline. They have been quite evenhanded, with the announcers suggesting that he might not necessarily be wrong that some of these youngsters would fair better if Dragon were mentoring them, and I assumed that was by design, as there is a segment of AEW’s viewership (myself included) for whom Dragon is very much giving a kayfabe voice to our non-kayfabe feelings about AEW. As a result Danielson’s actions here feel more like they happened specifically to create a reason for Moxley to come out afterwards so they could have this confrontation on the go-home show rather than for any real reason of Dragon’s (he has no quarrel with Daniels, and it’s entirely possible that Daniels would be on his side in this), and as a result we once again have a segment in AEW where it feels like characters are doing things to fit the booker’s needs rather than for any storyline motivation of their own.
That sort of thing is always bad, but in this case it just compounded the mistake that was doing any of this in the first place, as Dragon vs. Moxley really didn’t need this sort of confrontation go-home angle. Both guys cutting promos on their own about it would have worked much better, I think.

DARBY ALLIN & STING PROMO- good
Sting starts talking about a three-way match on Rampage where there will be “heavy fines and indefinite suspensions” for anyone who gets involved. What match is he talking about?!
Oh. Apparently it’s Sammy Guevara vs. Darby vs. someone else (presumably Andrade) for the TNT Title. Darby cut a good promo building up that match and the six-man tag at the PPV, noting that he and Sting will have to team with Sammy Guevara just two days after he and Sammy face each other in a title match.
If we can use “heavy fines and indefinite suspensions” for people who try to interfere in that match to discourage interference, why hasn’t this already been done in, say, Britt Baker matches, or Kenny Omega matches when Kenny was the world champion?

CASINO BATTLE ROYALE FOR A SPOT IN THE AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH AT REVOLUTION 2022- 4/10
The Other Martin is back. Having this be his first appearance back feels like a waste if Top Flight isn’t going to win. Top Flight and FTR were the first two teams in. Then the Acclaimed came in… and no one else did. Apparently “Casino Battle Royale” now means Royal Rumble, despite the fact that they have used this gimmick five or six other times, all in theoretically big PPV spots, and it has had different rules. Is it really that hard to come up with a different name?
I got a good laugh out of FTR and Top Flight supposedly being so damaged/winded after two minutes so that they could stay down and the camera could focus on the Acclaimed for all of their entrance shtick.
Look… the work in this match wasn’t bad or anything, but this was a TWENTY-SEVEN-MINUTE BATTLE ROYALE full of geeks, where everyone already knew who was going to win, and it’s the second f*cking week in a row we’ve had a tag team battle royale. This match should not have happened at all (I mean really. Why even have rankings if when you need to pick two challengers for the tag titles, you’re going to give every geek team on the roster TWO CHANCES to be in the title match?). I don’t care how many flips and things you’re doing. When the only real story is “guys trying to throw each other out” and it’s obvious who is going to win, the match is just boring, and that’s what this was.
Ten was eliminated when someone messed with his mask. He also lost to Ricky Starks when Starks messed with his mask. Maybe the guy who wears a mask for absolutely no reason should take the mask off if it keeps helping his opponents beat him?
Dorkhausen came out from under the ring again in exactly the right spot to cause a distraction so that his babyface friend (Trent) wouldn’t lose cleanly. Evil Uno was an idiot and allowed himself to be distracted by Out-hausen, so he lost.
2.0 interfered after already having been eliminated to help eliminate LAX, so I guess we’re going back to that again. WHY?
Top Flight, FTR, and the Bucks were the last three teams in. Cash and Dante Martin eliminated each other, then reDragon came out to help the Matt Jackson eliminate Dax by causing a distraction. Then Darius Martin- a total nobody- got to fight off the Young Bucks two on one, eliminating one of them and almost eliminating the other.
reDRagon and the Bucks were friends afterwards. Jurassic Express and Christian came out to stare at them both from the stage because… um… it’s the go-home show, and that’s what you do.

CHRIS JERICHO PROMO- waste of time
He said absolutely nothing new to build up his match against Eddie Kingston. At the end, LAX came up to him and fist-bumped him, so I guess they’re all friends again, even though Jericho has not taken any steps to correct the things that they were upset about. Way to tell those stories, TK.

CM PUNK & MJF SEGMENT- good, but…
Punk came out to cut a promo. He believes that the things that MJF said happened to him, but questions MJF’s sincerity. I think understand what he was going for, but he did t phrase it well at all.
Other than that, Punk walked this fine line pretty well between sincerely feeling sorry that he caused this hurt to MJF while also making clear that MJF is still a villain for the things he has done since, because how MJF has comported himself since has been completely his own choice.
Punk called MJF out to talk. Punk gave a great little speech trying to convince MJF that it’s not too late for him to change his ways and become a good role-model to that eleven-year-old kid out there watching AEW who looks up to him, just like he looked up to Punk.
Punk offers a handshake, but MJF hugs him instead and they have a big, long, hug, and everyone is just waiting for the inevitable, which was MJF kicking Punk in the nuts. He hit Punk with the heat-seeker, then ripped off his dress shirt to show that he was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of young MJF meeting CM Punk.
MJF called out his goons. Wardlow gave him the Dynamite Diamond Ring, which he hit Punk with a bunch. FTR held off security (good). Shawn Spears grabbed a dog collar and they hung Punk over the ropes. MJF then quoted Punk quoting the parable of the old man who helps the snake across the river at Death Before Dishonor III (that’s when Punk quoted it, I mean. Parable does not take place at an ROH show), and paraphrased Punk’s “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing you people he didn’t exist, and you’re looking at him right now” (which I’m sure at least the first half of is also a quote from something else).
After WAY too long, Darby Allin, Sting… and also Sammy Guevara, to remind us that they’re teaming together at the PPV, I guess, made the save.
Okay, so they found a way to make MJF feel heelish out of all of this. I still don’t think they should have done any of it. I will admit that they did a decent job of keeping it ambiguous whether MJF’s story about the antisemitic bullying was true, but that ambiguity leaves us with two possibilities, and don’t think either of them are good.
1. MJF actually was lying, and AEW has just done an angle that is the equivalent of someone lying about facing racism just to lure an opponent into a trap. I don’t actually have a problem with this personally, but this sort of thing is exactly what Big Swole was talking about (except with a Jew instead of a Black person).
OR
2. It really did happen, and the result is that even though he exploited it to lure Punk into a trap, it’s the sort of story that will stick with people, and you have thus needless created sympathy for a heel in the long run.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH KEITH LEE IS INTERRUPTED BY TEAM TAZ-
Thankfully, this time, Lee steamrolled their interruption, noting that they have now done this twice, and “if there is a third, there will be none of you left, Ricky Starks, to interrupt me.”
THAT’S THE KEITH LEE I LOVE! And not just that sort of weird, erudite cadence (notice the weird place that he places Ricky’s name) that he makes work so well, but the dignity of it. This statement told us viewers that, yes, he got interrupted last week, but he didn’t respond to it like a normal pro wrestler would because he understands that it’s really not that big a deal. It actually makes him more relatable because he’s not taking offense at the drop of a hat. But now that you’ve done it again, there is a pattern forming, so he tells Starks (and the audience) that he’s not a pushover, and if it happens again, there will be consequences.
Starks, to contrast, is a total pro wrestler, telling Lee that he had better not show up for his scheduled match on Rampage or else he will attack him. Lee told Starks he would be there.

MERCEDES MARTINEZ & THUNDER ROSA vs. BRITT BAKER & JAMIE HAYTER (w/Rebel)- 6.25/10
Fine tag action. Thunder Rosa pinned Britt clean heading into their PPV match.

ALEX MARVEZ’S INTERVIEW WITH TAY-JAY IS INTERRUPTED BY MARK STERLING & JADE CARGILL- bad
Nothing useful happened here. Jade bad-mouthed Karate, angering Tay, so Sterling said that they will take the already-advertised title match away from Tay if she touches Jade before the show. Since when can they do that? This was another hastily thrown-together go-home segment that felt more forced that organic.

KRIS STATLANDER VS. LEYLA HIRSCH IVDEO PACKAGE/PROMOS- Leyla good, Statlander bad
Oh yeah. This feud is a thing. Statlander still came off like a total heel here. She claimed that we were about to see a new side of her. Two other women (Anna Jay and The Bunny) have said that in AEW in the past few months, and we saw nothing new from either of them. Leyla, for her part, was tired of sitting around and just wantedvto beat Statlander up.

CEZAR BONONI vs. WARDLOW (w/Shawn Spears)- no rating, bad segment
This was another Wardlow squash. Then Spears tried to attack the downed opponent with a chair for no reason other than because he’s mean. Wardlow stopped him, even though Wardlow has no reason to care. And, once again, I do not buy this idea that Spears is trying to “steal the spotlight from Wardlow,” because ever since they’ve started claimed that’s what’s going on, Spears has not actually gained any spotlight from anything he has done, and Wardlow has not lost any.
This sudden caring about some he has had no contact with before doesn’t even help turn Wardlow babyface, because it hasn’t even been an hour since he helped MJF beat down a helpless CM Punk by handing MJF a weapon.
They have a stare-down. Excalibur claims that even though Spears was supposed to be Wardlow’s “accountabili-buddy”, it is actually Spears who has gone “off the rails.” How is this him going “off the rails” as it relates to the concept of the accountabili-buddy, which was that MJF was going to send Spears to ringside with Wardlow to ensure that MJF’s will was done. Why would MJF be unhappy with Spears beating up jobbers with chairs? Hell, if he didn’t like what Spears was doing, you’d think he’d have said something to Spears at some point in the three months or whatever it has been since Spears starting doing this, but we haven’t seen even a suggestion that he has done so.
Anyway, Spears backs down from Wardlow in their meaningless and forced confrontation.

HOUSE OF BLACK VIDEO- I am quickly losing faith that anything they say will have any real meaning or has any real philosophy behind it.

ALEX MARVEZ ABANDONS HIS ATTEMPT TO INTERVIEW WARDLOW SO THAT WARDLOW, MJF, AND SHAWN SPEARS CAN HAVE A BACKSTAGE SEGMENT- bad
MJF shows up and tells Wardlow that he will let him keep the TNT Title if he wins the Race of the Revolution Lader Match and goes on to beat the TNT Champion… and then needlessly insults him. How is it that the man who was able to pull such a ruse on CM Punk doesn’t understand Wardlow’s emotions to know that saying this will only anger him?
Wardlow waits until MJF has walked away to say that if he doesn’t win the title “it’s because I’m too busy making sure you’re always winning.” MJF comes back and slaps Wardlow right in the face. MJF then threatens Wardlow with making his family homeless. He also said that Wardlow works for him, not AEW… which makes one wonder why the f*ck Tony Khan is booking him in all of these matches.
This was another forced step in this story. There is absolutely no reason that this flare-up happened at this moment that stems from any of the motivations of any of the characters involved. It happened this week because Tony Khan wanted to make us wonder if Wardlow will defy MJF and not help MJF defeat Punk at the PPV this weekend. And that makes everyone involved feel like pieces on Tony Khan’s little fantasy booking chessboard rather than feeling like real people whose journeys are worth investing in.

ADAM COLE & reDRagon vs. ADAM PAGE & THE DARK ORDER (Alex Reynolds & John Silver)- 7/10
Jim Ross said that this situation with the champion and challenger on opposite sides of a tag match was a “unique” way to build up a title match before a PPV. “Unique?” IT’S NOT EVEN THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED ON THIS F*CKING SHOW!

The heels won cleanly, as they should have.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
The heels tried to attack Adam Page. He fought them off for a bit, but eventually they overwhelmed him and taped him to the ropes and beat him up. If only there were more members of the Dark Order backstage who could come out and save Page. Oh well.


Despite some good stuff, this was a bad show from AEW. It felt like they set out to reinforce the sentiments I expressed at the beginning, which was that I didn’t think that Tony Khan was a skilled enough booker that I would be happy with him running the ROH brand. So much of the stuff on this show was either a bad idea, or something that could have worked if it wasn’t so painfully forced.