Wednesday, September 22, 2021

AEW Grand Slam 9/22/2021

AEW Grand Slam 9/22/2021

Kenny Omega vs Bryan Danielson

Putting Omega vs Danielson on first was a bad idea. This match was supposed to be this giant dream match yet it was the opener without any packages or anything to make it a bigger deal.

They telegraphed that this would be a draw early when JR mentioned it. Not smart at all as few would have thought that would have been the outcome otherwise. Time limit draws are tough to sell because 99% of matches don't have the time announced. If they did, when you do a draw and the time starts running out, it becomes less obvious as to what the finish will be. But when you just mention it out of the blue like they did here, it telegraphs the result.

The crowd was very hot for this here but the match didn't have any  particular story. You can tell a lot of stories with the time limit but they didn't do them here. They didn't do the usual Omega match here, which is a good thing. Instead of doing Omega's "work a body part > forget about it > do big moves for 2.999's", they just opted to go to the chops and the strikes which are hard to screw up.

I didn't like the commercial here as it always takes you out of the match. I also didn't like the kick out of the release top rope dragon suplex much like I didn't when Omega did the top rope dragon with Okada a few years ago. This was one of the better matches Omega was involved in but not even close to Danielson's best match this year.

CM Punk promo


I didn't like him saying "How do you follow that?". Because how are people supposed to follow a 30 minute match with top rope dragon suplex kick outs?

MJF vs Brian Pillman Jr.


Pillman did a pretty good job here but the commercial messed this up and the ending was out of nowhere.

Cody Rhodes vs Malakai Black


Of course Brandi has to make her "big return" for this one. A big thank you to NYC for coming out strong and booing Cody. I'm shocked Cody allowed a commercial to go on during his match. I'm glad AEW finally did the right thing here and allowed a heel to get a win in their first big match for a change.

Sting and Darby Allin vs FTR

I actually really liked this. Sting looked great for his age and was really moving well here. I don't know if FTR were the right team to take this loss, but this was fun. I also liked Sting changing up the face paint a bit for this.

Ruby Soho vs Britt Baker


The commercial hurt this one. It felt like their match time got shortened due to something else running too long. Ruby took a nasty air raid crash from the top for 2 which of course was kicked out of. This should not have gone on last.

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