Last night the newest and hottest promotion in Professional Wrestling, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), had their 3rd pay-per-view and was also their 3rd outing as a company. The term pay-per-view (ppv) doesn’t really apply though as it was announced that the show would be streamed live via the B/R Live app as was their previous show Fyter Fest. In addition to being a free stream, all of the proceeds from the show were donated to the Jacksonville Victim Assistance Advisory Council. The show took place in Jacksonville,FL at Daily’s Place and is the city where AEW calls home.
In my opinion (lifelong pro wrestling fan and avid critic like every other wrestling fan these days) I thought the show was very good. It struggled a bit at the beginning to really capture the excitement that AEW has been bringing, especially late in their show cards. I think a lot of that stems from lack of star power early in in the show, whereas the last few matches of their shows feature most of the top names in Pro Wrestling outside of the WWE. But, that issue can be fixed with time, and it doesn’t seem like AEW is going anywhere soon, especially with the announcement a while back of a weekly prime time tv show on TNT.
The early matches or pre-show matches dubbed “the buy-in” are just good enough to keep you tuned in but most importantly introduce the audience to many members of the AEW roster and showcase what they can do. Here are the matches and results from the buy-in:
Sonny Kiss defeated “The Librarian” Peter Avalon who was managed by the other “Librarian” Leva Bates.
Bea Priestley made her AEW debut in a tag team match with Shoko Nakajima which they defeated Dr. Britt Baker and her partner Riho
Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF), Shawn Spears, Sammy Guevara defeated Darby Allen, Joey Janella, Jimmy Havoc in a very fast paced 6-man tag match.
The results of the main card:
Brandi Rhodes with surprise back up Awesome Kong defeated Allie
The Dark Order defeated Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus and Jack Evan’s & Angelico in a 3 way tag team match
Adam “Hangman” Page defeated Kip Sabian and continued to prove why he is the front runner to be the 1st AEW world champion to be crowned on August 31st at “All-Out”. After the match Hangman’s opponent at All-Out, Chis Jericho, attacked Page and hit him with a code breaker that busted page open above the eye and then hit Page with the Judas Effect which is a very unpleasant back elbow to the dome.
The Lucha Brothers defeated Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky in a great match that had fans on the edge of their seats with all the high spots and wow moments.
Kenny Omega defeated Cima and ended up being the match of the night with many near falls and lots of high impact moves. We have seen Omega do this time and time again but this match Cima seemed to be the one to stand out for me with very hard shots and ability to go toe to toe with arguably the best in the business and not miss a beat.
Chris Jericho returned to the ring to praise himself for being the reason AEW iscas hot as it is and the reason they have a tv deal with TNT. He also praised himself on his attack earlier and showed the crowd Hangman’s blood was still on his hands to send a message. It was heard loud and clear by Page as he came down the ramp to get some retribution that led to Jericho retreating backstage.
The main even saw 2 pairs of real life brother facing off against each other as The Young Buck (Matt and Nick Jackson) defeated The Brotherhood of Cody and Dustin Rhodes. It was a very good match that told a great story of the Bucks mocking memorable moments from AEWs 1st ppv Double or Nothing done by Cody and Dustin. Something the Bucks had done on their YouTube show “Being The Elite” leading up to the match.
Overall a great show especially later in the card with all of the star power that has been featured. It did seem to run a bit long to many fans at a run time of about 4 hours and 20 minutes but that is nothing compared to WWE’s Wrestlemania which in april ran over 7 hours long. After the show was considered done, The Bucks, Cody, Brandi, Kenny Omega called out AEW founder Shad Khan and the group presented a check for $150k to the Jacksonville Victim Assistance Advisory Council and said the money will go towards helping victims of gun violence.
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