While AEW has been struggling to fill arenas and get their weekly viewership back to where it was a few years ago, Indianapolis has always been good to the promotion, which made its way to the new Fishers Event Center in Fishers, Ind. this week and the arena was almost full.
In the early days, AEW was known for its atmosphere and this time, the was set up for 3,300 and only 395 seats were not filled, and the fans were rabid as you would hope for at an AEW show.
The place was loud, sometimes overwhelmingly loud as the Fishers fans showed up ready to party. They got their money’s worth too, as they didn’t just get Dynamite; they also got a Ring of Honor segment and a full Rampage taping.
Dynamite was exactly the show AEW needed to put on and was a beacon of light and hope for fans who might be losing faith due to poor creative and business decisions over the last two years.
The crowd got two dark matches- one of which was a very entertaining match between Colt Cabana and the giant Satnam Singh, which saw Cabana complaining to the ref that Singh was so big. Then, when Singh got on his knees, Cabana said he was too short, which ended with Cabana getting knocked out.
From there, the fans got a dark tag team match featuring The Outrunners, who got one of the loudest reactions and ovations of the night- these guys are over.
On the main show, the fans got some great Continental Classic matches- Shelton Benjamin vs. Kyle Fletcher and Cladio Castagnoli vs. Brody King along with Jay White vs. Pac and Max Caster vs. Swerve Strickland.
The storylines continued to be told in a strong way with segments involving Hook vs. Christian Cage, Nick Wayne & Kip Sabian as well as Anna Jay vs. Mercedes Mone. They also did a great job continuing to tell the story of AEW (Orange Cassidy, Hangman Page & Jay White) vs. The Dark Riders (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, Marina Shafir and Pac), which got a much-needed “AEW AEW AEW” chant from the crowd.
For Ring of Honor, the crowd was treated to “TV Time with Chris Jericho,” which saw the self-proclaimed “King of New York” and “The Nueve” Chris Jericho talking about the upcoming ROH Final Battle PPV and how he didn’t have an opponent and demanded one of the best New York natives of all time to come out and face him, which was answered by a surprise debuting Matt Cardona, who made the official challenge.
Rampage was another solid show and was one of the better Rampage tapings there have been yet. Featuring a really strong promo between Jericho and Cardona as well as three Continental Classic matches- TNT Champion Daniel Garcia vs. The Beast Mortos, Okada vs. Mark Briscoe as well as Ricochet vs. Kommander, Rampage was an A- of a show and was exactly what the fans needed to remind themselves of what AEW is truly capable of and what made them so fun to watch in the beginning.
If AEW continues to put on shows as tight and well-done as this week’s Dynamite and Rampage, they’re gonna be just find and may easily find themselves back where they were in 2021 and 2022.
-Reggie Edwards
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