Tommy Dreamer came away from Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite convinced the company is in a good place, and he says the promos and the fallout segments are the reason why.
Breaking down the Boston show on Busted Open After Dark, Dreamer said what stood out was how different it felt from a typical AEW episode.
“What drew me in tonight was something way different for AEW, and that was a lot of the aftermaths and a lot of the promos, and I gotta say I feel AEW is very, very hot right now,” Dreamer said.
He said the crowd reactions are what he is measuring that by.
“By hot, because you listen to these crowds, and when the wrestlers are walking out, some are getting very, very big reactions, and I hate to say this, for AEW, superstar reactions,” Dreamer said. “I say that because superstar is a WWE term, but the AEW audience really loves a lot of their performers, and then their next level people, that when they show up, you’re like, those are our people.”
Dreamer pointed to the opening tag title match between champions Cope and Christian Cage and the Death Riders, and the fallout that followed with the Bang Bang Gang, as an example of AEW telling a story without spelling it out.
“They have done an amazing job telling stories without really telling the story on a microphone,” Dreamer said. “It’s storytelling. It’s body language. It’s the fans chanting, hug it out. We all want to see you all together, and Christian not trusting the guy when, by the way, none of us ever want to trust Christian.”
He said letting the thread hang was the right call.
“They’re telling a wonderful story through the chaos. The bad guys beat up the good guys, and then here come the good guys to even the odds. And now we have turmoil, and we’re waiting to see what happens next,” Dreamer said. “And when nothing happens next, we’re gonna wait till next week, and that’s how you tell stories.”
Dreamer also praised Kenny Omega’s work during his championship celebration, where the new AEW World Champion tried to talk Kevin Knight out of his alignment with Don Callis by pointing to his own history.
“Kenny being the voice of reason, the guy who’s been there pretty much the longest. He’s also your champion. He’s also overcome so, so much to be there, and wants to do good, because when he won his title, he wasn’t in that same mindset, and he’s trying to tell people don’t live the way I lived, which is beautiful theater,” Dreamer said.
What tied it together for him was that none of it played like filler.
“They didn’t feel like backstage vignettes. They didn’t feel like backstage interviews. They didn’t feel like another run-in. It felt like different chapters of a book that I have to continue to watch,” Dreamer said. “I feel like tonight AEW is in the movie making business.”
Dreamer said the show worked because the segments were given room and because they pointed somewhere.
“This is a great mix for AEW, because this is what they need to continue this momentum and to continue to have people wanting to see this product,” Dreamer said. “You know you’re going to see great wrestling, but when you have all these intertwined things, and they also gave them time.”
His bottom line was that the company has grown out of its rough patches.
“I feel like all the growing pains are gone. Yes, you’re going to have some. No show is ever perfect, but tonight’s show is really, really interesting for a whole other different reasons than your normal AEW shows,” Dreamer said.
The Dynamite came from the MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston and set up two Redemption matches, with Omega defending the AEW World Championship against Knight after Knight cracked him with a microphone, and Chris Jericho bringing back the Painmaker to challenge Tommaso Ciampa. AEW Redemption takes place July 26 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
