The Phantom Rant: Was It A WrestleDream or Wrestle Nightmare?

Well we didn’t get blood, but we got a murder on live pay per view. That sure was some ending to WrestleDream. The career of Bryan Danielson is seemingly over and Jon Moxley’s war has been won. Jon Moxley is now the AEW World Champion and I can honestly say I have no idea what is going to happen next. AEW has been missing something lately. Dynamite has been floundering in the wind so to speak so AEW needed a banger of a pay per view and as usual they delivered with that. We got a teary eyed ending with Bryan being put out to pasture by the Blackpool Combat Club at WrestleDream.

As I said last week in my column, this show was very light on story. Bryan vs. Moxley was the sole selling point of this show. I was scared for a moment that Jericho would win the Ring of Honor World Championship. I’ll get to that later on in the column. But for now, I think despite being light on storylines the pay per view delivered from a wrestling standpoint. People are upset though at the ending with what they did to Bryan Danielson. I can’t blame them. People wanted to see Bryan get his roses with this grandiose last match and instead we got him being smothered and having his bad neck broken. Personally I think it was a perfect way to “end” Bryan’s career. The BCC are put over as the deadliest group in AEW. This goes beyond simple “wrestling heat”. There was an element of danger tonight with the ending that I have not seen in a very long time.

This story of Jon Moxley and his war is an interesting one. If you’ve been watching his promo’s, he keeps alluding to the fact that he is not responsible for what he is doing. He hasn’t said there is someone pulling the strings of the new BCC, but someone is pulling those strings. Internet innuendo seems to think that this higher power is Shane McMahon. Why people think it’s Shane, I don’t know. They’ve done nothing to even hint that Shane is even doing anything with AEW aside from the picture of himself and Tony Khan having that meeting that was leaked. But based on all of that, people believe Shane is coming to AEW and he’s part of this group with Moxley.

What would Shane McMahon exactly offer AEW? He might, I stress MIGHT get a few more eyeballs from casual viewers onto Dynamite. But after that…then what? I say that as a Shane O’ Mac fan. I like Shane. I think he got jipped in the grand scheme of things when it came to WWE hierarchy. About twenty years ago he had this brilliant idea for the WWE to buy UFC. Vince wanted no part of it and now UFC technically owns the WWE. Shane was ahead of his time thinking about things to modernize the WWE. He wanted to make ECW an internet only show, but again Vince put down that idea and we got ECW on SyFy instead. So unless Shane is coming in to help AEW expand and grow, I can’t see the point of him being the leader of Moxley’s group…if that’s even on the table.

The rest of WrestleDream as I said was fine from a wrestling standpoint. Jay White and Adam Page had a hell of a match to open the show. I was pleasantly surprised when Jay White won. He needed a win bad and the crowd seemed firmly on his side. On the other hand Hangman becomes more unhinged and we don’t know what he’ll do next now that he lost. Hangman going crazy is one of the few storylines AEW is getting right. I mean a guy named Hangman should be unhinged. The crazier the better I say. I am excited for both men to where they both go from here.

Something I was not excited for was the Chris Jericho vs. Mark Briscoe match. As I said last week, I’m a Chris Jericho fan. I have been since he debuted in WCW way back when. But as anyone can see, he’s just not connecting with the audience anymore in a good way. He has what we used to be known as Xpac heat. I’m not saying he should retire, but a nice sabbatical for a few months couldn’t hurt. Mark Briscoe retained though which is good. I’m glad he’s getting a nice run as champion. The Conglomeration is one of my favorite groups and perhaps they would be a nice feud for the new BCC.

I say that because at the end of the pay per view when the locker room finally emptied out to try and stop Moxley and company, Orange Cassidy took the initiative to lead the second charge. The other night, Jerry Lynn asked to speak with Orange Cassidy and he told him straight up he has what it takes to be “The Guy” if he wants. AEW is setting up two men to be the faces of the company in that regard. One is Orange Cassidy. The other is Darby Allin. Both of these guys have what it takes to be “The Face” of the company. Moxley and company are the big bad’s of AEW. Every bad guy needs a good guy to face and I can see Darby and Orange being the ones to rally around.

Here’s some random thoughts about the rest of the show.

Adam Cole is also back and by all accounts looks healed up and he has unfinished business with MJF. He came out to save Daniel Garcia from MJF and Jack Perry. I would like to see Cole in the hunt for the TNT Title. Perry needed a good defense against Shibata and I don’t think he had it. Though he did win how I suspected he would in cheap/surprise fashion.

Konosuke Takeshita is finally a champion in AEW. It was a really good match with Will Osprey and Ricochet. I liked the ending when Don Callis interfered and it came down to Kyle Fletcher to make his decision where he sided with Don and The Callis family. Don Callis is awesome at what he does and now with the International Title and Lance Archer in the mix, The Callis family is stronger than ever and that is a good thing.

What’s not good is The Corporate Bucks continue to hold on to the tag team titles. On the plus side they did turn the clocks back a few years and had a really good match with Private Party. But I think AEW missed a golden opportunity to make a new moment in company history. Private Party needed that win and I’m not sure where the tag titles go from here.

Mariah May and Willow Nightingale had a great match, but the Women’s title is another championship that is in a holding pattern right now. We all are waiting for Toni Storm to make her triumphant return to take out Mariah. She literally has no one to face right now. On the TBS side, we have Mercedes Mone and for some reason she’s feuding with Kris Statlander who for some strange reason has turned face again. Never mind the good heel work she was doing with Stokley and her decisive win against Willow last month. She’s ignoring all of that and is back on the good side of things. Yeah, she cut a promo on Rampage about wanting to be the woman she used to be…but for the supposed best women’s division…nothing makes any sense.

The sleeper match of the night was Hologram vs. The Beast Mortos. These two are awesome together and I can watch them fight dare I say forever. Mortos is awesome and he’s been linked up with RUSH and Dralistico and they are now paired with Jake The Snake Roberts. Hologram at the moment can not be beaten so they have me invested in how long this unbeaten streak can go. But if he’s feuding with Los Ingobernables, odds are it won’t be for long.

WrestleDream was a pay per view heavy on wrestling and it delivered on that end. We shall see what happens on Wednesday for Dynamite and where the end of Bryan Danielson’s wrestling career goes next for the BCC.

On that note I am done for this week. As always feel free to leave comments below, on twitter or email me directly at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com