HEYDORN’S DYNAMITE RECEIPT 8/4: Cody retirement angle too cute and unnecessary to keep feud with Malaki Black strong

This week’s episode of AEW Dynamite has wrapped. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and relive some of the madness.

-The start of Jericho vs. Guerrera was an ugly one and one that hopefully told Chris Jericho what not to do in matches moving forward. The top rope Judas Effect was a memorable finish, but didn’t fully erase the memory of the opening few minutes. All that said, the Labors Of Jericho story continues to stay over and should crescendo nicely at All Out.

-Jon Moxley, Eddie Kingston, and Darby Allin looked like rock stars out there this week. Kingston hamming it up with Sting was a treat and all three genuinely looked like they were having a blast – an important trait of a show that can bleed into the audience reactions.

-Omega sporting a Cookie Monster t-shirt in his backstage promo with The Elite was top notch teasing of CM Punk. The promo itself? Fine, and served its purpose to the end of showcasing a batch of obnoxious punks. 50 dollars to anyone who can recreate the sound Nick Jackson was making as the segment ended. Any takers?

-A fine Christian Cage match. That’s it, though. The guy continues to lack any momentum or intrigue and seems to be around just to be, well, fine. Cage as the number one contender signals bigger things on the horizon elsewhere in the company, like Cookie Monster, but is a, well, fine choice as a mid-card title contender with that other stuff going on.

-The Santana & Ortiz/FTR vignette was very well done and effective in continuing the feud between both teams. Both sides were believable in terms of how they reacted to the Wheeler injury situation and set a foundation for another match down the road.

-Britt Baker is walking the dangerous fine line of tweener well enough to keep at it. Her character needs the heel edge. Red Velvet is a smart TV title match opponent. Velvet can give Baker a quality win and Baker’s presence will elevate Velvet a bit.

-Regardless of what or when things happen with Christian Cage and Kenny Omega, this week’s angle between Omega and Adam Page still solidifies Page as the main AEW World Championship story. He’s still the guy and it was important for AEW to tell fans that given other things happening around him in the company. There is fan investment involved here and AEW needed to acknowledge that. To that end, this angle was a massive success.

-Match of the night honors go to Miro and Lee Johnson. Really crisp stuff throughout with Miro going above and beyond to help make Johnson, while keeping his character strong. It takes a pros pro to pull that off and he did. Johnson certainly did his part and clearly has the in-ring tools to make it. Up next for him is character development.

-What a presentation for Malaki Black. Big time stuff and the guy looked like the star that he is.

-I’m not buying this Cody story. It’s too much and too cute. Retirement? It came across as a forced way to inject some personal Cody drama into a feud that didn’t need it. The more Cody tries this stuff, it becomes less effective at achieving its goal and makes Cody more one note than he’d like to be.

NOW CHECK OUT HEYDORN’S RAW RECEIPT: HEYDORN’S RAW RECEIPT 8/2: WWE pulls out all the stops to make Goldberg look more valuable than he is