HEYDORN’S AEW DYNAMITE RECEIPT 8/31: CM Punk and Jon Moxley make it to finish line for All Out build

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

-Jon Moxley continues to simply dominate as the AEW World Champion. Mox walked out with a breadth of confidence, soaked in a negative reaction, addressed it, kept going, and in hostile CM Punk territory, was able to sell himself as the champion and top guy and keep the hostile audience’s respect. Masterful work.

-Daniel Garcia is walking the heel/babyface line perfectly. Undoubtedly, he’s going to make the full turn, but showing he can perform and walk that line reveals the potential range he has. Good stuff.

-Bryan Danielson vs. Jake Hager had its moments, but was an avenue for an angle more than anything else. Nothing wrong that, but this won’t be memorable in really any way.

-Ok, I was in the building and W. Morrissey is freaking massive. Now, the crowd reaction? Not massive. We need some context around what Stokely Hathaway is building. I’m intrigued, but he’s handed that business card to a lot of random folks. Are they all in on his team?

-A decent women’s tag. Everyone worked hard and the spots were ok, but it just didn’t have the heat you’d want going into a PPV event. Tony Khan said the women’s division needed a reset and he’s right. Toni Storm is the answer.

-So, CM Punk got there. It’s as if he did 65 backflips before walking through the front door instead of walking through it to get there, but he’s in nonetheless. If you take away the convoluted and ineffective road taken to this match, Punk delivered in this go-home episode to get the story to a place that was functional on PPV between him and Moxley. The audience should be hot for him to win the title on Sunday and my guess is Tony Khan pays that off.

-Jungle Boy to Jack Perry. Thumbs WAY up. Positioning Jungle Boy as a new character very much clears up the awkwardness of some of his promos leading up to the match with Christian Cage. This was Jungle Boy’s best promo yet in AEW and put a bow on the Cage feud. Perry vs. Cage is one of the best built All Out matches. Good stuff.

-FTR, FTR, Ohhhhh FTR. It’s annoying to see such a hot act relegated to what amounts to a meaningless six-man match with Wardlow as their partner. They got the second loudest pop of the night. Feed. Them. Tony. Khan.

-An action packed fatal four-way match between Wheeler Yuta, Rey Fenix, Rush, and Dante Martin. Kind of overshadowed by the Trios Championship Tournament main event, though.

-Look, everyone knows I’m not a fan of the Trios Championships. Fundamentally, they are ineffective in booking a prominent tag team division. That said, the matches themselves are undoubtedly exciting. Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay worked a feverish, and frankly, stunning pace that further drove the need to see a singles match between the two. No surprise that The Elite won the match. It appears as if the Trios World Championships were created for that team to hold.

CATCH-UP: Darby Allin talks Cody Rhodes leaving AEW