HEYDORN’S AEW DYNAMITE RECEIPT 10/18: MJF puts babyface turn in motion with game-changing promo and angle

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

-A fun little AEW Dynamite style trios match to start the show between Death Triangle and Best Friends. I can take or leave these at this point, because there isn’t enough of a story around them, but from an athletic match perspective, this stuff is undoubtedly impressive. Tony Khan was thrown a curveball regarding the trios titles due to the situation that went down at All Out, but that doesn’t make these belts a good idea. Still not.

-A fantastic video package recapping the story between Adam Page and Jon Moxley. This was incredibly well done and did a more than suitable job in framing the world title match main event as a really big deal. Great stuff.

-A good match between Toni Storm and Hikaru Shida for the Interim AEW Women’s World Championship. They tried to provide some context and story around this with the material beforehand and the match benefitted from it. This was stiff from start to finish and one of the better women’s matches on Dynamite in the last few months.

-Britt Baker and Saraya appear to be on a collision course. A smart use of Saraya out of the gate, but the residual impact is on Toni Storm, who now becomes the fourth most important woman in the women’s division as its world champion. Not ideal, but it is what it is with a big-time feud like Baker vs. Saraya in the cards.

-I can get behind a WarJoe promo like that one on AEW Dynamite. More please.

-I need to take the MJF/Regal promo in two parts. First, as it was happening, I was very much wondering what the hell was going on. MJF’s words didn’t seem to fit with what AEW’s been trying to do with him as a heel the last few weeks. Now, the promo itself, was just about perfect in terms of delivery. MJF was emotional, real, and very pointed in how he discussed his relationship with Regal. On the flip side, even amidst some heavy criticism from MJF, Regal was able to toss it right back on MJF in a real way as well. For as confusing as it was from a character consistency perspective with MJF, they paid things off at the end of the job in a masterful way.

-Why? Why, why, why must we create more drama between faction members. Wheeler Yuta and Bryan Danielson would seemingly be on the same page and want some revenge on Daniel Garcia for swerving them last week. Yuta is mad at Danielson, though? Too cute. Way too cute and unnecessary.

-Look, I liked the Chris Jericho vs. Dalton Castle ROH World Championship match. The story with Jericho taking down ROH is compelling, even if it doesn’t have a place on AEW television. That said, Jericho taking down these champions would mean more if the AEW audience had more to digest about Castle. He was very much just around and though he had a good match, never got the audience to really believe he would win due to not enough fans really caring about who he was.

-Geez, Adam Page took a huge shot to the head thanks to Jon Moxley’s lariat in the main event. It looked awful and here’s to hoping Page is ok and can make a full recovery. Obviously, the match underdelivered due to the abrupt end, but a good match was the least important thing happening out there after the injury occurred.

-Moxley and MJF filled time adequately and got to a great place heading into the their Full Gear championship match in four weeks. Moxley was great, but MJF really had the performance of a lifetime. The babyface turn for MJF is on and he declaring that he is going to “earn it” by winning the title at Full Gear finally gives the audience that wants to cheer him the permission to do so. This was a great night for MJF, the main event scene in AEW, and the AEW World Championship.

CATCH-UP: HEYDORN’S WWE RAW RECEIPT 10/17: Mustafa Ali surprises with strong showing opposite Seth Rollins