AEW Continental Classic Round-up – Week One: Assessing the tournament so far and looking ahead to this week’s match-ups

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The first week of the C2 is in the books so let’s take a quick look at what happened, where things stand, and what’s on the slate for this week.

Gold League

After last week Jon Moxley, Swerve Strickland, and Jay White are all on the board with 3 points each.

Moxley and Mark Briscoe had the wild fight everyone expected. The Sussex County Chicken initially refused to go down, but a second Death Rider did the trick.

Jay White had an unsurprisingly physical match with Rush and used a low blow to set up a Blade Runner for the win. Swerve and Lethal had the most technical match of the night; again, no surprise given that Lethal is the best technician in the Gold League. Swerve was able out-wrestle him and win with a Swerve Stomp. On paper those matches were a little predictable and the expected winners won.

Looking ahead to this week, things are far less predictable. Swerve Strickland does battle with Jay White. It feels like an evenly matched battle that either man could win. Similarly, Rush and Mark Briscoe are paired off. Briscoe’s unorthodox style might actually give the edge over Rush although El Toro Blanco is definitely going to be angry and motivated after the way he lost last week.

The final match in the Gold League this week is Jon Moxley vs Jay Lethal, which seems pretty straightforward. Mox gets another 3 points on the board and Lethal loses again.

Blue League

The Blue League proved a less predictable and a little more interesting last week. Daniel Garcia did battle with Claudio Castagnoli. Garcia was a game opponent turning several of Claudio’s power moves into different submission attempts. In the end, Claudio’s uppercut proved to be the difference maker, leaving Garcia prone for a Riccola Bomb. Garcia fighting for that first win is going to be the story to watch in the Gold League.

Elsewhere, sentimental favorite Eddie Kingston, who put both his titles into the new Triple Crown, shockingly fell to Brody King. Even more shockingly, Brody essentially dominated the match. Eddie had his moments for sure, but the match really felt like Brody’s to lose. The story was that his size proved to be a huge advantage and that will him “a tougher out” than most expected.

This coming Saturday on Collision, Bryan Danielson will see his first action in the C2 when he takes on Eddie Kingston. Given Danielson’s skill and superior wrestling ability, I predict Eddie will fall again making his hole that much deeper.

Brody King looks to get his second win when he takes on Claudio. This will be a physical match. Claudio won’t be able to use his power in the same he did against Garcia but Brody’s also going to have deal with a sounder wrestler that he might not be able to overwhelm as easily.

The final match of the Blue League this week will be Andrade looking to get his first points on the board against a Garcia deeply motivated to get on the board himself. They can tell the story that one advantage Garcia has in this match is that he and Andrade had a match a couple weeks ago so he’s familiar with Andrade and knows what mistakes not to make. I think the outcome of that one is another tossup.

Just as a final thought: I think the promo work being done by the winners and losers in the C2 has been top notch and has really enhanced the tournament.

OR CHECK THIS OUT AT PROWRESTLING.NET: Jon Moxley on CM Punk’s return promo on WWE Raw, the AEW Continental Classic tournament