AEW Dynamite 10/18/23: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "AEW Dynamite" (back on Wednesdays, and it feels so good!) which we're now being told cannot be delivered in the form of a silent film. Oh, well. We actually don't have a section devoted entirely to praising Toni Storm this week, which is a departure for us, but you can take it as written that we still love everything she does. There are a lot of things that happened on "Dynamite" this week that we're not going to cover, mainly because some stuff seemed WAY more important than other stuff, but also because covering everything comprehensively is what our live results page is for.

But which segments did WINC's writers and editors have actual thoughts and feelings about, and were those thoughts and feelings on the positive side or the negative side of the spectrum? These are the questions we are now here to answer. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 10/18/23 episode of "AEW Dynamite."

Sting's retirement is something that he and Tony Khan have been openly talking about for several months now during interviews, but Wednesday was the night an official date was put on it. Sting addressed the fans and got the time to give a passionate speech about the people who have helped him over the years, from Lex Luger to Ric Flair, before confirming that AEW Revolution 2024 will be his final match.

While that PPV is still a while away, it was a great decision by AEW to have Sting come out and make that announcement. Rather than holding it back and dropping it in randomly at the last minute, the fact Sting has pre-announced his retirement means there is plenty of time to build the hype and give fans several more major moments with him in the run-up to the match. Of course, Sting is still going to be working sparingly when it comes to official matches, but fans will be able to treasure their final months watching him as an active performer, and the same is true for Sting himself. He will be able to add far more emotion to his performances as that final date nears, and that's something that can open some doors for storytelling devices if used properly.

On top of that, it's a smart move for AEW from a business perspective. The company can advertise Sting locally at different venues as the last time people will get to see him in certain arenas, which will no doubt aid in ticket sales for those who are long-time fans of his work.

WWE Hall of Famer Sting's return to the ring was treated as a monumental moment for AEW. For many, it was the moment AEW arrived as a serious wrestling promotion. Sting is a link to wrestling's long non-WWE history, after all, and his signing was nothing short of a coup for the young promotion.

That's why it was so disheartening to see the announcement of Sting's retirement match slotted between a Kenny Omega/Kyle Fletcher match and a Jerry Springer-esque segment involving Nick Wayne and his mom. It felt weird for Sting to announce that his career was officially out of time, and then just move on to the next thing. Sting's miraculous return to wrestling after suffering a neck injury in 2015 is coming to an end in less than six months, and the announcement was so poorly slotted that Sting had to even show up afterward to break up Wayne and Darby Allin and do a quick Scorpion Deathlock on Christian Cage, further diluting the moment in an intangible but significant way.

AEW didn't even seem interested in using the announcement to promote properly. Sting will retire at AEW Revolution 2024. Where will that match take place? No one knows. When will it take place? No one knows. AEW Revolution 2024 is an abstraction, as is Sting's retirement itself, and the lack of concrete details gave a wishy-washy, non-committal vibe to the moment, completely undercutting Sting's main point about this second retirement being permanent after saying "nothing is for certain" the first time. Sting seemed confused about the fact that he was making the announcement in suburban Houston, in front of what he called a "mixed crowd,' the legend seemingly regretting that he was making such a vague announcement in front of a confrontational audience.

The bungling of such an important announcement is a troubling symptom of one of AEW's chief problems. The company is great at debuts, or the beginnings of things in general, but when it comes to saying goodbye, they can often be clumsy. AEW had been anything but clumsy with Sting, however — until now.

I've talked as much smack as anyone about the fact that AEW has totally failed in its handling of Wardlow over the past year and change, but I have to be honest — now that he's back, I kind of just wish he'd go away again.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm theoretically into the idea of Wardlow as an extremely no-nonsense murderer who comes to the ring for 10-second squash matches and then just leaves, but if you're going to go basic in concept, you have to be flawless in execution. This ... was not that. The fact that Ryan Nemeth took one (1) powerbomb, sold it like his entire brain had been knocked into the fifth row, and lost by referee decision is just extremely stupid. Nemeth might be a jobber, but he's been part of AEW for three years now. I've seen him wrestle, a lot. Do I mind him getting squashed? No. Am I going to sit here and believe that a normal-ass powerbomb was enough to convince the ref to stop the match in a promotion that appears to have a weekly Canadian Destroyer quota to hit? Also very much no. If you don't want Wardlow doing the entire Powerbomb Symphony to the guy, fine, but why not just give him another finisher? One that he only needs to hit once, and maybe looks like it would do enough damage in one hit to cause a ref stoppage? Wouldn't that be a logical part of the Wardlow Rebuilding Project that is presumably in the works here? It makes more sense than asking me to buy the idea that a tenured professional wrestler has the referee calling for the bell after a powerbomb at the very beginning of a match.

And then there's the stuff about Wardlow having MJF written on his wrist tape, which ... you know what? I'll talk about that later.

Okay, hear me out on this one because I know it definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea.

Jay White is worthy of being in the AEW World Championship picture without a doubt, and I am glad to see him finally get a shot at Full Gear for the big one. That being said, the current ongoing storyline between White and MJF is something that I feel like I've seen a million times before: champion's title gets stolen, challenger and his friends keep getting the better of the champion week after week, champion comes out on top at the pay-per-view. Things just feel a little bit too predictable to me, and knowing how things will likely end has honestly taken some of my enjoyment out of watching how they play out. 

Enter Max Caster.

Like virtually anybody else, I can confidently say that the last thing I expected to see in this storyline was Caster bringing his social media infatuation with MJF onto television. Yes, this storyline has also been done before, but I can't recall ever seeing it done in this way. I think it brings an interesting change of pace to the title picture and is certainly attention-grabbing. And hey, if it leads to a partnership between The Acclaimed and MJF, I would not complain about that — they're two of my favorite acts on the AEW roster.

While AEW might be trying its best to distance Adam Copeland from his former name of Edge, the company is having no problem in leaning into all other aspects of his previous WWE gimmick, whether it's his music, his former tag team partner, or the "Rated-R Superstar" nickname, and that included hyping up his "rebuttal" to Christian Cage on Wednesday's show as being R-rated.

Of course, AEW isn't a PG show like WWE, and the talent can play a little more loosely with certain things, which led to some excitement about what Copeland might say or do. However, his segment ended up being incredibly flat, feeling like something straight out of Vince McMahon's creative as he talked in circles, harkening back to something he used to do as The Judgment Day's leader. Rather than showing some venom towards his former partner, Copeland went down the route that he would never fight Christian because of their friendship and family connections, which is a rather dull angle. It's the softball route, and considering AEW had been hyping this up to be an R-rated moment, this segment fell short of the mark as Copeland rambled.

While this is obviously a long-game type of storyline, which both Copeland and Cage tend to be successful in, AEW is going to have to do a stronger job of building it. While not every segment can be a blockbuster moment, it's important to not have too many that are slowly trudging over the line such as this one, especially when it was promised to be explosive and exciting, with audiences anticipating a fired-up Copeland, not someone sitting and shooting the breeze with Renee Paquette.

Like many wrestling fans, I was extremely into the MJF/Adam Cole thing heading into All In, and basically right up until Cole got injured and had to get surgery. As of late, though, their material hasn't been landing with me very often. I'm officially tired of the Cole/Roderick Strong/Kingdom vignettes that have being going on way too long at this point, the Max Caster stuff is just weird to me, the MJF/Jay White feud features the "heel steals the title belt" trope I've almost never enjoyed, and I have all kinds of conflicted feelings about Juice Robinson maybe sort of doing an antisemitism last week. Beyond that, I don't understand why MJF suddenly has so many storyline rivals at the same time. White is his Full Gear opponent, but obviously Juice is his most immediate opponent, and Samoa Joe claims it's not over between them, and suddenly MJF is whispering "13 days, b****" in Kenny Omega's ear, and even Wardlow is targeting him. Wardlow, the guy who just recently came back and should maybe get some more squash matches under his belt before he's coming after the world champion.

All of this is to say that, despite all of the above and despite not really caring that much about the main event battle royal and its extremely obvious winner, I did really enjoy MJF on commentary during said battle royal. He's a natural in the booth — he sounds like he could take over announcing duties tomorrow if he felt like it — and hammering the talking point that he's not your typical dumb babyface who will attack four guys on his own and get beaten up for his trouble worked for me. I also think AEW did a reasonably graceful job of backing away from the roll of quarters angle that got so much negative attention last week and replacing it with a cubic zirconia ring Robinson got from TJ Maxx — although it's still a bad look that Tony Khan chose to quietly scrub the explicitly Jewish stuff from the storyline without publicly addressing the controversy in any way.

However, if there was one thing I loved in this episode more than anything else, it's MJF coming down to the ring in the middle of the battle royal, getting up on the apron, and handing Dustin Rhodes an envelope of money in exchange for Rhodes delivering the infamous Shattered Dreams to Robinson, which he immediately proceeded to do (and which "Rock Hard" sold to perfection). Just absolute chef kiss levels of amazing, right there. Screw all this other stuff, this is the kind "I'm your scumbag!" babyface I want MJF to be — the kind who uses his money and mild aversion to morality to give hilarious comeuppance to people who are even worse than him. Instead of making MJF a hate crime victim, make him the guy who can out-bully the bullies. Build the entire plane out of that, Tony; I think it'll fly if you do.