AEW promises not to lose focus on wrestling in new era

During this week’s broadcast of Dynamite, commentary mentioned it being a new era for AEW. The remark was a bit vague and had fans wondering what was being referenced specifically.

It could have been referring to new champions. Jon Moxley was fresh on his third reign as AEW world champion, Chris Jericho won the Ocho when dethroning Claudio Castagnoli as ROH world champion, and The Acclaimed scissored all night long in honor of winning the AEW tag titles.

There was also a shift in format for the episode with several long-form live promo segments. The Jericho Appreciation Society celebrated their success, Wheeler Yuta called out MJF, and Saraya told the world that AEW is her house. Fan reaction for those three segments varied widely from super entertaining to terribly boring. More importantly, it had fans wondering if the new era comment referred to a heavier focus on these types of promo segments.

For fans of AEW’s product inside the ropes, rest assured that AEW will not lose focus on wrestling. Tony Khan stated as much. He pointed out that this episode was the first show with three lengthy live promos since December 9, 2020. Khan declared that both instances required the segments to address important story news to follow up on supercards.

In my opinion, Khan’s not wrong in his assessment. All three promos helped advance future directions. The JAS angle directly set up next week’s tag bout between Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara and Bryan Danielson & Daniel Garcia. It also set the mood for Jericho’s wild rage toward destroying ROH’s honor and also challenging Danielson to a title defense on October 12 in Toronto, Canada. Yuta and MJF picked up on their business from last week when MJF shoved beloved Tony Schiavone. That verbal exchange set up a singles bout for next week. Saraya debuted last week without speaking on the mic, so of course the world wanted to hear what she had to say. That segment also added a lumberjack stipulation to Toni Storm’s successful title defense against Serena Deeb and planted the seeds for forming a women’s trios bout for Dynamite.

It appears that Khan will be living up to his word very quickly. Next week’s episode of Dynamite looks back to form for the usual bing, bang, boom style. Six matches are already booked, and the lone live promo segment listed is for National Scissoring Day.

Sounds good to me. Does it sound good to you? Which style of program do you prefer for AEW broadcasts?