It was pretty hard not to enjoy this week’s “Dynamite” main event, since it was a tag team match involving three of AEW’s best wrestlers and also Kazuchika Okada. A little weird to have Okada take a loss in his debut, even though he wasn’t the one pinned, but it’s leading to Orange Cassidy vs. Claudio Castagnoli, so that’s fine. What was really weird was the post-match angle, which involved Bryan Danielson (presumably) selling the combination of an Orange Punch and a Rainmaker by rolling around and clutching his face. This led to the rest of Blackpool Combat Club coming out to check on him, which for some reason led to Best Friends, HOOK, and Rocky Romero coming out and doing … nothing. They all just kind of stood around and stared at each other. Then the show went off the air — a little later than usual, because they got overrun time for this.

To be clear: I’m not against the idea of a BCC vs. CHAOS feud (even though I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t keep up with AEW well enough to know that Chuck Taylor, Cassidy, and Statlander have all technically CHAOS members since 2021, and Rocky Romero is 100% a CHAOS member, and also HOOK is here now, apparently). I just don’t understand what this segment was supposed to accomplish in the service of that feud. If the two sides had all started fighting at the end and had gone off the air mid-brawl, which AEW loves to do, it would have been cliched, but I would have at least understood. Instead, everyone just stands around awkwardly until the audience is sitting there wondering if Danielson is legitimately hurt again. Even commentary seemed confused. Okada is doing these taunting gestures toward Danielson referencing all his injuries, and the other CHAOS members are kind of mildly holding him back, and Wheeler Yuta is over here looking conflicted, which is at least interesting character-wise seeing as he was also made a member of CHAOS back when he ran with Best Friends, but Castagnoli and Jon Moxley are just sort of standing over Bryan or walking in circles, not doing anything, until it’s time to go off the air. It’s bizarre.

I don’t think Okada would be taunting Danielson if the face injury wasn’t part of the storyline, so I have to assume everything here went according to plan. If that’s the case, I would advise a different plan, because “man hurts face” doesn’t count as something actually, you know. Happening.