The other Blind Eliminator match was somewhat less enjoyable, not because it was bad, but because we didn’t really care about either of the stories it involved. The primary one was the apparent division between Sammy Guevara and Daniel Garcia. Ironically, despite their existing alliance under the auspices of Chris Jericho, this team feels much closer to breaking up than Cole and MJF, but whatever the endgame is here is lacking a lot of connective tissue. The brief story involving Guevara being Garcia’s mentor or whatever never really went anywhere, Garcia has pretty much been dead in the water as a character since his storyline with Bryan Danielson crash-landed — no, a hip-thrust dance doesn’t count — and we simply can’t imagine why AEW would think it’s a good idea to try turning Guevara face again, which they’re clearly doing. Just a lot of weird decisions on display here, and not much to keep us invested in the outcome.

Beyond that, Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin losing because Swerve Strickland got involved and hit Allin with the Last Call behind the referee’s back is some ass-backwards storytelling that relies on viewers knowing waaaaaaaay more about the Pacific Northwest independent scene than is at all reasonable. There was a way to do this that would have actually made sense, educating viewers about the previous history between Strickland, Allin, and newcomer Nick Wayne, and using that history to set up matches and feuds. The way it as actually done makes everything feel like a jumbled mish-mash to anyone who is less than extremely plugged in. It’s a little disappointing. AEW can appeal to the hardest of the hardcores all they want; the rest of us are still wondering if they’re ever running Strickland vs. Keith Lee.

Oh, and speaking of disappointing…