The War Report - March 17 2021: Blood. Thumbtacks. Ripped Jackets.
NXT vs. AEW: Dynamite - which was the better show this week?
The Whole Damn Show
All talk going into NXT this week centred around their latest Covid-19 outbreak, and how the show would be affected. Fair play to the black and gold though, because the thought didn’t cross my mind while watching the show. The absence of major players was handled carefully, and in a way that made absolute sense, and still the show felt more vital and important than last week’s edition.
That said, I’m still not fully getting absorbed by NXT at the moment. I’m just not a fan of the way they’ve brought the screens into the CWC, it feels flat and fugazi. No knock on the actual content of the show mind you, just a personal observation.
The storylines progressed well, as noted, the match quality was good, we even got Wade Barrett mentioning Ringkampf by name which was nice. So yeah, a good episode this week.
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You have to hand it to AEW, two weeks removed from Revolution and all talk has pretty much shifted away from the exploding barbed wire deathmatch.
This was another strong episode of AEW, even though the in-ring quality on the whole wasn’t as strong as usual. There is just so much going on with AEW at the moment, that I can’t cover it all in this article. You have Omega and Mox. Mox and Eddie against The Good Brothers. The Young Bucks and Omega and The Good Brothers. And Christian Cage. And that’s just the World Title picture… and that’s forgetting that Omega is putting the belt on the line against Rich Swann soon too.
But what AEW achieves in two hours is truly commendable, there is little to no wasted motion. Ok, the Cody Rhodes win was a bit crap, but it served a purpose, and with his paternity leave coming soon this may have been the last time we see him for a while.
And again, that main event. Stone the crows. I’m going to grab a cup of tea and watch it again.
Winner: AEW.
That main event alone was enough to seal it. Even if you aren’t an AEW fan, or necessarily a fan of that match, you have to admit that action of that calibre is enough to tip the odds in AEW's favour this week. Britt Baker looks like a megastar now, while Thunder Rosa could quietly be the most important figure in the entire women’s division… and she’s not even a fully contracted member of the roster.
Don’t get me wrong, NXT was great this week, but I have to pick a winner, and when all is said and done, Dynamite is the show I’ll be returning to this week, should I find the time.
