A TV Special from AEW

It’s been about four months since the last Battle of the Belts special from All Elite Wrestling, so it was fun to see a bonus hour of solid wrestling this week. If you missed it back in January, the concept behind this show is that Warner Media has decided to produce four quarterly television specials for TNT that are AEW’s answer to WCW’s Clash of the Champions. The last show was plagued by Covid-19 absences, and it honestly seemed like parts of it were thrown together at the last second, so seeing this come out as intended was great. The big draws for me are The ROH match and The main event featuring Thunder Rosa vs Nyla Rose.

The Card:

• 1 Sammy Guevara (with Tay Conti) defeated Scorpio Sky (c) (with Dan Lambert and Ethan Page) by pinfall Singles match for the AEW TNT Championship 12:45
• 2 Jonathan Gresham (c) defeated Dalton Castle by submission Singles match for the ROH World Championship 10:35
• 3 Thunder Rosa (c) defeated Nyla Rose by pinfall Singles match for the AEW Women’s World Championship 14:10

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything resembling the typical ratings people give in wrestling reviews. I usually go through the show and pull a few things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!

Heel Turn?

Sammy Guevara has been having a heated feud with Dan Lambert’s American Top Team guys and especially Scorpio Sky. Sky has been touting an incredible streak where he has yet to lose a match, so seeing Sammy resort to cheating to pull out the win and reclaim the belt was somewhat shocking. Perhaps he’s on the edge of a heel turn? I’m actually not a fan of this unless they keep the feud going, as Sky really didn’t get much of a run with the TNT Title and Sammy has had it multiple times now. I will wait and see where this goes.

The Boys Are Back!

Not only was it cool to see Dalton Castle in AEW, but seeing his former longtime valets “The Boys” back was cool. For a while, Castle has has a weird successor to them called “the Chicks” which appear too be a new version of his boys in training, but seeing the real deal was great.

Look at the Size of This Guy:

I know Jonathan Gresham is five foot four, so Satnam Singh looks absolutely monstrous here. I’m not always a big fan of huge wrestlers like this, but Singh at least seems mobile (unlike Khali or Giant Gonzalez) so we shall see.

Cool New Look:

Nyla Rose rocking a new hairstyle and look as well as an almost Awesome Kong-like attitude in her match against Rosa. I like it!

Hard Fought Win:

While not an amazing match, Rosa’s match against Rose was a hard fought victory and cements her place as the AEW Women’s champion. With Nyla being so physically imposing, it forced Rosa to go more far more high-flying attacks which was very cool to see. I enjoyed this match, and it was at least pay-per-view quality. It will be interesting to see if this feud continues into the next Pay-Per-View or if a new contender pops up.

Conclusion:

This was FAR better than Battle of the Belts I in just about every way. The show had three legitimate championship matches, a few surprises and a debut – pretty much all you need for an exciting AEW episode. However, with it being one hour long, it leaves you wanting more -especially with how many commercial breaks TNT packs their shows with. I enjoyed this, and it helped make a fairly solid weekend that much better.

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