I want to take a break from the 90s WWE content for at least a little while here, and get back to watching some AEW stuff. I left off at Fight for the Fallen 2019, where this fledgling company has set it's sights on the biggest stage yet: All Out. Today, I start with The Buy In, where the women get the chance to compete in their very own Casino Battle Royale, and Private Party get another opportunity to steal the show.
- We're live from the Sears Centre, just outside Chicago, Illinois, for AEW's fourth Buy In. Excalibur and Esports caster Alex "Goldenboy" Mendez are on the call.
- The first of two contests in this hour is the first women's Casino Battle Royale, which would grant the winner a chance to become AEW's inaugural women's champion on the debut episode of Dynamite in October. In case you've forgotten, the rules of this match are as follows: 21 wrestlers draw from a deck of cards, with 5 wrestlers sorted into each of the 4 suits. The wrestlers then enter as a group of 5; in this case, the Clubs start, followed by the Diamonds, Spades, and Hearts. Finally, whomever drew the Joker card gets the golden opportunity to enter last, a tremendous advantage that "Hangman" Page used to earn his AEW Championship match. The story of this match is centered around Nyla Rose, who opens by tossing out the other 4 women in her group, and lasts all the way to the end. Along the way, there are some highlights, like the surprise appearance of Tenille Dashwood, the return of Bea Priestley and her continued feud with Britt Baker, plus a fun showdown between Jazz, ODB, Nyla, and Awesome Kong. However, while I appreciate that AEW tried to give their developing women's division a bit of a showcase, this match only demonstrated how far the division is behind everything else in the company. This was a mess for the most part, with a lot of sloppy wrestling and a very slow pace, especially by AEW standards. The production team still haven't figured out how to properly portray this type of match, missing a few eliminations and struggling to keep up with where everyone even is. I will say, this did at least pick up in the closing stretch, especially after Mercedes Martinez shocks the crowd as the "Joker". Martinez brings the kind of intensity this match desperately needed, and delivered the biggest highlight of the contest with a Saito Suplex on Rose. The Baker-Priestley war results in Rose picking up the win, as Britt is eliminated while Bea is holding her arm, the old Hogan/Sid/Flair finish. Giving Nyla the win was the obvious choice, and we'll see who her opponent for Dynamite will be when Riho and Hikaru Shida face off on the main card.
- Buy In main event time, as Private Party take on Angelico and Jack Evans. These two teams have already got a couple standout matches in AEW under their belts, and they put on another entertaining spotfest here. After Marq Quen starred on the Fyter Fest Buy In, it's Isaiah Kassidy's turn to show off his arsenal, turning a backdrop to the outside into a hurricanrana to the floor, before later hitting a smooth moonsault to the floor (complete with Tranquilo pose), and punctuating his big night with a sick DDT out of their combined "Silly String" move on the ropes. Private Party are just so good, born entertainers who have the crowd on their feet throughout, and you can clearly tell that these two men could make AEW some serious money in the future if they're handled properly. Angelico and Evans do mount a brief comeback, but ultimately fall to the Gin and Juice, which infuriates the two veterans, who get some cheap shots in on Quen and Kassidy after the bell.
5/10
Since the first iteration at Double or Nothing, these Buy In events have seriously lacked in stakes, which AEW tried to fix by tacking on the women's Battle Royale. Unfortunately, the company just didn't have enough talent to make that match work, and as a result, this was a fairly muted prelude to All Out. The tag match was fun but nothing special, and the final 10 minutes were just filled by Jim Ross joining the announce team to talk about the main card, which offered nothing of substance for this show.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: All Out 2019, where Chris Jericho and Adam Page face off to determine the first AEW champion. Plus, the Young Bucks and the Lucha Brothers raise the stakes in a ladder match. See you soon.
- Henry
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