All In just finished. It's 2am here and I've had a few drinks but let me get this off my chest.
I'm glad AEW exists, but it is much closer to WWE than it is NJPW and that shone through in Kenny vs Okada.
It was always going to struggle to hit the heights of their previous matches. Time is a bastard and Kenny's been through a lot but we know from his two matches back in Japan that he can still kill it.
But AEW's style, especially its adherence to face/heel dynamics, just did not allow these guys to shine. The final 5 minutes was pretty great, but most of the match was slow, bizzaro-world stuff as an NJPW fan.
I keep getting pulled into AEW because a lot of my favourite guys are there, and some matches (Bucks vs Ospreay/Swerve) can still deliver what I like. But unfortunately most of Kenny-Okada was far too much of the US style, with the heel on top and being slow, methodical, and lacking a more technical feel, than NJPW stuff.
I should know by now. But maybe I'll never learn.
by UKSaint93