Bald Justice | AEWeekly #207

Welcome to the #AEWeekly review discussion where PWM contributors reflect on the highlights of the last week in AEW. The eligibility week always includes the most recent episode of Dynamite and Collision, plus any social-media exclusives up until publication.

This week’s contributors are Abel [@loza3.bsky.social] covering Match of the Week, Lauren [@sithwitch.bsky.social] exploring a key Story Beat, Emiliana [@emilianartb.bsky.social] giving us the MVP of the Week, and Sergei [@sergeialderman.bsky.social] with a few words on Moment as well as editing and organizing it all.

 A page of links to prior installments may be found here: #AEWeekly

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Kyle Fletcher vs Tomasso Ciampa

"For the Love of the Game..."

by Abel.

What if I told you that the best match of the week did NOT come from a stacked AEW Grand Slam: Australia, but instead, came from the Dynamite three days prior? Well, you'd better have agreed, because Tommaso Ciampa vs Kyle Fletcher for the TNT Championship was the match of the week, and might be the TV match of the year when it's all said and done. This match has been teased since Ciampa initially won the title, and it did not disappoint. Ciampa and Fletcher both have proved that they are measuring sticks within the men’s division. The bar has officially been set for matches for the rest of the year.

​The atmosphere before the match was palpable and intoxicating. The crowd made this feel like a big-time match, and their excitement and electricity could power Ontario, California, for a year. All this comes from the work Ciampa and Fletcher have done to reinvigorate the prestige of the TNT title. Fletcher yearns for the title. Needs it like he needs oxygen. Ciampa saw the title as a lifesaver, the savior of his love for professional wrestling. All that character work and storytelling come across in the ring – the grit, the effort, and no punches looked to be pulled. When distilled to its simplest form, wrestling is about the thrill of winning and the agony of defeat; when both men show why they care so much, winning and losing mean so much more.

Fletcher and Ciampa share a chaotic in-ring energy, making them perfect wrestling partners. They are willing to give it all for the love of the game. They will allow their opponent – better yet, their dance partner – to get away with a stiffer punch, slap, and kick. The repetitive counter / near-fall sequences in matches CAN get old and stale if not done right. That is not the case for Ciampa and Fletcher. Each time they went for a cover, I legitimately believed that was the end of the match. The look that both men gave after the Brainbuster is an all-time visual. Neither man could believe they kicked out – fantastic in-ring storytelling. Ultimately, Fletcher hit one more Brainbuster than Ciampa could take, regaining his TNT title.

Honestly, I would have saved this match for Grand Slam: Australia. Not to say that Briscoe vs Fletcher VII wasn't good – because it was – however, there was just something special about this match that deserved a bigger platform. I expect, and hope, that this will NOT be their only match against each other. Their chemistry is too good only to have a one-off. I don't know if they need to go in a pseudo-best-of-seven, but two or three spread out over a couple of years would be nice.

What AEW did for Tommaso Ciampa in a matter of two weeks should be studied in Supreme Booking 101. Not only did Tony Khan and creative resurrect Ciampa’s career, but they made him a legitimate threat to the rest of the roster – even in a loss. You can see it in the Psycho Killer’s eyes and the way he wrestles. Hopefully, this isn't the end of this push, and even if he never wins another title, Ciampa has earned the right to be in the big picture.

Fletcher has been the perfect representative for the TNT Championship. His charisma and ability to appeal to a larger fanbase can make the “TV” title seem like the second-best belt in AEW. He can put on matches like this every week against anyone in the world. The argument could be made that the TNT title needs him more than the other way around. There is legitimate excitement with this title once again. 

Wheeler Yuta

"Bald! Bald! Bald!"

by Lauren.

Wheeler Yuta has joined the bald side.

Ever since he betrayed Bryan Danielson in 2024, Yuta has been growing his hair out. Between his appearance and appropriating his former mentor’s catchphrases and moves, it feels as though he has been trying to become Bryan Danielson.

One of his other former mentors, Orange Cassidy, has been clashing with Yuta since 2022, when Yuta betrayed his first mentors by abandoning the Best Friends and joining the Blackpool Combat Club. When the BCC became the Death Riders, the animosity only increased. Toni Storm was drawn into their feud due to Marina Shafir's repeated assaults on Toni's kayfabe wife Mina Shirakawa, with both teams continuing to clash until finally Orange insulted Yuta's hair. Toni took the opportunity to call for a hair versus hair match, where whoever was pinned would have their head shaved in the ring.

A few days before, Marina and Yuta attacked Mina, cutting a chunk of her hair, and he arrived at Grand Slam Australia with her pink hair braided into his own as a trophy. This only served to fuel Toni's wrath, and she pinned Yuta in revenge.

As Mina, Orange, Toni, and Toni's butler Luther set up a barbershop station in the middle of the ring, Yuta argued with the referee. Finally, he jumped out of the ring, trying to escape through the jeering crowd. But Jon Moxley, the leader of the Death Riders (and a bald man himself) stopped him. After an animated argument, Yuta returned to the ring, shepherded by Mox.

Marina, ever the steadfast enforcer of the Death Riders, grabbed Yuta's hand as both support and to keep him in place. Mox stood by, eventually turning away in anger and disappointment. And Mina took the first cut, gleefully telling Yuta that it was his turn. Toni took her turn with the scissors, and then it was Orange's turn. “Sorry, buddy,” he told Yuta.

“No, you're not,” Yuta snapped.

With his hair left in chunks, looking on as Toni rolled gleefully in the hair left in the ring, Yuta looked on the verge of tears. Mox collected him, patting him on the back. And for the house show the next night, Yuta wrestled in a beanie, unwilling to show his shame to the world.

Yuta's hair has been a symbol of his attempting to replace the man he betrayed. He has been able to hide behind its curtain. It was inevitable that it had to go sometime, and so many fans had hoped it would be in this way: publicly, a penance for the years of betrayals. Now he has nothing to hide behind. And worse, Mox was witness to both his humiliation and his attempt at escaping the consequences of his actions. Mox has been many things, but he has rarely been a coward, and he has never flinched from punishment.

With his former identity literally stripped away, it may be time for Yuta to forge a new one. Maybe he'll learn from this and take direction from Mox and Claudio – both bald and fearless. Or maybe he'll nurse this resentment as he did against Chuck Taylor, Orange, and Bryan. Their disappointment, their lack of ambition, and their weakness all simmered until he struck against them. After all, what's one more mentor among so many others?

Hangman blocks the Nutshot

"Smartest Babyface Ever..."

by Sergei.

This choice is very likely showing some Hangman bias… the biggest crowd-pleasing moment of the week was surely Jon Moxley's shaggy dog finally getting his long-delayed grooming. And the most viral moment was that lockout shock from Fletcher and Ciampa. That's a meme that will last. But the other writers have that stuff covered. And the biggest "fuck yeah!" for me, personally? Hangman blocking Andrade's kick to the nuts and then hoisting the Callis family by their petard by returning the favor while the ref was still distracted by Big Don.

And I don't mean because I was super invested in Hangman getting the title shot or in Andrade and Don getting their comeuppance, although that's cool too. I mean because it was a great example of Hangman Adam Page being the smartest babyface in pro wrestling history.

I've ranted about this before, but all too often when writing an angle to put heat on a heel in pro wrestling, the writers feel they have to give the Idiot Ball to the honorable babyface. (Eddie-Guerrero-style sneaky babyfaces are a different matter.) But in order for heels to get heat, they often need to do something dastardly to win. And for max heat, it should be something the audience can anticipate – there's more heat when something takes time to build than something out of the blue. But that leaves us with the shower-thought "if I can see it coming, why doesn't the good guy?"

And this is where we get the "lovable, honorable moron" babyface who always trusts the untrustworthy and falls for every trick. But Hangman has been the exception for a long time, ever since he fell for FTR's manipulations WAY back in the early days of AEW, and decided to learn from his mistakes – soon after that, turning "Money" Matt Hardy's contract tricks back against him. Seeing this aspect of Hangman Adam Page's characterization in dynamic action was MY favorite Moment for this week, anyhow...

Wheeler Yuta

"MJF, You WISH You Were This Great Of A Heel..."

by Emiliana.

I have often found myself these past couple years going to AEW live only to be caught in a sea of unrelenting Wheeler Yuta haters against my will. I have truly never understood what exactly he did to deserve chants of “Fuck You, Yuta” almost religiously, without fail, at every one of his appearances. After all, it’s not like he was the one who hit the initial uppercut blow to Bryan Danielson, or the one who pulled a plastic bag over Danielson’s head. All he did, in the aftermath, was choose to stay. And perhaps that’s the most damning choice of all, isn’t it? To have a choice and choose loyalty to a band of outlaws rather than to do what is right. To choose brotherhood over human decency. It is not something we will ever really understand until we ourselves are forced into making that choice.

But enough of that. I’m here to tell you why my loyalty to this little scumbag despite all his nonsense played into the moments that unfolded this week in the world of AEW. Because I never bought into that rubbish. I loved Yuta from the moment I saw him get choked out by Kris Statlander on BTE, and I loved him even more when I saw him go toe-to-toe with Moxley like 3 or 4 times in the span of a few months, and my heart grew about eight million sizes when he fought Hangman and got twisted into a pretzel. No amount of “Fuck You, Yuta” chants or years of growing out his mane of black hair could have deterred me from loving him (joke’s on y’all, I’m into that shit).

Until he fucked with Mina Shirakawa.

Mina, who had only in the past week debuted her fresh bisexual-colored dye job in a stunning return to the ring. Mina, Toni’s banging hot wife (yes, Excalibur, her wife, if I catch you “as she calls her”-ing the lesbians again I will have a talk with my lawyers). Mina, with live show charisma for days and fun dance moves that no one would ever think of hurting. THAT MINA!

After YEARS of defending this guy, YEARS of refusing to buy into the heel act, he finally got me. He finally made me pray for his downfall. Of all the moments building up to this totally strange mixed tag match, what got me to accept his fate as a skinhead was for him to touch not just one single hair on Mina’s precious freshly colored head, but an entire lock. An ENTIRE lock of that beautiful hair from that wonderful woman’s head.

That’s it. At Grand Slam he loses everything. Way to sell me on the stipulation, Yuta. You are truly the greatest heel worker of all time. The betrayal is worse because I held out for so long. None of you have been impacted by this moment the way that I have.

And lose he did, in an absolute intergender of a mixed tag match, which is easily my favorite match type now since the Mox/Marina vs Swerve/Willow tag from last Spring. If hurting the hairs on Mina’s head wasn’t enough, Yuta made sure to don that lock of bisexual hair to the match in a cute little peekaboo braid in his shaggy dog mane and then proceeded to piledrive Toni through a tech crate in the midst of the Toni faithful, earning quite possibly the loudest boos from the crowd on the night. Later in the match, he would even stop short of saving Marina from an OC cover, doing some incredible facial acting in the midst of shaking his overly long hair out of his face the entire match, just because he would rather see Marina lose than himself. The extremely well-mic’d ring (or perhaps the audio mix was different in Australia) made for some well-caught moments - one of which was Marina telling Yuta not to tap during a double submission attempt of both the men in the ring. The finish of the match was an incredible sequence where Yuta took a crisp Orange Punch (that made me “Hoohoo!” like Tigger) into a devastating looking Storm Zero for the pinfall.

“I’ll shave it off!” You could hear Yuta yelling to the ref as he left the ring after kicking the stool he was meant to sit in for his haircut like a petulant child. And like a petulant child, he would be brought to heel by his father figure, mentor, and cult leader Jon Moxley, who appeared out of the crowd to shove Yuta back into the ring to suffer the consequences of his actions, as all men must do when they don’t come out on top.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” you could hear Orange Cassidy say as he took a turn with the shaver.

“No, you’re not,” Yuta would answer, to which OC replied, “You’re right, I’m not sorry,” with the most devastatingly handsome grin. At some point, Toni would say something along the lines of, “Take that, ya BASTARD!” while taking a swipe at his hair, but it was Mina who got the first cut, as was deserved - and speaking of deserved, the crowd got into it as well, chanting “You deserve it!” It’s not always prizes that are deserved, ya know. Sometimes punishments are, too.

All of this was made even better by the fact that Mox and Marina were in the ring with him, Mox having directed Marina to hold Yuta’s hand as his ONE BEAUTY (to quote Amy March from Little Women) was taken from him. Marina’s dutiful and concerned gaze never left Yuta’s face as his punishment was doled out. Even Luther got a chance to further humiliate the man. And it was at this point that I felt certain, with the looming nature of Mox in the corner, that perhaps what would be the icing on the cake for me in this moment would be if Mox came and took a little turn, too.

But that wasn’t meant to be. After all, a bald man understands this plight. He understands what it means to lose one’s hair. He would grab Yuta and console him after, leading the now freshly groomed puppy dog out of the ring while Toni lay on the ground in her signature fashion, making snow angels in Yuta’s hair. She is a sick woman. I love her to death.

This was such a great moment, made all the better by everything and everyone that went into it. But Wheeler Yuta was the shining star of it all, and I am beyond proud. My only wish is for any number of his other stories with the Death Riders to close with such satisfaction as this one.