AEW Dynamite 250: Will Ospreay title match with MJF delivers black eye to WWE programming?

Patrik Walker

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AEW Dynamite 250: Will Ospreay title match with MJF delivers black eye to WWE programming? image

Are you sh-tting me? No, seriously, did that actually happen on Wednesday evening at AEW Dynamite 250 — Will Ospreay and Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF to you, commoner) went to war for the AEW Intercontinental Championship in a match that lasted long enough to see children born and then graduate high school.

Ospreay wound up losing the belt in the process.

All jokes aside though, the marathon of a match extended to a total run time of just under 60 minutes (!!) of action and in a NON-PLE match, no less. 

LOOK: SOCIAL MEDIA GOES CRAZY OVER AEW TITLE MATCH

In a three-hour show on the latest episode of WWE RAW, there was a total of 49 minutes of actual wrestling/action, with the remainder being used to further storylines on the road to Summerslam. And though the non-wrestling segments were both entertaining and mostly justified (e.g., the return of Rhea Ripley, the Wyatt Sicks 6 plans), it’s impossible to ignore the chasm between the two shows this week.

As such, the question of if RAW needs to be three hours long is made louder, and only Netflix will be able to answer it when January 2025 rolls around. 

LOOK: GRADING EACH MATCH FROM AEW DYNAMITE 250

At Dynamite 250, the Ospreay versus MJF bout oscillated between in-ring brutality to in-crowd beatdowns and they even threw in several legendary finishers from all promotions that were used as transition moves — not to mention the number of counter moves that conjured visions of Cirque du Soleil. 

Bonkers, yeah, totally nuts.

If you think I’m exaggerating, take a look at a little girl pounding away on MJF in the crowd as he gets chopped to death by Ospreay, MJF then giving the child the middle finger while still getting his ass kicked in that moment. 

It was anarchy of the highest order. 

There are plenty who will argue the differences in the product between the two promotions and, for the most part, both sides will offer up valid debate but this isn’t a conversation about quality of product after seeing what AEW did at Dynamite 250. It’s about wondering if jamming more than an hour, and sometimes nearly 90 minutes, of advertising that cuts away from in-ring action is overkill. 

Maybe more integration is simply necessary. 

The WWE has done well at times in using picture in picture, and maybe the solution is to always do PIP during matches to both shorten the run time to roughly the same two hours as NXT and SmackDown — two programs that still excel in their own right and time slot — as opposed to leaning so much toward sponsors.

It’s definitely something to think about as the Netflix era begins, and seeing as that’s a premium streaming service and not a cable network wholly handcuffed to advertisers, maybe the issue will be fixed organically.

Then again, even Peacock has commercials during WWE PLE’s, so who knows?

Patrik Walker

Patrik Walker Photo

Patrik [No C] Walker is an accredited, award-winning journalist and podcaster who has worked to become one of the most respected and recognizable forces covering the Dallas Cowboys. Having never lost his lifelong passion for the wrestling, the one-of-a-kind analyst is using his talents to complete a journey that began as a rambunctious kid wearing a championship belt fashioned from cardboard and aluminum foil, to the ranks of covering an industry that's had his heart pinned to the mat for decades now. Follow him on Twitter/X: VoiceOfTheStar.