The historic first episode of AEW: Dynamite has come and gone and they were very impressive. I was interested to see what the production would look like and the presentation of the product. I was really impressed with what they put together on Wednesday, but the thing moving forward for AEW is if they can keep up the momentum. Wednesday felt like a PPV quality show, but I’m not expecting that moving forward. I could be wrong, but it would be awesome if they can put on a weekly show of similar quality. The performers were good, but I think the weekly grind will make them great. By saying that, I mean that a lot of these wrestlers aren’t really known on a worldwide level. TNT is a great platform to showcase the talent and with AEW going head-to-head with NXT, the product should be very solid. It’s a great time to be a wrestling fan. I wanted to do something for the AEW show, but for the moment, I don’t want to combine them with the WWE/NXT Power Rankings. The reason being, is that the product is in a different place at the moment. AEW has only crowned two champions and it is just beginning, so I didn’t want to compare the two companies at the moment. If and when AEW becomes more established, I possibly will combine the two, but for now, I will separate them and since the rosters aren’t as big at AEW, I will only do a Top 5 ranking for now. With that being said, here are the Inaugural AEW Power Rankings on The Sports Chief.

- 5: Cody, The Young Bucks, Brandi Rhodes, and Kenny Omega

Although they had a rather decent part in the show, I wanted to give them credit regardless of how they were used on Wednesday night. Cody was in the opening match of the show and picked up a win against Sammy Guevara. Cody made Guevara look great in the contest. The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega also teamed up in the main event, but lost to the team of Chris Jericho, Ortiz and Santana. The reason they are all ranked is because they all had a part in this whole thing. They are the initiators and creators of this hype and it lived up to every bit of it. Congrats to these people!!

- 4: MJF

I was going to hold off on ranking MJF this week, but he was involved in the show and won the match following the Rhodes/Guevara bout. MJF showcased his mic skills and showed that he is going to be a top heel moving forward. He defeated Brandon Cutler, but the match was honestly the low point of the show. However, it isn’t meant to be a slight, because it was a great show. The point of the match was to present MJF to a national audience and it was successful.

- 3: Jake Hager

Formerly known as Jack Swagger, Hager made a huge impact on Wednesday night. After the main event was over, Hager ran into the ring and attacked Cody and Dustin Rhodes. This was a shock to a lot of the fans and having someone like Hager added to the roster helps a great deal. While in WWE, Hager was a World Champ and was a great performer. I don’t know exactly how much he will be featured, but expect his presence to be meaningful. I think he will have a workload similar to Brock Lesnar, but I guess we will find out. I’m excited to see what happens with Hager.

- 2: PAC

It is no secret that AEW is going to be pretty strict regarding win-loss records and that is something that will be interesting to unfold. When I first saw the records of each wrestlers in their introductions, I thought I was really cool, because it is something that hasn’t really been done before in wrestling. With that being said, PAC is a tremendous talent and he picked up a big win against Hangman Page. It clearly looks like they are going to put PAC in the title picture pretty soon and I think that is the right move. After Full Gear, I think PAC will be one of the first in line to take on the champ.

- 1: Riho

I totally did not expect her to win, but Riho is the first AEW Women’s Champ. This match was very solid and their totally different styles worked well. Nyla Rose looks like she will get another opportunity pretty soon, but I think Britt Baker will be the Riho’s first defense. Riho gets the first number one in the AEW Power Rankings and it looks like she could maintain her Top 5 status for a little while.

Yacs

AEW Power Rankings: Week of October 4th