By Coach B

I went with Jack Perry vs. Zack Sabre Jr. on AEW Dynamite, July 1, 2026, because I wanted something current that didn’t already have an internet discourse cloud hovering over it like a gas leak.

Jack Perry comes to the ring as a babyface and does not look thrilled to be there. I’m not asking him to skip down the ramp throwing candy like it’s the homecoming parade. There is a difference between “serious competitor” and “man who looks more pissed than tough.” Maybe that’s the character. Right away he gives off the energy of someone doing his job, which, to be fair, ends up making sense.

Then Zack Sabre Jr. comes out, and his tights say TMDK.

I watch a fair amount of AEW. I’m not in denial about it. Nobody is kicking down my door demanding I explain the Continental Classic. If they do, I’m going out the window.

I had to look up TMDK because otherwise it was going to drive me nuts. It means “The Mighty Don’t Kneel,” from some international faction situation I am not going to make fun of, because I am an ignorant American and they are probably great.

Back to the match.

I love that AEW does picture-in-picture during commercials on Dynamite. Small thing. It matters. You watch WWE Raw on Netflix, an app you are already paying for, and somehow you are still sitting through three-and-a-half-minute commercial breaks like a sucker.

Shout out to Tony Khan. Seems like a good dude. Has to be exhausted. I assume he uses one of those sensory deprivation tanks where 30 minutes equals four hours of sleep. It’s probably nonsense and eventually grows you a tail. Still. Good guy.

As for the match: this was pretty good.

I haven’t watched a ton of Zack Sabre Jr. His style is physical, patient, and weird in a way that feels useful instead of performative. He takes his time. He works holds like he is not just standing around waiting for the next big sequence. That should not feel rare. Here we are.

Credit to Jack Perry. He sells his ass off. Sabre spends a lot of the match on the arm and wrist, and Perry actually keeps selling it. He grabs at it. He protects it. Even when he is doing modern wrestling stuff, he remembers the arm exists.

Again, this should not feel like the Rosetta Stone. Apparently “my arm hurts because a man hurt my arm” is where we are planting the flag.

Perry also hits a baseball slide under the bottom rope instead of the mandatory dive through the ropes that every human being in every match in every promotion is now legally required to attempt. Small. Subtle. Works.

Same thought, completely unprompted: more atomic drops. Not that anyone did one here. The atomic drop could still be a perfectly decent move if anyone ever sold it like it hurts. Which it should. Jim Cornette called it the “ass bump,” and that should be the legal name going forward.

Do I agree with everything the man says about modern wrestling, especially AEW? No. Sometimes the old man yelling at clouds is yelling at the correct cloud.

This match had flips. Perry did a full flip from the top rope to the outside, because it is still 2026 and every match apparently needs at least one moment where a man briefly becomes luggage. Even then, he kept selling the arm.

Is that a huge departure from old wrestling logic? Sure. Is that automatically bad? I don’t think so. This was still physical, still connected, and still built around something real. The movement had a point. The damage carried over. Nobody shook off a shoulder injury because the next GIF was ready.

Sabre’s submissions looked filthy. At one point he had Perry’s shoulder pulled back in a way that made me physically uncomfortable. As someone who has torn his labrum more than once: fucking ouch. My own shoulder started filing paperwork.

I am not against modern wrestling doing modern wrestling things. I am not demanding everyone work a Memphis studio match in 2026, though if someone wants to try, where do I send the check?

By the end, Sabre was mocking Perry while Perry was laid out on the outside. That helped. He worked like a heel. Perry worked underneath. The arm mattered. The selling mattered. The match had modern movement, but it did not feel like athletic punctuation with no sentence attached.

Final Rating: 6.5/10

Good match. Physical, smart, and surprisingly grounded for something that still had a man flipping through space. I liked this more than I expected to.