Brian Pillman Jr. and Griff Garrison got a win! Could it be that they’re actually going to pit some of the regular enhancement talent against each another so that some of them can actually get wins, making it mean more when they lose to the signed talent?
I guess they already did that with Ben Carter to set him up for the Scorpio Sky match. I hope they keep doing it.
Other stuff happened, but that was the only thing that they really got me to care about.
PUNCTUATION NOTE: Okay, I think putting parentheses around the seconds of competitors makes things look less confusing. Let’s do that from now on.
Taz did not accompany Starks because he was on commentary, taking Tony Schiavone’s place (we found out why later). This was a good opener, I thought, but I was surprised that it was the opener once I saw the finish. Darby winning clean seems like an end to the feud, so one would think it would be higher on the card. However, surely there’s more to come, especially since Brian Cage and Will Hobbs got into it in the middle of the match. Hobbs hasn’t gotten to actually have a match as part of the feud, so there’s got to be more to come.
I thought this would go the full time limit so as to put over the gimmick where FTR gets a win through a draw, but I guess that will happen later. The match was very good, but that should be no surprise. FTR are very clever villains. They found a way to get Daniels ejected from ringside, which made Tully’s interference at the end easier. They always seem to pull something crafty like that out.
Adam Page was on commentary to further his angle with Kenny Omega, and he was fairly sloshed, which was effective. Very slow burn to wherever they’re going with him.
Oh, and it looks like Shawn Spears is doing something with Scorpio Sky. This was made clear on Dark, but I think this was the first time it was shown on Dynamite. I’m glad that Spears isn’t totally an afterthought now that Tully is with FTR. I kind of thought he’d get dropped. Interesting that the they’ve hardly interacted with him, though. I guess they’re not really a stable, just two sets of Tully’s clients.
This was good. I didn’t really pay close attention, honestly, but what I saw was good. I think the bigger story was Luther and Jericho getting into it at ringside. Luther is one of Jericho’s friends from when he was just starting to wrestle, so it makes sense they would be working together with Jericho’s 30 year anniversary in wrestling coming up. Then a bunch of other people at ringside got involved, which I guess was an excuse for Nyla Rose to do something.
I thought it was kind of silly for the Inner Circle to run away from an injured Matt Hardy just because he had a chair. He was obviously limping.
Of course it was good. And there wasn’t much of Cassidy’s schtick to be had, either. But nothing really noteworthy happened, so this could just as well have been a Dark match.
Welcome back, Britt. The women’s division needed you. I was surprised this was just a match (with a submission hold applied afterwards for emphasis). There was no angle to set Baker up in a program with someone else. I half expected Big Swole to do something to build to a real match between the two. She hasn’t been seen since the last pay-per-view, though, so she might’ve gotten the virus or something. Anyway, I wouldn’t stick Baker with Shida immediately, but that could be something to look forward to.
Butcher was a bit of a letdown as far as mystery challengers go. I don’t think he’d even had a singles match in AEW before this. He is a big, tough-looking guy, but he doesn’t really have the resume to justify any thought of him upsetting Moxley. I don’t know if they were trying to “make” him here, but I didn’t get the sense that his stock raised all that much. He did well enough, but I didn’t feel like he had a breakout performance or anything. Still, seeing him come up from behind Moxley was a better visual than if it had been the Blade just due to his size alone.
I don’t know what the endgame is for the Eddie Kingston feud. Obviously, if Lance Archer hadn’t gotten the virus, these last couple of weeks would have focused on building him up to challenge Moxley on the 14th. The stuff with Kingston has been all right in the interim, but I hope it doesn’t damper a potentially bigger feud between the two in the future. I do wonder if Kingston will get involved in the Archer/Moxley match.
Aside from the matches, Cody accepted Brodie Lee’s challenge for a Dog Collar Match, but he took his time and tried to swerve everyone before getting to it. I thought the brawl between Cody and Lee was effective, but I thought that the way Cody built to it was a little Triple H-like. He had a drawn out entrance (using that same intro he used last week before his theme song), and he talked a lot before getting to the meat of the segment. He didn’t talk as much as Triple H usually does, thankfully, but I felt like it was trending in the wrong direction.
FTR were interviewed by Tony Schiavone, leading to Matt Jackson finally superkicking Tony. This has gotten way out of hand. Surely AEW has a system in place where punishments are ramped up for repeat offenses? The Young Buck have superkicked three non-wrestler staff members in the last four weeks, as well as maliciously breaking Tony’s phone. Imposing a fine is acceptable for one offense, but they should have been suspended after the second one, and they should’ve been fired by now, EVPs or not. Tony Khan needs to get his house in order.
There’s going to be a tournament to decide the #1 contender for the World Title, and Jungle Boy, Rey Fenix, and Kenny Omega will be in it. I like tournaments, so I’m ready.
It seems that Miro’s pairing with Kip Sabian is polarizing fans, and I can kind of see both sides. I would prefer Miro be more serious, but I’m guessing this is what he wants to do. (In retrospect, I think his match last week was actually bad after all, but there was an injury involved.) Anyway, I’m still waiting to see where it all goes. Having Billy Mitchell do a cameo is quite a niche bit. I only recognized him because I’d seen The King of Kong several years ago.
MJF gave the Inner Circle T-shirts to suck up to Jericho, but he won’t admit that he wants to join. Interesting continuing storyline with MJF and Jericho. I could see them becoming a team and ultimately breaking up like Jericho and Kevin Owens did. Jericho would probably have to be the babyface then. I’m not going to put money on any of that happening, but I wouldn’t be against it.
FTR vs. Best Friends should be very good whenever it comes.
Next week, we get Chris Jericho and Jake Hager vs. Luther and Serpentico as part of Jericho’s 30 year anniversary in wrestling, Brian Cage vs. Will Hobbs for the FTW Championship, and Brodie Lee vs. Cody in a Dog Collar Match for the TNT Championship.
No Veda Scott? #CancelDark! (Just kidding.)
I only watched a couple matches in full this week, but I did catch the four promos that were included. I think promos need to be a regular part of this show.
This was the first Taynara Conti singles match I’d ever seen, so I was looking forward to it. I thought she was pretty good. I liked her judo stuff, and that finishing choke, while complex and a little difficult to set up, looked sick. They used the post-match to further Anna Jay’s feud with Brandi Rhodes by having her attack Velvet. Conti looked confused, so she could be going the Colt Cabana route into the Dark Order, if she ever joins at all.
I was interested in this one because I wanted to see how Cabana and Silver interacted. They’d made it clear in the earlier promo that Silver didn’t like Colt because Brodie Lee didn’t like Colt. Evil Uno calmed him down before Colt came in all happy-go-lucky. The match itself was solid, as expected. The dissension between Silver and Cabana wasn’t overdone, but it did come to a head at the end when a miscommunication led Silver to take the Cutter from QT. I thought it was a fine placeholder for the Dark Order/Nightmare Family feud. Still wondering how long until Cabana either fully joins the Dark Order or quits/gets kicked out.
So aside from the Dark Order promo, there were also promos from Brandon Cutler, the Natural Nightmares, and Luther and Serpentico (now called the Chaos Project). Cutler’s was the one I was most interested in since it followed up his double count out draw with Peter Avalon from a couple weeks ago. He basically said that there would be a rematch. I like Cutler as a wrestler. As a promo, he kind of reminds me of Rob Van Dam or Roderick Strong, or even Mike Tyson. He looks good, but when I hear his voice, I don’t feel like I’m listening to a fighter. His in-ring is a lot tougher than his voice, I think, and I don’t think there’s anything to be done about it except maybe that I just get used to it like I did with RVD, Strong, and Tyson.
The only other note about the show is that I don’t know why they felt it necessary to have two heel color commentators all show. Shawn Spears came out to join Excalibur and Taz during the opener with SCU. I guess he’s going to feud with Scorpio Sky? And then Ricky Starks took his place for the rest of the show. Why do we need any heel commentators at all, much less two?
The CCP Virus strikes again. As I was trying to avoid spoilers for Dark and Late Night Dynamite on Wednesday, I missed the news that Lance Archer had been around people who had the virus, so the planned main event of Archer, Brian Cage, and Ricky Starks vs. Jon Moxley, Will Hobbs, and Darby Allin had to be scrapped. In its place, we got Moxley defending the AEW World Championship against the man who was never truly eliminated from the Casino Battle Royale, Eddie Kingston.
Miro looked pretty good. Kiss looked pretty good. Would’ve been more of a showcase if Miro would’ve beaten either Janela or Kiss in a singles match, or if he would’ve been the one doing most of the work in the ring. Instead, they seemed to want to save him for special spots. He also may have gotten legitimately hurt going out of the ring at one point. There were a couple of near-botches that soured things, but I don’t think either was Miro’s fault. The best part, I thought, was when Janela made the hot tag and hit both Sabian and Miro, but instead of falling off the apron, Miro just got mad and came after him. Anyway, it was fine, but far from the best of any of these guys.
Similar to last week, including Kenny Omega on commentary. Omega seemed a little more positive about Page this time, but he still insisted he’s a singles guy now and wouldn’t acknowledge Page to his face. They’ve gotta have a match at some point. Anyway, this was shorter and less in doubt than the Kazarian match, but Uno’s pretty good. I’ve known that for a while
My HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT. I think they did a good job of keeping both Cassidy and Lee strong witout diminishing either. Lee didn’t fall for Cassidy’s regular tricks, but Cassidy was able to bait him by feigning exhaustion later. He also had to fight off the Dark Order a couple times, especially John Silver. Silver came in and took an Orange Punch for Lee, meaning that Lee didn’t have to kick out after it, so that protected Orange’s finisher. Silver was also abused by Lee once or twice, too.
After the match, the lights went out, and some familiar music led to the return of Cody Rhodes. I like that he ditched the bleached blonde hair; I was actually just wondering the other day when he would do that. He also had a nice, dark suit. He attacked a Dark Order guy’s leg and put him in the Figure Four, but he couldn’t get his hands on Lee. I’m curious to see if this darker Cody will turn heel after he’s done feuding with Lee.
Then after the break, Lee cut an angry promo on Cody and essentially challenged him to a Dog Collar Match. Surely that will be for the anniversary show, if not the next PPV.
Ivelisse and Diamante had some good moments, but they also looked a little off. Actually, I think there’s been at least one point in each of their matches where they’ve seemed off. This time, just as commentary was talking about how well gelled they are, they proceeded to be unable to do a double kick at the same time. Shida and Rosa worked very well as a team, however. Nothing big came from this match, as the babyfaces won and held up their arms, and that was that.
They beat each other up. Who would have expected that? It’s kind of a bummer that this match had to happen so soon, but their hands were kind of tied with Archer having to pull out of the scheduled six-man at the last minute. In all reality, though, I feel like it wouldn’t take much to heat up a pay-per-view rematch, even with the clean finish here. Moxley won without even going for the Pradigm Shift yet again (as far as I could tell), so it’s weird that they made the move such a big deal in the MJF match.
Afterwards, the Lucha Bros attacked. Will Hobbs made the save temporarily (I was wondering if they were going to give him something to do). I thought it looked kind of silly for him to get in the ring and then wait for Fenix and Penta to come to him, especially when Penta basically ignored him for several seconds and continued to choke Moxley. Darby Allin then came in to even the odds, but Ricky Starks (with Taz) hit him with a spear and had his music play as the show ended. Fine beatdown. Not sure how much it will be followed up on before Archer gets his title shot in October.
I do wonder what the original endgame was for Kingston’s insistence that he get something for the battle royal, because he’s gotten his shot now, so he shouldn’t have any grounds to complain anymore.
Outside of the matches…
There was a nice tribute graphic to Road Warrior Animal who just passed away. They mentioned him on the show, and Thunder Rosa’s face paint had a tribute design to him.
Eddie Kingston called out Moxley immediately after the first match because he wanted to look in his eyes before their title match. He also said that Moxley sold out to sports entertainment, and that was the difference between them. Ouch.
Tony Schiavone talked to Matt Jackson earlier in the day. He didn’t get superkicked, but Jackson did break his phone for asking about FTR. Then he tossed some cash at him. Matt was a huge dick here, asking people to sympathize with him and Nick while giving fake apologies for their recent actions.
Matt Hardy (still not taking time off) and Private Party called out Chris Jericho. After some talking and a random appearance by Sammy Guevara (no-selling any effects from the Broken Rules Match), Isiah Kassidy challenged Jericho for next week.
FTR and Tully Blanchard said that they’re defending against SCU next week, but from now on, tag title defenses on TV will follow a strict twenty minute time limit, and if there’s a draw, FTR will get credit for a win. They then called Best Friends backyarders because of the parking lot fight last week, so Best Friends challenged them to a match right then. They teased it, then bailed, but the seeds are set for that showdown.
Jericho accepted Kassidy’s challenge backstage, then had another interaction with MJF. They sucked up to each other, then called each other out on saying the other was a loser behind their backs. They both covered with excuses and decided to be friends.
Overall, I thought it was a good show. It kind of felt like it was coming off of a PPV after the universal praise last week’s show got, and it didn’t have any matches I liked as much as Scorpio Sky vs. Ben Carter from Late Night Dynamite the night before. But it was still good.
Next week, it’s FTR vs. SCU, Jericho vs. Kassidy, Cody answering Brodie Lee’s challenge, and Moxley appearing. And probably other stuff. The week after, there will be a celebration of Jericho’s thirty years in wrestling.
HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT, but it was close between this and the main event. Even better than Carter’s match with Lee Johnson on Dark. No heel/babyface dynamic, but Carter was kind of the underdog based on his experience. He more than held his own here.
Not bad. Brandi didn’t have her entourage or her action figures with her, so she looked serious. Seems like she’s not doing that heel turn after all. Nothing spectacular happened in this match, but they didn’t botch anything, either. There’s only so high my interest in this feud can reach considering both girls’ experience levels. Stu Grayson tried to interfere, but Evil Uno held him back, and the distraction they caused almost cost Jay the match, but she was able to come back with the choke to make Brandi pass out.
I do hope Jay gets to work with more experienced wrestlers soon so that she can progress.
Sydal looks good. Spears was more interesting against a guy who means something than the countless jobbers he’s been beating on Dark. As expected, Tully slipped spears the metal bit to put into his glove, but unlike most of Spears’ matches since getting the glove, it happened during the match instead of after it. Sydal was able to avoid it once or twice, but he eventually got hit and put down with Spears’ version of the DVD. After the match, Spears was going to do more, but Scorpio Sky chased him off.
There was also a Scorpio Sky interview in the middle of the show where Sydal showed up and some cheesy stuff was said. Not nearly as cringe-y as the backstage stuff from the Deadly Draw Tournament, though.
There were also a few video packages to hype Wednesday’s show.
Overall, a good hour of wrestling, I thought. More like what Dark should be.
I’ve been busy this week, so I’m going to be late watching all of these shows.
But this one will be easy because I only watched one match in full.
Very good match. They told the story of these two guys being fairly equal, even having them hitting the same moves on each other. I really liked the story of the finish. Johnson hit a big move and got a nearfall, then wasted time fretting over it instead of keeping on his man. A short time later, Carter hit two big moves, but when Johnson kicked out of the cover, Carter didn’t wallow in his futility. He immediately jumped up top and hit a Frog Splash to finish Lee off. So both guys were evenly matched, but Carter was the one who had the focus to finish things when he had the chance.
Beyond that, I saw that Serena Deeb got a win in a shorter match than I expected, and Eddie Kingston wore a Bo Jackson Royals jersey during the Butcher and Blade match and the Lucha Bros match. Then he beat Brian Pillman Jr. without it.
DISCLAIMER: This show seems to have fallen flatter for me than for most, and I think it’s because I watched it on my computer in a rush. If I had been able to kick back and watch it live or at least in one sitting on DVR, I would’ve probably liked it better.
I was mistaken last week when I said this would be a tag title match. Either that or they changed their minds over the week. Anyway, it was the usual banger of an opener, though I thought it went a little long. But they are trying to make Jungle Boy extremely resilient, so it makes sense. FTR won when one guy pinned Jungle Boy while the other one held his hand from the outside. Everyone looked good.
This match also felt a little long to me, considering its place on the show. Had it been on a pay-per-view or in a main event slot, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. But when Kazarian kicked out of a modified Death Valley Driver, I realized it was going to be one of those matches where only a finisher will win it, even when other moves look more devastating than the finisher.
The real story, though, was Kenny Omega on commentary subtly burying Page and acting like it was a major feat for him to win a match where he couldn’t tag anyone in to help him. Then he left without acknowledging him to his face, and Page had a lonely beer.
Hardly a match. My man Shawn Dean got poked in the eye and put in an armbar, and that was it. It really just existed so that MJF could declare himself the uncrowned AEW Champion since Moxley cheated at the PPV (even though MJF cheated first). Then he teased joining a stable.
Private Party almost had me on a couple pinfall attempts, but I figured the Inner Circle members would win. Isiah Kassidy got hit in the leg with a bat by Hager, but it only led to a commercial break and not the finish. He was still able to fight back for a while. The most interesting thing was Jericho attacking Kassidy after beating him, only to be driven off by Marq Quen. Future singles program?
HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT. This was hard-hitting and intense. Regardless of some backstage rumors that I didn’t even find out about until later, I dug this one. Diamante attacked afterwards, so Hikaru Shida ran in for the save and handed Rosa the NWA belt.
This was brutal. I’m really not sure if I should commend these guys for putting on such a show or chastise them for endangering their lives and conditioning fans to expect dangerous stuff like this at the end of feuds. I feel that hardcore stuff like we saw back in ECW or at King of the Ring ’98 set the bar high for wrestling violence, and the TLC matches of the ’00s kept it there. There was a time when my favorite matches were these kinds of matches, but these days, I feel like wrestlers ought to be conditioning fans to accept less as more when it comes to hardcore stuff. It’ll help them and their successors extend their careers and maybe even their lives.
Also, am I supposed to believe that Orange Cassidy hid in the trunk of that car for the whole match, just waiting for Santana or Ortiz to get Trent or Chuck in just that position so he could make the surprise save? What if they’d lost before that? But at least his interference made sense and seemed somewhat less unfair since S&O had attacked him the week before. And Trent’s mom flipping off the heels as they all left was a good bookend.
Outside of the matches, the Young Bucks are now the Grump Bucks (my words, not theirs) after they came out and superkicked the referee before the FTR match. Then they tossed a stack of cash to Tony Khan to pay their fine. So they’re heels…but FTR are also heels…are we still building to that match?
Matt Hardy got attacked before the Private Party match so he couldn’t accompany them, and then Jericho and Hager made fun of him. I don’t know why they did this since Hardy pretty much said he would be gone for a while during his promo last week anyway. Maybe it’s to set up a program with him and Jericho when he gets back.
Taz went back to his move breakdown video series as a way to put over Ricky Starks and take a shot at Darby Allin.
Eddie Kingston and his crew beat up some ringside jobbers for kicks. The big takeaways from this segment were 1) Eddie is still insisting he was never eliminated from the All Out battle royal, so he deserves something, and 2) the Blade was told to get his “house in order,” which probably means something involving Allie since she’s his wife in real life. QT Marshall may have more to worry about than the Dark Order now…
Miro and Kip Sabian did a promo in a weight room. It was fine. At least Miro looks tougher this week.
Jake Roberts and Taz made a deal where Brian Cage and Ricky Starks will tag with Lance Archer against John Moxley and two partners next week. In return, Cage will get the first shot when Archer wins the title. Archer mentioned Eddie Kingston’s earlier comments. Moxley came out and got jumped by Starks and Cage, but Will Hobbs made the save. Hobbs making a big leap from Dark jobber to side player in the main event program, and I’m a bit surprised but very happy for him. Moxley put Hobbs over and told Darby Allin to get to Jacksonville next week for the match.
Conspicuous by their absence on this show were the members of the Dark Order and the Nightmare Family.
Next week will be interesting because it seems we’re getting two Dynamites – a one-hour special after the NBA game on Tuesday, and the regular Wednesday show. The Wednesday show will have Moxley, Hobbs, and Allin vs. Archer, Cage, and Starks; Shida and Rosa vs. Ivelisse and Diamante; and a TNT Championship match between Brodie Lee and Orange Cassidy. According to AEW’s Twitter, the Tuesday show will have Scorpio Sky vs. Ben Carter, Matt Sydal vs. Shawn Spears, and Brandi Rhodes vs. Anna Jay.
Here’s something that isn’t AEW. Back in June, “The Monarch” Jeremy Wyatt wrestled a 60-minute Iron Man Match against “Savageweight” Fred Yehi. Wyatt’s Gateway Heritage Championship wasn’t on the line, but both men were fighting for specific charities. It was livestreamed, I think, or at least the video of it was, and fans were invited to donate while they watched the match. Wyatt represented the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities organization (which is weird because he was very much a heel), and Yehi represented One Heart KC Mentoring Initiative.
Jeri Evans wrote a column about this match over at Voices of Wrestling. She did it more justice than I can: https://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2020/09/01/ironmen-how-fred-yehi-jeremy-wyatt-succeed-in-a-match-type-i-dislike/
My quick review as that this match was very engaging and will probably be my Match of the Year. I haven’t seen a lot of hour-long Iron Man Matches; the only ones I can remember are Bret vs Shawn at WrestleMania XII and Lesnar vs. Angle from an episode of SmackDown. I’m usually intrigued by the concept, but I don’t often take the plunge into watching them because of the time commitment required. In fact, it took me several months to make time for this one. But I’m glad I did.
I do recommend watching this without knowing the falls. But in case you’re interested…
It’s not a “grapplef*ck” match, but there is a lot of technical grappling, especially before the first fall. They’re very good at it, and I probably would’ve enjoyed it even if the whole match had used that style. Yehi got the first fall around 13 minutes in with a Koji Clutch, and Wyatt tapped out quickly, most likely to minimize the damage done.
After some more grappling, Wyatt got frustrated and hit Yehi with a chair, getting himself disqualified for one fall, but hurting Yehi. Yehi almost got counted out after getting his leg dropped on a standing chair, but he just made it and ended up surviving and battling back for a while.
After getting out of another Koji Clutch, Wyatt got his first fall with two piledrivers.
Around eight minutes later, after much back-and-forth, Wyatt pulled off an elevated double arm DDT to tie it up.
Only four minutes later, Wyatt took the lead by tapping Yehi with a crossface. Wyatt tried to run down the clock a bit by refusing to break contact for the inter-fall rest period.
Yehi frustrated Wyatt and almost inadvertently dropped a guardrail on him. They were super aggressive by this point (as if they hadn’t already been). After about seven minutes, Yehi ties it again with a cradle pin, and now he’s bleeding from around his eye.
With around ten minutes left, they were both running on fumes but breaking out in bursts of energy. After a superplex, Yehi nipped up and started bouncing around the ring with his second (or maybe fifth) wind. It didn’t turn into a fall for him, but he persevered until he could counter an Octopus Hold. Wyatt tried to turn it into a Sunset Flip, but Wyatt sat down and folded him up like Bulldog did to Hart at Wembley, and that got him the fall with less than thirty seconds to go.
Wyatt tried in vain to do something, but Yehi grabbed him and held him, running out the time and getting him the win.
Afterwards, Wyatt offered a handshake. Yehi thought about it for a while, but when he started to accept, Wyatt flipped him off and rolled out. Yehi gave him the Savageweight smirk in response.
(They say that this is Wyatt’s first loss since Thor Theriot beat him in the NWL back in 2017, but that’s only true if we’re talking about St. Louis Anarchy and Journey Pro shows. He lost to Sharkbait in the NWL after that, and outside of the Kansas City area, he’s lost to Jaysin Strife, Bear Bronson, and Nicky Scent since the NWL folded.)
I was pretty hyped for this show because I thought the Peter Avalon/Brandon Cutler angle was finally coming to a head. Still, when I saw that it was an hour and a half long, I decided I wasn’t going to watch every match. Butcher and Blade, Santana and Ortiz, Penelope Ford, Best Friends, Diamante and Ivelisse, and four members of the Dark Order all won matches I either skimmed through or skipped to the finishes of. Here are my thoughts on the matches I did focus on…
(Oh, by the way, I’m going to be writing in past tense from now on because I tend to lapse into anyway.)
This match was notable for two things: 1) Red Velvet officially looked impressive to me, and 2) Anna Jay came out to watch, teasing a distraction that would cost Brandi the match. Instead, Brandi taunted her by beating Velvet with a choke similar to what Jay put Brandi out with before. Pretty good bit to keep the story alive, but if Brandi’s going to be the babyface in this feud, I think she needs to stop waving her action figure around. A lot of people online don’t think she deserves a figure before other lady wrestlers in AEW, so flaunting it is a real heel move as far as the audience is concerned.
Ronnie cut a promo on Twitter that actually got me interested in this match, and he did get a little more offense than I would expect from a jobber in a Brian Cage match. But the competitive eating gimmick (including a People’s Elbow with a hot dog) didn’t do it for me. If he’s going to be a problem for Cage, I think that he should’ve played up his status as a military veteran instead. I don’t know, maybe there’s a crossover audience between wrestling and competitive eating, but I’m not part of it, and I don’t see it getting a guy over.
Ricky Starks was on commentary for this match, which was fine since Cage is his partner in Team Taz, but then he stayed there for the next three or four matches. I found that annoying.
I liked Hobbs’ match last week better than this one. I thought his moves looked smoother and he looked more dominant. This was fine, but he wasn’t as explosive this time, I thought.
Another one with some story, so that’s why it had my interest. The Dark Order (minus Brodie Lee) watched from the entranceway and got frustrated whenever Cabana was on the losing end of things. They didn’t seem to be influencing him to use underhanded tactics like they have in the past, but eventually, Evil Uno distracted both Cabana and the ref so Stu Grayson could nail QT with a knee to the face. Then Cabana, with a mean look in his eyes, hit a Discus Lariat (ala Brodie Lee) to win.
This should have been the main event, but then again, I can see why it wasn’t given the finish. Both guys had their working boots on, I thought, and it was as fast-paced and hard-hitting as anything I’ve seen from either guy. I still think they’ve got another gear they can kick it to if and when they ever have a real blow-off match.
The thing that annoyed me about the match is that I felt like I was cheated out of something I was promised. Based on Avalon’s promo from a couple weeks ago, I thought there would be a must-be-a-winner stipulation. Instead, we got another non-finish, which they’ve already done before. I forget which week it was, but just before they started tagging together, they had a match that ended in either a double countout, double DQ, or some other form of no contest. In light of that, this match seemed like a do-over of that one for the benefit of new viewers who missed it or something. I don’t think that was necessary.
At least the real story of the match this time was Leva Bates, who seemed to be torn in her loyalties and really just wanted them both to stop fighting. She’s the real victim in this whole thing, at least at this point. I could see her distress driving her to bring in someone to put them both in their places, but that’s just a thought.
I really hope it doesn’t turn into a love triangle…
Exciting opener, as expected, with only a couple things I don’t like. One is a slip by Jungle Boy running off of Luchasaurus. The other (more serious) is Jungle Boy kicking out of the Lucha Bros double stomp/package piledriver move. That move is so sick-looking, I hate seeing it kicked out of in a regular TV match with few, if any stakes.
Eddie Kingston yells at the Bros when they scuffle, which seems mundane by this point. Also, Eddie said he was never actually eliminated from the battle royal at All Out, so that will probably go somewhere.
OC with very little comedy. I like that. I think he needs to keep a little of the slacker vibe, but his matches can’t revolve around him feigning laziness and then surprising his opponents with moves anymore if he’s moving up the card.
Santana and Ortiz attack, leading Best Friends to make the save and challenge them to a parking lot fight next week. Fiery Best Friends are also quite appealing to watch. I’m joining the crowd who wants Trent to get a singles run, but I feel bad for Chuck Taylor if he does.
I like how this match came about. Janela was trounced as Jericho’s warm-up for Orange Cassidy last week, leading Kiss to run in and pop him one. Then Kiss eliminated Hager in the battle royal at All Out, and Hager punished him for it later.
Kiss is the star here, I think. I’m not into his “gimmick” (I know it’s supposedly the real him), but he’s hard not to like based on his athleticism and babyface fire. He gave as much as he took here, finally falling victim to a fire extinguisher blast. Outside of this, Kiss has been winning while Janella has been losing, so I think a heel turn may be coming for the Bad Boy, probably at Kiss’ expense.
Hager hits the Uranagi and holds onto the head and arm choke, but the ref counts three (even though it looks like Kiss’ right shoulder is being held up). Then Jericho says that they’re going to be a regular tag team, which could be good for Hager to have something to do.
Why did Tay Conti get signed and then jobbed in her first match on Dynamite? Do not like. As for the match, as I said before, I don’t support intergender wrestling, so I skipped it.
On one hand, This is a good match. On the other hand, I kind of feel like Dustin should have been destroyed more handily. I know part of the story around Lee squashing Cody for the title was that Cody was worn down from defending the belt on a weekly basis, and I do think Dustin should’ve gotten more offense than he did. But I think he got too close in this against a guy who’s finally starting to look like a killer.
Aside from the matches, there were promos from Jake Roberts, Lance Archer, and Jon Moxley which were all good. Glad Jake is back to form. MJF fired all his campaign staff and revealed that Wardlow is loyal to him because he pays his salary, but the seeds of dissension are undeniable now. MJF and Jericho also had friendly words but then called each other losers behind their backs. They will likely feud sometime; I wonder who will be the babyface?
FTR celebrated their tag title win, cast shade on a couple other teams, and got ice dumped on them by Jurassic Express. That was fine. The Young Bucks superkicked an interviewer and got fined $5000 each. I approve of promotions emphasizing wrestlers being punished for harming non-wrestling staff members. Matt Hardy addressed the crowd about his condition after his scary concussion (though he didn’t call it that) at All Out. Thankfully, this didn’t turn into an angle; it was just a thank you to the fans and a confirmation that he would come back. He also said he would come for the title, which…I dunno.
I really liked the interview segments with Adam Page and Kenny Omega. Page blamed himself for messing up his friendships and losing the tag titles, and he said he and Kenny would regroup and work their way back up the tag ranks. But later, Kenny said he’s done with Page and the tag scene, and he’s going the singles route. People say that there aren’t really any good guys in this storyline, but I feel like Page is the most sympathetic. He allowed himself to be manipulated by FTR and made plenty of mistakes as a result, but he’s owned up to them and wants to atone. Seems like Omega and the Bucks aren’t going to give him the chance, though.
Ricky Starks mocked Darby Allin and said he would do worse things to him than what happened at All Out. They’re going to have a heck of a fight sometime; probably at the anniversary show.
The big news was Miro (the wrestler formerly known as Rusev) debuting as Kip Sabian’s best man and taking a shot at WWE. I don’t mind the shot, and we’ll see what becomes of the wedding angle (I don’t normally care for wrestling wedding angles), but I’m not a fan of Miro’s current look. We’ll see if he keeps it.
Next week…I’m drawing a blank of what all they announced, but I remember that FTR will have their first title defense against Jurassic Express, and Ivelisse with challenge Thunder Rosa for the NWA Women’s Championship. Also, Lance Archer will get his title shot on the AEW anniversary show on October 14th, so that looks like their next big show between pay-per-views.
Our Cambodian journey
The first stop for newbies in the comic book universe. Super hero battles, quotes and epic moments.
Jude 3
My attempt at seeing Scripture as it is
Hook the Leg, Man! 