Screengrab: TNT

Pops and Botches: AEW Dynamite – 7.22.2020

 

We’re finally back to regular old Dynamite this week, but was the show a downgrade from the previous weeks’ special shows, or was it improved by a return to form?  All Out is starting to come into view on the distant horizon, and instead of paying off AEW is back to building up stories and positioning players for the next chapter.  Continuing some sagas, sowing seeds for new ones, this Dynamite is like the return episode from a mid-season break, for better or (spoiler) better.  Join me as we dig into the company’s new course with the Pops and Botches of AEW Dynamite, July 23rd 2020.

You can find what we thought of last week’s Fight for the Fallen here, and of this week’s AEW Dark here.  Don’t sleep on those Dark reviews; as we’ll see in this episode, things be happening on Dark! 

Turn up the lights, strike the fuse, because this Dynamite is starting out with a bang…

POP: THE OPENEST CHALLENGE

               

Dynamite is straight into the action this week with Cody already in the ring and awaiting his open challenge opponent.  That opponent is, as rumored, Eddie Kingston; 18 year indie wrestling veteran, alumnus of basically every American pro-wrestling promotion except WWE.  Cody’s open challenge is really living up to its promise, pulling from AEW’s less-featured roster but also leaving the door open for anyone to show up on any given Wednesday night.

I’ll admit at the outset; I don’t know much about Kingston or his oeuvre.  Fortunately, AEW are smart enough to give Kingston a mic before his debut match and give him a couple minutes to tell us everything we need to know about him.  He threatens Arn Anderson? Okay, he’s kind of a dick.  He’s clowning Cody’s hard-work promo from a few weeks back, comparing it to his own hard-knock life? Okay, he’s a dick because nothing was ever given to him and he had to scratch and claw violently to get anything in this life.  He says Cody only fights children but must now face a “grown-ass man”?  Okay, he’s a dick who worked hard for everything and doesn’t respect anyone else because he beat the odds life stacked against him and thinks that makes him special.  Seems to me like a quick, effective picture of Eddie Kingston.

But it also plays subtly into Cody’s developing heel story.  Sure, Kingston is, as I keep saying, kind of a dick.  But he’s also poking holes in Cody’s good guy story.  Yeah, you think you made it where you are because you worked harder, Cody. But every guy who was born on third base thinks he hit a triple.  Kingston is the heel for this match, so the promo serves that purpose, but between this promo and the commentary continually talking about Kingston’s near bankruptcy and how great a story it would be for him to come out of hardship and win the title, there are enough hints of sympathy to let Kingston be the bad guy without curtailing Cody’s dark overtures.  

POP: SEEING RED

Cody’s open challenge has brought out the rainbow of wrestling in AEW; opponents of every size, every style, and even other promotions.  Tonight, we get a new juicy red flavor from that rainbow in a no-DQ brawl with a smashmouth challenger.

It starts violent and only escalates; Kingston attacking before the bell, putting Cody down with strikes and eye pokes and cross-face forearms that make you cringe and turn your head.  The match is Kingston’s throughout most of it, with Cody struggling to keep up with his level of violence.  Every time Cody gets something going, Kingston shuts him down with cheap shots to the eyes or the groin.  It wasn’t like any of his other title defenses.  It felt nasty, and raw, with no moonsaults or Cody cutters displaying aerial artistry.  This was Cody in Kingston’s world trying to survive.  

Kingston tweaked his knee at some point, which gave Cody a lifeline he repeatedly grasped by taking out the leg.  That made the match a constant struggle on both ends, with Kingston fighting to apply any offense.  That struggle eventually reached its crescendo when Kingston spilled a pool of tacks on the mat and both men desperately tried to avoid taking that fall.  If you didn’t watch the show, the header should tell you how that worked out; Kingston muscled Cody up into a powerbomb and showed him a brand new way to bleed on Dynamite.

But Kingston should know by now that Cody’s blood just limits his power; the more he gets rid of, the stronger he gets.  He responds to a backdrop suplex with an all-in clothesline, and a figure four more or less on top of the pool of tacks. Kingston tries to fight it off, but without all that pesky blood Cody cannot be denied . Kingston and Cody fight to the last, but the injured leg leads to a quick tap out from Kingston.  

After the match, Kingston is still limping and stumbling his way up the ramp, and Cody is still bleeding in the ring.  Kingston’s face is heartbroken, speaking to the worth of the opportunity he just lost and how hard he fought for it.  This match was exactly what I want out of Cody’s open challenge, and as a first timer for Kingston, I hope I’m not a last timer.

POP: FIGHT FOR THE FALLOUT, PART ONE

A quick backstage promo from Mox does what it needs to; it reminds us that Mox is a sadistic whacko, it signals that the Mox/Cage issue isn’t quite done, and it tries to sell us on the finish of last week’s title match retroactively.  When AEW makes mistakes, in my eyes, they are always putting in the effort to make those mistakes work, to fix them or sell you on their decisions after the fact.  We’ll touch more on that later.

POP: MAXIMIZE YOUR MJFS

MJF has a history of packing as many dick moves into his minutes as he possibly can. His expressions, his postures, his words, his wrestling. He cribs from every classic wrestling heel and stuffs their schtick into every square centimeter of his performance until “heel” is oozing out of his ears, and that observation is about as obvious as MJF’s performance.  But this week he impressed me with his ability to stuff a heel promo into a heel squash match into a “heel humiliates the face with a heinous assault” segment, creating a monstrous Turdicken. 

Max gives his enhancement opponent a chance to introduce himself at the start of the match, but of course, it’s really just a chance for MJF to embarrass him and insist that MJF is undefeated.  Garrison points out that MJF just lost a tag match on Fyter Fest and gets a mic to his face for his trouble.  Throughout the match, MJF is heeling hard as he can; grinding Garrison down in a face lock, taunting him by forcing his hand so close to the ropes, then pulling it back and gnawing on his fingers.  MFJ is doing his usual wonderfully punchable work.

But then he moved beyond trite and true heel work into something new.  He took up the mic again, mid match, and demanded that Garrison admit MJF was undefeated.  Stomping and standing on his hand, insisting that screams of pain weren’t the answer he was asking for.  And then…Garrison gave in, and said what MJF wanted to hear.  After a mild comeback, MJF put Griff down with a heat seeker, and the ref counted the inevitable pin.  

MJF finally shows me something new in his toolbox, and the whole segment shows a rising tool looming over AEW. There’s a sharper edge here; a more enraged, turgid MJF if you will.  This is an MJF I could see as a world champion if he keeps pushing.  

POP: THE ROLL MODEL’S ROLE MODELS

We catch up with Dr. Britt Baker Doctor of Medical Dentistry backstage after a couple shots of reconstructive nose surgery, supposedly caused by Rebel’s errant smack at Fyter Fest (and Shida breaking it months ago).  She warns AEW of her impending comeback and likens it to the comebacks of other sports heroes, concluding with Michael Jordan’s comeback as a Washington Wizard.  Britt is the only person in AEW who comes close to MJF’s dick-moves-per-minute.  DBB DMD’s DPM is staggering.  

The thing that makes the segment pop for me, though, is Rebel reassuring Britt that she’s like Michael Jordan because Rebel has watched Space Jam nineteen times and he always beats the monsters.  I would’ve thought Allie would bring the first Space Jam reference in AEW, but here we are.  Does Rebel keep rewatching hoping for the time Michael loses to the space men, or does she live dreading it, compelled to watch on because the inevitable, horrible truth scratches at her brain?  Does she breathe a sigh of relief each time the credits roll and say to herself “Everything is okay, Rebel. The Earth is safe. For now.”?

POP: FIGHT FOR THE FALLOUT, PART TWO

Here again we have AEW trying to sell us on the Fight for the Fallen finish after the fact, with Taz cutting a promo saying Cage almost fired him but he had to make that call or Cage would’ve been out for months.  That he made a smart business decision, because Cage would have never submitted.  He’s not wired to submit (HE’S A MACHINE YOU GUYS).  He’s got an FTW attitude.  And yeah, even though I got what they were trying for and disagreed with it, the work they’re putting in here is kinda turning me around on it.  

Darby Allin comes out to take skate vengeance on Cage again, with a sweet half-dead Cage skateboard. Not bad for a new take on Rick Rude’s airbrushed tights.  But look out, something happened on Dark! Told you that’d come back.  Ricky, the newest Stark to take the orange, cuts Darby off before he can breach the wall.    Cage steps in to powerbomb Darby on the stage, THEN into the ring (pictured), and Starks puts him down with a double underhook faceplant.  

But then, the impossible.  John Moxley interacted with someone besides his current challenger! The world champion is finally free of quarantine and able to have segments with other people, again, coming to Darby’s aid with his old pal barbwire bat.  The Taz men retreat, and we have a tag match set for next week.

Maybe I’m celebrating too early.  Cage is evidently still Mox’s nemesis, and he’s still in this segment. But isolation has been one of the biggest marks against Mox’s title reign.  AEW does its best work integrating stories and characters throughout the brand. Mox had that to start with; targeting Kenny Omega while still making his name in the promotion, battling spats with Pac and then taking on the inner circle in his feud with Jericho.  Since he became champion he’s thrown into a tunnel with his new challenger at the far end and told to charge forward.  This segment felt like light at the end of that tunnel, and we can all hope it reinvigorates Mox to find fresh air.

POP: SUDDENLY, WOMEN’S TAG TEAMS

I asked last week what purpose the Nightmare Sisters have in a company with no women’s tag belts. This week, AEW answers.  Funny how they keep covering plot holes and answering concerns I have about the brand, huh?  A big tag tournament will get more women onto Dynamite each week, will hopefully be fertile ground for future stories, and it will be something we haven’t seen from AEW before. Good all around.  

The malnourished little cynic in me, though, is whining “Brandi Rhodes makes a tag team to get a story going, and now there’s a tag team tournament, huh? How convenient!”  Is this all a vehicle to keep Brandi on TV for a few months?  Could be.  Do I like Brandi as a person? Mostly! Do I like her as a wrestler? Does anybody?  Do I think the benefits of a women’s tag cup outweigh having Brandi in a series of important matches on TV?  Right now I’m saying yes.

POP: JERICHORANGE

Alright, alright. You got me.  Damnit, AEW. You talked me into the Cage/Mox finish. You told me why a women’s tag team makes sense.  Now you’re dragging me into liking the orange bath from last week.  I can’t stay mad at you.

Jericho, still wearing the soiled jacket from last week for reasons, reassures us that he’s going to make Jurassic Express pay for laughing at him last week.  If he’s going to just keep wearing that jacket, I have to again commend AEW; they try their damnedest to make EVERYTHING that happens in their company significant.  A throwaway segment where the heels get doused with something and look stupid? Forgettable, but no, AEW Jericho is going to have scars from that shit.  Pungent orange scars.  Jericho never forgets anything because he’s the best, but also because AEW allows its performers to have functioning memory.

Jericho caps it off by being furious he still smells like orange juice (despite choosing to keep wearing that jacket) because again, Jericho is the best. 

POP OF THE NIGHT: MEATY MEN SLAPPING MEAT 

The Young Bucks face Butcher and the Blade in a falls count anywhere fracas that starts in the kitchens, where Butcher is butching and Blade is blading.  No wonder they’re getting a push lately, that guy is Cody’s best friend!  

Butcher, looking badass in an apron that shows the muscles of his arms and back while hiding his belly, puts his cleaver away and washes up before the battle is joined.  I initially took extensive notes on all the wild things these guys do backstage and, eventually, in the ring, but you’re probably better served just watching it and enjoying the creative mayhem.  Nick is getting gutwrench powerbombed on a metal table in the first thirty seconds.  In the next thirty, Matt strikes back with deadly MEATSLAPS.  As they fight out to the concourse, Blade is riding a loading cart into a pillar trying to squash the Bucks and Butcher is catching a cooking sheet to the face via Nick Jackson’s knee.  Slash Fiction toss Matt into the back of a truck, then heave Nick into his own portrait on said truck, before Matt leaps out the truck with a somersault plancha and drops both opponents.  It’s creative, it’s wild, and it’s constant fun.  

They even work in a dig at Jim Cornette via Easter Egg.  Cute, guys, but c’mon. Just let him stew in impotent rage in his corner of the internet.  You just existing is more than enough to keep him perpetually pissy.  

Blade takes a double superkick and lands on an escalator, carrying him up and away for the commercial break. Another thing I’ve never seen in a match sprinkled with them, leaving me mouthing “what the fuck?” with a laugh  We come back with the Bucks beating the Butcher around ringside, until Blade returns with a chair to smack them down.  Tables are set up, and Blade absolutely whiffs a dive out of the ring towards a betabled Matt Jackson, smacking his arm and side on the table but breaking neither table nor his fall.  But Butcher catches Matt with a running cross body through a table, anyway!  Everyone takes their lumps in this match, and everyone shines.

Finally, after much destruction, B&B splat Nick on the stage with a powerbomb/neckbreaker combo (the Villano breaker, as I’ve always called it). B&B set up tables but as is always the case, they end up laid out on the tables they arranged, and the Bucks take to the rigging for the biggest hit of the night:

The Young Bucks win, because of course they were always going to win. This match existed to have the Bucks take on the other half of the foursome that beat them at Fyter Fest, because FTR battled the Lucha Bros last week.  It was the definition of a hard fought win, though, and I really believe Butcher and Blade have been elevated by this series, while also serving as grist for the Young Bucks/FTR mill.  They look better than they ever have, and the victorious Bucks can move past that necessary loss at Fyter Fest.  This was the match where I realized how much I loved this Dynamite.

POP: LANCE ARCHER HITS HIS CEILING

This is pretty much peak Lance Archer, right?  Alex Marvez catches Lance and Jake Roberts backstage and insists on an interview. But Lance hasn’t had his recommended daily intake of local talent, so he drags Marvez to a locker room where some guys who were never going to wrestle are milling about.  Lance Archer is a tough opponent for anybody, but he’s also the Nigel Powers of wrestling; if you don’t even have a name tag, you might as well lie down and die.

Jake Roberts cuts a promo while everybody dies.  Archer committing comically awesome violence against nobodies while Roberts talks? Yeah, that’s the best use of this duo.  Once Archer has heaved these dudes all around the locker room, including into the ceiling (!) and into the garbage, he goes to the mic and tries to inhale it.  He’s saying…something, but even on a rewatch I can’t really make it out over his breathing. Even Jake is telling him to take a minute and breathe.  But he gets in his catchphrase, and shit, after that beating I’m not gonna be too hard on him.

I have one small complaint; everything going on, between Jake’s words and Lance’s violence and all the guys in there, was a bit much to follow it all at once.  But I don’t think the specifics of what Jake was saying really matter. You’ve got Jake’s voice and Archer’s anger.  Winning combination.

THE BADDEST BOTCH IN THE BUILDING

We come to the only Botch I’m calling on this episode, which is a record in these nascent days of Dynamite P&B.  We have Ivelisse Velez in her Dynamite debut, taking on Player Two Ivelisse.  And losing.

I don’t know a great deal about Diamante, but she’s a good match for Ivelisse in theory. Both have fire, here, and aren’t afraid to hit or be hit.  It’s physical, aggressive, and not drawn out, but it felt like they lacked the chemistry to create harmony in the ring rather than discord.  Starts and stops throughout the match made it all disjointed; dives that just didn’t come together due to changes in positioning, a chop battle that devolved into a slap fight, and an unearned finish all drag it down.  

I am Lucha Underground for life, so I’m all about Ivelisse joining AEW. She’s good enough that I bought her fighting Mil Muertes, once upon a time.  And she even has a shiny new nickname, La Sicaria (the hired killer).  I know they pulled this same card with Abadon’s debut a month or so back, but Ivelisse deserved better in her debut than losing to a palette swap.

POP: FIVE O’CLOCK FOR HANGMAN

Hangman versus Five was another perfectly cromulent piece of business.  Hangman gets to show off his powerful strikes, knocking Angels around the ring hither and yon, as well as his confidence, dusting off his boot after driving it through Five’s face.  He’s a better Hangman than he was before his run with the tag titles; smooth, sure of himself, fully in his groove.  Five can’t hang with the man on his own, but he gets an underhanded advantage via the Dark Order distracting Page while he was in the ropes, allowing Five to kick the middle rope into Adam’s Hangmen.  Dark Order may not be a match for our heroes on their own, but numbers and skullduggery turn the tide.

Five extends his advantage through the commercial break, even leaving Page dangling in the mid ropes so Five could drop an elbow from the top through his chest.  The match proves that Angels isn’t just a masked flunky, he’s someone to watch, taking it to Hangman with impressive kicks and acrobatic offense.  Buuuuut he’s also not a match for Page, because who is these days?  Page throws a spinning elbow that Five sells like he was shot in the head, then eventually hefts Five into a powerbomb and decides to stack him up for the pin. No Deadeye, not even a Buckshot Lariat.  Hangman is at the top of his game.

After the match, Mr. Brodie Lee approaches to offer Hangman a spot in Dark Order. He notes Page’s lack of friends, how even his tag team partner isn’t coming to help him, despite Dark Order surrounding the ring.  If he joins Dark Order, he’ll never be left alone again.  Page refuses, of course, and Mr. Lee escorts Cult Cabana to the back so he doesn’t have to see what the Numbers Game are about to do to Hangman. 

Hangman gamely fights back, but in the end, the Numbers win out, until FTR show up with a cooler of beer to save him.  At the start of the match, Hangman’s chyron read “Gonna see how this white wrist tape works out.” Why? Because that’s an FTR thing.  Because Page is being Southern Seduced by some good old boys who also like beer and punching people.  Because Page’s own tag partner didn’t make it out there until after FTR had already saved Hangman from the noose.  

This all works towards Kenny turning on Page for making friends with a threat after Kenny insisted he be friends with the Young Bucks while they were a threat.  This all leads to FTR taking the tag titles off of Hung Winged Angel and facing the Young Bucks for the belts, unless the Lucha Bros (the only tag team who have beaten Kenny and Hangman) get there first.  The tag division surged to the chief spot in AEW this week, and I’m not sure it’s close.  They’re interweaving characters and stories, creating various scenarios for fans to imagine that could all happen. The best thing weekly wrestling can do.

POP: THE GREAT SERPENTICO

The main event starts with Jericho and Hager entering the ring, nervously checking the ceiling for orange juice.  I already admitted the orange juice segment was good, guys, that’s just rubbing it in.  

There was a lot to like in this match.  Jericho started pissed off thanks to the orange incident, but Jungle Boy fought back and reminded Jericho of their time limit draw (as if Jericho would forget. Chris Jericho never forgets).  Hager and Luchasaurus tagged in, and AEW’s big man showdowns always feel special.  A heavy exchange of hands (with Luchasaurus actually trying to block them, big points for the dino) move into always-awesome kicks from Luchasaurus, until Hager reverses a chokeslam with a roll and picks an ankle.  It’s an exchange that shows both men’s styles and strengths, and so is the rest of the match.  Everyone is working hard and half the men are bleeding.  

But the finish overshadowed the rest of the match.  Serpentico, one of the wrestlers stationed in the stands to give AEW some sense of a crowd, leaps to the apron with Floyd the bat and cracks Luchasaurus in the skull. Luchasaurus turns into a codebreaker and gets pinned.  Orange Cassidy > Luchasaurus, apparently.  But why did a random luchador help Chris Jericho win? His suspiciously familiar motions in the ring as he’d beat down Jungle Boy and hit a flawless shooting star press onto Luchasaurus gave hints.  Eventually he pulled off the mask to reveal…

credit Whatculture.com

Wouldn’t that have been confusing?  Of course, it’s actually…

photo copyright WWE.com

It’s such a shame DDP never got involved in the Cody/Jake Roberts beef.  That story cried out for it.  But here’s what really happened.

Yep, the Inner Circle is now complete.  Once, Chris Jericho was the victim of the Luchador fakeout.  Now, he is the master.  Jericho has his minion take advantage of the company’s excess luchadors and hand him a cheap win.  Orange Cassidy and the Best Friends eventually “run” the Circle off by ambling to ringside, and we have a ten man tag set for next week. Cool, rarely see those on tv.  But none of that matters compared to Jericho.  He’s calling back twenty plus years of continuity. Chris Jericho exists in a wrestling universe that has a history and is inhabited by people who learn and change.  Chris Jericho is the longtime fan and the storied star, the guy who interweaves this new promotion with wrestling’s past.  Chris Jericho never forgets, and I can’t stress enough how much that does to make wrestling’s insane, nonsensical world feel real.  

POP: DYNAMITE – 7.23.2020

Hoo boy. I was all in for this Dynamite from start to finish, with only a little wobble.  Maybe it was getting away from the expectations of a “special” episode. Maybe it was just good wrestling.  If you didn’t watch this one, I highly recommend you go back and check it out.  And I highly recommend you stick with us for next week’s Pops and Botches of AEW Dynamite; this ride to All Out is going to rule.