Welcome back for the 1 year anniversary celebratory episode of Dynamite! AEDubs has been pretty great with these themed shows, finding a new gimmick to make the show feel “Special” every week. Last week was Thirty Years of Jericho, I believe before that was an anniversary of All or Nothing.
Here’s hoping the momentum continues next week off with an AEW Charity Bake-off or something. (Orange Cassidy’s Carrot Cake is simply to die for, you must try!) How long until we get a musical episode?!?!
(Must be noted, during the FTR v. BF m* ((match*)) Tony Schiavone makes a hilarious slip saying, “It’s been a great honor to bring you pro wrestling action since October 2, 1990…wait…” Only for J.R. to chime in “I think you got the wrong company there, Tony.” Adorable, and a reminder WWE opposition will always have a home on Turner Broadcasting (give or take an occasional 20 year gap) ).
POPs: Race to the Bottom
FTR have been toying with BF for weeks, dick-teasing a title-shot before chickenshit heeling, “Actually, you boys are still healing up from that parking lot fake sugarglass windshield extravaganza, let’s let you get back to 100% before we knock your ass back down the mid-card ~fart noise~”. Please note, this match is classic tag rules and not under the recent Brush with Greatness™ rules FTR have been fighting under the last few weeks.
Best Friends are looking pretty sharp! They fight FTR on their terms, keeping it very grounded with frequent tags and limb work. It could even be noticed they’ve had FTR scouted out with little details like Trent being prepared for a post tag double team, and easily fending off CaDaxsh (my “Zuul” like proper noun for Cash and Dax when I don’t feel like looking up which is which, or typing “FTR” again).
Seeing a legit challenge, FTR up the stakes and go a little airborne, like Dax backdropping Trent off the top rope. This kicks things into overdrive and gets the Best Friends a bit more confident with Chuckie taking a big Tope Con Hilo to them on the outside. Tully hooks Chuckie’s foot leading to Chuckie to come back and grab him by his jacket for a second. (YOU DON’T GRAB A MAN BY HIS SATIN JACKET GOD DAMMIT, THAT’S A WAR CRIME IN SOME COUNTRIES).
They take it to the outside and Cash dodges a jumping Trent to chuck him headfirst into Kip Sabian’s arcade cabinet. FTR have the easy countout victory, but eschew it to drag Trent back in the ring to get the clean victory with a Goodnight Express but NO!!!!! Chuckie’s back in time to distract for Trent to reverse into a DDT on Dax. Trent briefly gets a head of steam going only for a ref distraction and Cash to sneak Trent on the dome with the gold belts for a 1-2-3. Best Friends get to take FTR to the limit and make em cheat to win; as good and character building a loss as you’re going to get. They wrap it up with an embrace to show their resilience as a duo, BUT NOT FOR LONG!
It’s Fine: Miro’s Not A Player, He Just Machka A Lot
That embrace is short lived however, ala my favorite story development: some goofy shit that’s gonna make Jim Cornette pop a blood vessel in his eyeball somewhere in Tennesse. Miro runs out to avenge Kip’s broken arcade cabinet, and they proceed to beat down the tired challengers only moments after their championship chances were dashed (or cashed) (OR CaDaxshed!!!).
Sabian & Miro stay out for a match with Sean Maluta & Lee Johnson. Miro cleans the clocks of both men for the duration of the match, chucking them against the guardrails as if he’s trying to void their warranties. He tags in Sabian only at the end for some perfunctory punishment (perfunctishment?), before coming back for a brutal looking Accolade for the win.
After we get a promo from Kip and Miro that could’ve easily consisted only of Miro’s first English-language line, “Good Friends…you break my shit! GAME. OVER.” Fellas, wrap it up, feud-on, quit wasting that precious oxygen putting a bow on a lump of verbal gold like that.
Backstage: Jake the Snake, in “See My Vest”
We look backstage to see Lance Archer giving a beatdown to Mox and anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way. In the background, Jake seems far more concerned with a snakeskin vest that, in his managerial expertise, could really take Archer to the next level. Really pull the guy together. More dogged-personal-dresser-Jake-the-Snake, please. I’m also a fan that Jake the Snake’s hair is slowly yet surely morphing into Lance Archer’s. They’re gonna make such a cute Father-Son Murderhawk duo, you guys.
POP: Steak Showdown
MJF (featuring Wardlow) is out to announce something, but not without first inviting out a man he respects, that has been on top of the game for 30 years, Le (previous) Champion Chris Jericho! He and the Inner Circle come out to the standard Judas singalong (which MJF points out the crowd was terribly off-key).
There is too much greatness here and I don’t want to leave it out, so let’s just bullet point this-
-MJF takes a minute to suck up, saying Jericho’s in great shape, like if Popeye was injecting spinach (and drinking a bit too much).
-He then asks to touch lionesque Chris’s glorious golden locks (noting most of the crowd is prematurely balding). He’s not wrong.
-MJF says the biggest draws in AEW are looking at each other right now, “Nose-to-Nose, and toes to mother-effing toes”.
-Calls himself the ratings ruler, only to say “It went over their head” when the crowd boos.
-Implies Jericho enjoys Animal Planet, which Jericho does not, leading to the quip, “I get it, they’re not under the Turner Broadcast umbrella”
-Most importantly, in another example of AEW being the masters of set-up and payoff, MJF FINALLY GOT SAMMY GUEVARA HIS JACKET! And it fits him like a glove.
F*ck the Mega-Powers explode, THIS is how story-telling is done.
The gist is MJF wants to join THE INNER CIRCLE! They’re both piranha, they’re both super-predators, but their prey is evolving, and it’s time to join forces. Santana takes umbrage, only for Jericho to grab the mic and lay down the gauntlet. Next week, one-on-one, mano y mano. Jericho. MJF. A. STEAK. DINNER.
Let me be the first to say, this will truly be a great moment in the history of our sport. How can it not? When….the STEAKS… have never been this high.
Hell yeah…
Poppiest POP: The Tony Schiavone Massage Experience
Words can’t do this justice. Just watch. They should’ve sent a poet.
This episode is on fire with the comedy. Tony gets way too into girls’ spa weekend and joins Britt for a massage, pedicure and a chest waxing (for Tony, not Britt.) Nice little detail of Britt fixing Tony’s teeth after the Young Bucks super-kick weeks ago.
POP: Orange Cassidy vs. Cody (c) for TNT Championship
Cody arrives, and it appears his neck tattoo is spreading like Silent Hill rust down his shoulders. Thankfully this encroaching evil is just Kinesiology-tape selling his injuries from last weeks Dog Collar match.
I was super curious how they were going to pan this match out. It seemed strange to put up one of the company’s hottest stars against a returning star who just recaptured his belt almost a bit too easily. Granted, the match was brutal, but it still seemed strange that Cody would come back from injury and regain the belt on his first attempt from an uber-heel cult-leader. How could this play out? It’d be a shame if AEW’s style of “making sure the loser looks good in defeat” becomes a trope in-and-of itself.
Part of me just wants OC to beat Cody just to show, yeah, he managed to valiantly grudge himself to take down the man who dethroned him, but he’s still a bit rusted. What then though? A dominant weekly champion Orange Cassidy? Maybe he learns to care, ala Water-T.
We see hints this may happen during the match. Cody gets a little indignant at OC’s dogged insistence, even drawing the ire of his coach Arn Anderson for some not-necessary thigh damage on OC on the corner post. All along, Darby Allin watches menacingly like the Phantom of the Amphitheatre, scouting out Cody for a future bout.
Cody continues beating down OC, including a brutal looking reverse superplex wherein Cassidy lands with his entire weight on his knee. Cody takes advantage, taking him back to the corner for a repeat of the ringpost spot, only for Cassidy to reverse and hit a diving DDT for a nearfall. The announcer announces “5 minutes left in the match” kinda giving away the ending. (The YouTube clip even explicitly asks, “Did Orange Cassidy BEAT THE CLOCK?”)
A figure four puts more damage on OC’s beat up knee, allowing for a nice stylish reversal, not into a sharpshooter, but OC’s patented log roll to the ropes for a ropebreak. He catches Cody offguard with a Beach Break on the apron. We get several pin attempts and a double clothesline, reversal upon reversal another beachbreak and…A KICKOUT AT 2. Cassidy goes for a superman punch, only for his knee to give out, attempted Cross Rhodes, mousetrap, and a kinda belaboured but still convincing end-of-regulation time at the 2 count.
I know they’ve talked about the time-limits from Day One of AEW, but is this the first major time we’ve seen it implemented? It works amazingly well, and fixes some of the questions I had earlier in the post.
POP: Matt Hardy and his Scrambled Brains are Back!
At ringside we have the Matt Hardy family! Matt Hardy is there with his favorite brood (sorry Gangrel, Edge, and Christian) to announce he’s been cleared to return to the ring, and to try and keep his wife busy and from shitting on the company for 10 minutes*. In the background on the KhanTron™ we see a hooded figure lighting ablaze 8×10’s of Hardy’s wacky “Three Faces of Foley, Version 2” thing and the reveal that SAMMY GUEVARA hasn’t forgotten their unfinished business.
Again, I love how much AEW is constantly keeping things moving and reminding us of past transgressions. I can think of other companies where the logic would go, “Sammy was playing 5th wheel in the Inner Circle segment 30 minutes ago, we CAN’T have him do other things on the show! Just throw Hardy against, I don’t know, Elias or something and let’s keep moving.”
Nope, AEW is a multi-faceted interlocking clockwork of plot where everyone has something going on. It’s all the best of the Vince Russo era, without the “Sonny Kiss gay-panicking Lance Archer into a 12 inch dildo on a pole match” aspect.
*Reby Hardy has every right to shit on a company that she thinks didn’t take her husband’s health seriously. I’m just tickled by the fact that she’s so prolific at it that Matt might need to look over his shoulder every 3 seconds to make sure she’s not actively tweeting that his current employer is a pussy ass bitch and the only Florida football team that counts is the Dolphins.
Meh: Tag Team Chaos
We get a lottery style drawing for a 4 way tag team showdown next week for the number one contendership. It’s Private Party, vs. Silver and Reynolds (of Dark Order fame), Butchie Bladie (not to be confused with “Knifey-Spoony”), and, to Schiavone’s chagrin, the Young Bucks.
(Note to self, make depressive comic series called, “Schiavone’s Chagrin”)
Yada yada, they superkick people. You know what it is. It’s fine. We like it.
It’s Fine: Big Swole vs. Hikaru Shida (c) for the Women’s Championship
Hikaru comes in to this match at 17-1 for 2020, and it’s Big Swole’s first chance at the championship. They go back and forth throughout the match with roughly 5 pin attempts per minute (5PAPM) striking, reversing, etc. Swole gets blocked on an attempted sunset-flip-powerbomb off the turnbuckle, only to get Hikaru to the outside and give a 1st rope assisted cutter on the entry ramp. Swole hits a dirty dancing for a close pin attempt, but Hikaru gets the rope break. Swole tries to follow it up with a 2nd Dirty dancing, but Hikaru is on her toes now, slips out, yada yada running knee, Hikaru retains.
Long time (well, the last few weeks I’ve been on duty) readers will know I feel a little bad for not loving the women’s matches on Dynamite. Part of the issue is a sheer speed and impact (not that Impact) thing, where everything feels so light and unbelieveable. I’m happy to say, if any two women on the roster don’t need to worry about impact and speed, it’s Hikaru and Swole. But while the in-ring storytelling is great, there is a consistent lack of story to many of the women’s matches. I don’t know why that is, but it’s kept me from getting too into them as much as the most basic men’s.
Is part of that due to having a champ for whom English is not their first language? I’m not saying Hikaru should be punished or held back for that at all. Rather that, maybe, it should be addressed? Because this is a few weeks in a row now where I’ve had to guiltily but honestly give a “meh” to a women’s match. Can we get Britt or someone in here? Or just give me a purpose! Big Swole is plenty charismatic and a great talker, and Hikaru is incredibly dynamic in the ring, just give us the motivation to root for one and against the other beyond, “Yep. These two ladies sure do want to win this match of wrestling. Good for them.”
POP: NO DQ JM VS LA(MH) WJTSR 4 AEW CHMPSHP
Great out the gate, from Eddie Kingston and his Lucha Goons on commentary, to Lance thumping a production assistant on the way out. They get straight to it before the announcements can start with Moxley nailing a Paradigm Shift hardly before Archer can get his spiky helmet off.
Another highlight is definitely Eddie Kingston on commentary making clear his beef with Moxley. They were both death match CZW cannon fodder, Moxley went to the Big Show and sold out. He was supposed to bring his boys with him, instead he sold his soul. Now his boys are back, and Eddie has his own boys now. His Lucha boys. Who are Bros. Also Butchers and Blade. His boys are Butchers and Bros and Blades and they mean BUSINESS. B.
Lance and Mox beat the shit out of each other in the no DQ. Get the chokeslam through the chair dealy, more guardrail warranty voiding, jumping DDT through the tables. Kingston delights at this, saying “Whoever the winner is, they’re getting softened up for me and my family.” Family first, that whats Mr. Kingston says.
Archer gets too confident on a leaning pinfall attempt after a Blackout and gets the pin reversed into a crucifix pin, leading to Moxley to retain. He immediately eats a boot for his troubles from Archer, before the Luchies slam Archer with a chair. Jake shows his merit as a manager and removes his client before he can engage any further.
Eddie talks shit to an exhausted beat down Moxley. Says he’s known Moxley since 2009. Asks if he remembers drinking at Nickel’s in Philly (approximately 5 blocks from where I sit typing this now! Nickel’s must’ve paid handsomely in kielbasa and sauerkraut for that endorsement). Kingston bullies Moxley around, says he did great in his match against him “Though of course I never tapped out”, and then demands the crowd applaud Moxley. Showing just how great a scumbag he is, even the crowd is like, “Nah dude, we’re cool.” Only to begin clapping and applauding when he insists.
That this man has carried this company and it’s been a great year, and I’m proud of you. I always knew you could do it. He raises Moxley’s hand only to elbow him in the face and throw him in a chokehold, while the Luchies fend off the refs from entering. Eddie picks up the title repeating again “This is what we fight for, Jon! I never tapped, I never quit, and I’m coming for you” before dropping the belt on Mox’s lifeless body.
My god Eddie Kingston is a revelation. I pondered last week how great a heel champ Kingston would make, able to keep his toadies to run interference between he and any challenger, knowing he had the smarts and strikes to take on anybody. Eddie plays the streetsmart cruel jerkoff so well I truly wouldn’t want to actually meet him. Simply for the paradoxical notion that he wouldn’t actually be as big a scumbag.
Just more great work all around, and here’s hoping AEW Dynamite Year 2 is the reign of Kingston, Edward the Terrible.
Follow Jesse @jessedraham on the things and @MrJezzicho on YouTube for his comedy shenanigans. For book lovers (or better yet, haters) check him out on the I Hate Infinite Jest Podcast.
