I am full of vegan turkey substitute. Let’s go.
POP: Hangman Adam Page vs. John “4” Silver
We’re three minutes in and I can already tell we’re having a bad production night. You can tell this is the case because it sounds like every single audience member has their own individual headset at the commentary booth. Socially distanced or not, 350 people on commentary are gonna drown each other out. Just look at WWE’s pre-show panels. At least here we don’t have to deal with Sam Roberts.
Jacked garden gnome John Silver is really growing on me. It’s very easy to fade in the background of the dark order, so all the more props that he built a stepstool of his charisma to get noticed. Short Kingz be praised!
Dark Order specifically requested this match, both to give John Silver more much deserved shine and to entice a depressed anxious millennial cowboy. Silver is looking like a million bucks these days, a thoroughly entertaining mix of speed, muscle, and shortness. Like Taz, only…fun I guess? Aside from the cult thing, I think Silver’s overall character is “Over-enthusiastic-guy-at-a-party-who-might-be-on-coke”. In which case, I suppose The Dark Order is the business he wants to get you in on.
Silver gets carried away and, in what may lead to a workplace sexual harassment angle, Silver gives Hangman a playful spank on the bottom. No doubt to “get inside his head” and reawaken his vaguely psychosexual tag team partnership with Kenneth Omega? I don’t know, I just want to see Brodie Lee putting have to give a presentation to the Order on appropriate behavior in the workplace. “Rule Number 1, NO SNEEZING”.
Silver looks like a million bucks here, but Hangman ultimately gets the win with the Buckshot Lariat, though Silver is kicking his shit and making him desperate every step of the way. Does this speak to Hangman’s lack of direction? Or the ascendence of #4? Or both?
Dark Order come out and (an increasingly slimmer) Evil Uno tries to talk to him. He points out that, yes, the Dark Order has been called a cult. But Adam, you were part of one of the most popular groups in wrestling. But no matter how many times you tried to leave, the group would not let him go. If that’s not a cult…what is? (Et tu, Hangman?) The Dark Order is here for the Hangman.
Middle Management Omega
All you need to know: Suit and Sunglasses Kenny Omega (the WORST version of Kenny Omega, in kayfabe) is out to tell Moxley that Kenny’s dad could beat up his dad.
POP: Powerhouse Will Hobbs vs. Lee Johnson
The newly dubbed “PowerHouse Hobbs” comes out and hey, he looks pretty damn good in orange! This is, of course, our first time seeing Hobbs since his induction to Team Taz. He takes on 0-16 Lee Johnson. The crowd chants “You Sold Out”, because it’s always 1998 in a pro wrestling’s fans mind.
Hobbs actually seems somewhat sympathetic to the chants, telling both the crowd and Lee (as he pummels him) “It’s just business”.Not a bad little twist on the story. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just making the most of an opportunity. No different than the Gunn Club aligning with Cody. It doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. A big slam later and John is down to 0-17.
BOTCH: With a Canned Cranberry Side of Stuttering Taz
Taz hops back in on mic and tells Hobbs to hit the showers, saying he’s got business to tend to. Taz has beef with Tony Khan and AEW saying the FTW belt and the FTW lifestyle are not being recognized or respected by the company. (For those unaware, FTW stands for “Fuck The World”, a lifestyle mostly taken seriously by sexually frustrated teenage boys.)
And he’s not leaving until someone from management comes out and …grants validity and prestige to a belt he introduced due to the popular demand of nobody? He demands satisfaction. Someone cuts his mic, which is thankful, as he was stuttering like a marginally taller Cindy Brady.
Cody comes out with a headset like an evil villain customer service rep. Some shit about Cody is training Taz’s son to be a wrestler. If Taz is so great, why didn’t his son come to him? Taz is simply FLABBERGASTED that Cody would say something as heinous as the simple truth. In retaliation, Taz tepidly hugs him from behind for the insult (or a “Tazmission” as it’s also called.) Then Taz’s son shows up with no fanfare after never appearing onscreen suddenly to carry the title.
……What the fuck just happened? This feels like the most last minute thrown together soap opera nonsense. And not even standard bad wrestling “D’Lo Brown made me miscarry my baby, now he has to be my slave and buy me tampons” soap opera stuff. Just a weird mishmash of suddenly implied grudges and alliances. “Taz, I need to tell you…you have a son you didn’t know about! And he wants ME TO TEACH HIM TO UNDERWEAR FIGHT, NOT YOU!”
POP: Top Flight vs. TH2
In case you missed it, Top Flight impressed enough last week versus the Bucks that they got signed to AEW contracts. Good for them. TH2 jumped them after for reasons only now made clear: they felt pushed to the side and wanted to make a statement on all these tag teams being pushed ahead of them. So we get another vets vs. rookies match.
We’re 40 minutes in and again, the sound problem has not been adjusted on iota. Without hyperbole, I can’t make out most of what commentary was saying during this entire match. Why is it that if the crowd volume is too loud, it cannot be adjusted for at least six days? This happens every couple of weeks, and not ONCE is it ever even slightly fixed during the broadcast. Is this some ancient Jacksonville curse shit? Does the ghost of Ronnie Van Zant from Lynyrd Skynyrd roam the halls of Daily’s Plaza adjusting mixer settings, and the production staff just respects southern rock too much to interfere?
Speaking of flying high Free Birds, we got four of them in this match. Interestingly, the early match features the boys keep it surprisingly grounded. Sure, there’s a double dive and a frogsplash, but a good chunk of the match is lucha libre matwork. It’s a good testament for the young Top Flight guys. Sure, they had a great match with the Young Bucks, but who can’t do that? TH2, despite being lower on the totem pole, are both great hands, and are great choices to test the hot new signees.
Top Flight does the job again, but they’re so new and young and spunky, it doesn’t cost them anything. They’re still super exciting with tons of potential. Moreover, we haven’t seen much of SPICE TH2 synthetic marijuana in a few months and they’re such a good team, it’s a pleasure to see them doing anything.
POP: SCU vs. Jericho/Hager
Fresh from reenacting all the memorable scenes from the Hangover, Jericho and Hager are back from Vegas to take on Scorpio Sky and Christopher Daniels. Inner Circle are out in full force and looking pretty impressive. Moreover, they’ve got a new group t-shirt design that is immediately in the top 1% of all wrestling merch by looking like something an adult human could wear with dignity. What the hell AEW shop, didn’t you know wrestling gear doesn’t work unless it has a catchphrase is size 326 font and a shiny half-naked man on it?
We get a pretty fun meat and potatoes match of shots to the gut and corner knees to the chest. Lots of heelish Inner Circle interference and Jericho/Hager flexing in celebration of their moderate domination of a throwaway tag match. Kazarian gets the hot tag at one point and cleans house on the outside (but hilariously ignores Sammy Guevara who reacts like Kazarian is a greased pig he just can’t get his hands on). MJF ultimately proves his worth to his new friends by having the most effect distraction, clocking Daniels with the Diamond ring leading to a Judas Effect and the pin.
Kazarian is still feeling a bit froggy after the match and swings at MJF leading to a dogpile. This brings out Scorpio Sky who…should’ve maybe been out with his team in the first place? Ya know, since the opposing team was gonna have five cohorts at ringside? Maybe he got stuck in whatever level of hell Kip Sabian and Miro’s videogame gimmick is on, and just got really sucked in to a game of Donkey Kong or something.
Belated Contract Signings
We get a great visual here as Omega does his standard “Silhouette Tunnel” entrance. As the Cleaner Gals (What up, Cleaner Gals?) pump up the crowd, we see the unmistakable “Crick in my neck” silhouette of Papa Mox sneak up beside Omega and pounce on him. The Cleaner Gals are confused and run away, and the only thing that would’ve made this segment better is if they kept dancing during the entire beatdown.
Moxley’s got some words, saying he doesn’t know who Omega hired to beat his ass, but they did a PISS POOR JOB as he’s still walking. Maybe give Mox a line next time, he’ll hook him up with some guys from Philadelphia! (As a lifelong Philadelphia area resident, I can tell you, yes, we do absolutely love our reputation as violent psychopaths, and yes, that Santa Claus did deserve to have batteries thrown at him. You can only get so many Christmas presents with Batteries Not Included before you snap.)
Thus follows the standard uber masculine taunts. Moxley rightly calls Omega out as a pussy and a fraud who’s building up a false shell of confidence in cheap suits and sunglasses. He also adds shoot your shot and a quote from the wire. The only way it could’ve been more masculine was if there’d been jumping girls on trampolines.
I will however applaud the ultimate sign of masculinity: THANKING TONY SCHIAVONE FOR HIS SERVICE! It’s that kind of respect that will ultimately make Moxley a great father and keep the belt on him.
PERFECTLY CROMULENT: Hikaru vs. Anna Jay
Up next we have Dark Order #99 Anna Jay vs. Hikaru Shida for a championship opportunity. Part of the story of this match is still how early into her career Anna Jay is, only having her first match in 2019 at age 21 (an age where many Japanese women’s wrestlers have 18 years in-ring experience). There’s also a symmetry at play here, as her debut AEW match was against Hikaru roughly 8 months ago.
What results is a perfectly cromulent match. I’m impressed with Anna’s ability to communicate her character work in her physicality. Whether she’s in control or taking the brunt, she is very plainly the heel and someone we should be rooting against. We even get a great call back to her goody-two-shoes BFF Tay Conti: a few weeks ago, Anna slid Tay the chair who threw it aside, believing she didn’t need to cheat to win (and she was right!). This time, Anna demands the chair from Tay who offers it, while yelling, “You don’t need it! Believe in yourself!”
Of course this is all done right in the ref’s full view, so he snatches the chair from Anna…only for Silver to chuck in a Kendo stick while the ref’s back is turned. Alas, it’s not enough to keep the grizzled young vet down, and Hikaru shoves a knee in her mush for the win.
I feel a little bad for Hikaru in these matches. There have been numerous articles written about the women’s division getting the short-shrift, and while they’re not wrong per se, they’re also not not-wrong. Look no further than their champ. Hikaru is a dynamic charismatic star that looks great in the ring and wins with authority. The problem seems to be that there are not a lot of women on her level in the company. Say what you will about WWE’s women’s division, they tend to at least be similarly ranked. I feel like every time we see Hikaru she’s taking on gals that are doing their damndest but just haven’t put in the hours yet.
As a result, while Shida’s getting the pins, the matches are being measured on how well her opponent looks, because there’s inverted expectation. The expectation is never “ARE WE ABOUT TO SEE A NEW CLASSIC THAT WILL BRING ON A NEW ERA IN WOMEN’S WRESTLING?” It’s “Is Hikaru Shida going to pull a decent match out of this newbie? FIND OUT THIS WEEK ON DYNAMITE!” Is this just me? Feel free to add your two cents in the comments section. (Do we have a comment section? I’m still new here)
⚡️ “AEW DYNAMITE | 11/25/2020 | HIGHLIGHTS”https://t.co/GUJydiOb5q
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) November 26, 2020
See also Hikaru’s latest challenger, Abadon. Abadon has oodles of potential. She’s creepy as fuck (so creepy that I’m already thinking “oodles” may be too silly an adjective so close to her name) but she is incredibly green still. That’s not any slight against Abadon*, who has found a terrifying and convincing character very early in her career, but it’s going to end up as another match with Hikaru doing the bulk of the leg work. It’s hard to buy “Will Hikaru survive this otherworldly encounter?!?!” when you know she’s head-and-shoulders the tougher more accomplished veteran.
I feel like we need Awesome Kong or Alundra Blayze to have like a 2 month title run just so we can see someone beat the shit of Hikaru. Stop TELLING me what a battle she’s in for and start SHOWING me having to be the one battling uphill for a change!
*It ain’t gonna be Steamboat/Savage, but Abadon/Shida is gonna rock so hard…
POP, with caveats: Butcher and Blade vs. Death Line Segment
Next we get Rey Fenix and Bastard Man Pac vs. Butcher and Blade with Eddie Kingston on commentary. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty fun clusterfuck from a group of guys that specialize in fucking clusters at every opportunity.
The weak point of the match is the Butcher. I’ve spoken of my enjoyment of him before in a thick-ugly-monster kinda way, but someone desperately needs to work on his fine tuning. Maybe it’s just that Rey Fenix is too fast for him, but there are at least three blatant messups between the two in the match. One after the other, we get Butcher whipping Rey towards the ropes, and then standing their like a dumb bear for roughly 18 seconds while Rey does the pseudo 619 rope twist, pop out and attack dealy.
Two seconds later Rey gets a ton of air off a springboard moonsault that Butcher counters by vaguely shrugging at him with an Orange Cassidy level sense of urgency. Even a simple boot stomp sequence gets messed up when the Everytime I Die guitarist loses his rhythm and forgets which foot he’s fake stomping with and which boot he’s stomping for emphasis. The guy has such a good look, but he needs someone to actively help him tighten the screws. Hey Butch, if you’re looking for a trainer, I hear Taz is a available and really vulnerable right now!
The other three are just a house afire the entire time. Hard strikes, big dives, Hard bigs, striving dikes, you name it. Butcher even gets to look good on some tandem offense being used in his natural role of “Big guy throwing somebody at his little guy partner”. They ultimately win the match that way as double interference from Kingston and Bunny allow ButcherBlade to finish off Rey with a brutal combo powerbomb/neckbreaker on Fenix. Because this is AEW, they have the FCC mandated post fight beatdown as Eddie Kingston drops Pac with multiple DDTs on the chair.
Because it is STILL AEW, we get another run in introducing a new feud in this pre-existing feud as Lance Archer returns to beat the shit out of the Kingston family. Even JR is yelling “How did Lance get caught up in this situation?”
Some smarks have given me guff over not following every detail of AEW, which is fair since I’m writing about the thing every week. But still, despite Schiavone screaming how “Kingston has been challenging Archer for months!”, it’s been further in the background than a lurking Abadon. Kingston talks shit on everybody, that doesn’t mean every sudden attack is a 100% logical next step feud.
The way some of these fans react, if Tony Schiavone had enough one day and just paintbrushed Eddie Kingston, there’d be plenty of marks yelling, “This is story telling at it’s finest! You’re just not paying attention. I’ve been saying for months this was going to end in a Schiavone/Kingston Tai Pei Death Match, and you were just too stupid to see the subtle storytelling leading up to it!” STOP BUILDING FEUDS ON THROWAWAY INSULTS DAMMIT.
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