Pops & Botches: “It Never Snows In Florida” AEW Dynamite – 12.09.2020

 

Previously on AEW Dynamite, nothing of consequence happened.

 

 

 

Oh…Sting showed up on TNT television for the first time in 20 years.

 

 

…and Kenny Omega hit Moxley with a microphone to win the AEW championship and become only the 3rd champion in the company’s history.

 

 

…and then joined up with Cyrus the Virus from ECW on TNN in 1999 and ran away to that other show that used to be on TNN, TNA Impact.

 

 

So… a pretty ho-hum show.


 

POP: Young Bucks vs. TH2

TH2 have been lashing out like middle children lately for not getting enough attention. Last week TH2 attacked the Young Bucks hoping Daddy Khan would take notice and take THEM out for ice cream for once. So this week, they get a shot at the champion Young Bucks, though TH2 get the jobber “already in the ring” entrance. (TK is a cruel Daddy indeed)

We get a lot of Groucho Marx symmetrical mirror spots. Double rope vault, double leg yank, double dives. It’s almost like the Young Bucks are brothers or something. (Seriously, I thought for years the Bucks were twins and was shocked to find otherwise. Nowadays they’re doing the Good Charlotte “one’s a little grittier, one’s clean shaven” twin dealy, which is a detail I appreciate. It’s the Little Things.)

Ya know who doesn’t look like they were picked last in gym class? Jack Evans. He’s on fire in this match, going flip for flip and spot for spot with the Action Jacksons. KILLER SPOT where Jack Evans does a moonsault off the back of a Buck draped across the corner. He later takes a brutal doomsday device on the ramp. I’d love to show you the former spot, but for whatever reason, AEW’s Twitter only uploaded clips of the Bucks on offense. WHY WON’T YOU LOOK AT ME, TONY?

Angelico gets the knees up at just the right time to stop a moonsault and the Buck (even with the facial hair differences, I still don’t know who’s who. Let’s stick with the Good Charlotte thing and just say the Benji and the Joel from now on.) The Benji Buck hits his ankle funny and Angelico decides to focus his efforts on the ankle. All for nought, the Bucks win a hard fought VERY entertaining match via BTE-Trigger.

I’m hoping this is the beginning of seeing TH2 more often. They’re so goddamn fun, they’re as flippy as the flippiest of flipsters, I love their double team efforts. That foot assisted front flip thing is the dumbest funnest move and I pop for it every time and I imagine masked children trying it on trampolines all over this great country. More TH2 please!

(Also, because I wanted to take that Young Bucks/Good Charlotte joke further, he are some unused dumb quips: “The Young Bucks and the Hopeless”, …oh, I guess it was just one.)

Darby Allin’s Therapist Violates HIPAA

No way in hell that a random Rorschach test that JUST SO HAPPENED to be Sting’s facepaint. Make sure that man has his license, Darby, he’s trying to re-traumatize you.

 

POP: Cody Rhodes

Next, we get Cody out in the ring to discuss Sting, because whenever anything big happens in AEW, everyone should be asking, “How does this involve Cody?” On a related note, is Shaq still showing up? Are Shaq and Sting going for the tag belts? Is Kenny Omega taking Sting and Shaq to Impact and rebranding “Impact” as “StingShaqt”?

Cody gets to say nothing before Sting shows up. Minor-Detail-I-Hope-They-Never-Fix-Of-The-Week: The snow falling right into the camera lens is beautifully imperfect.

Good ol’ Arn gets close to Sting to make sure it’s the real Sting and not just Xpac in makeup like most of the 90’s. Sting hugs Schiavone, because that’s just what Tony Schiavone’s presence demands. I could catch Schiavone in bed with my fiancé and he’d at least still get a high five on the way out.

Sting shares some lovely memories with Schiavone before pivoting to Cody. Sting shocks Cody by saying he wasn’t there for him, but he IS here for Darby Allin, intimating that he’s a ripoff. Also rightfully points out that if you’re gonna be a knockoff, trading in the Crow’s Nest in the rafters for a box seat in an amphitheater is pretty lame.

Sting says he’s signed to AEW, and he plans to be here for awhile. He then gives the “Dad’s-friend-grabs-your-shoulder-too-hard” move to Cody and says “I’ll see you around, kid”.

Taz shows up with his four children. Hook Taz has now formally joined with Team Taz to wear his emo hoodie and sulk.

GOTTA BOTCH SOMETHING: The Man Who Puts The Shaq in StingShaqt

Uncle Tony is sitting down with Brandi and Shaq, and in Shaq’s intro randomly mentions that Shaq is on the board at Papa John’s…okie doke. Shaq mumbles that he’s basically sorry not sorry about his girl Jade Cargill attacking Brandi. As Brandi goes to leave, Shaq tells her, when her arm heals up, she should hit up Jade for some pointers. You MAY have noticed Schiavone conspicuously holding Chekov’s Dixie Cup full of Water. Well, it comes into play and ends up all over Shaq’s stupid mumbling face.

While I am glad that they’re at least remembering this angle that started weeks ago, I’m still curious who’s really looking forward to this. I guess they’re trying to attract the lucrative “40 year old NBA fans in 2002” demo.

POP: Proto High Flyin’ Brian

The Varsity Blondes (Brian Pillman Jr. and somebody else) are here to remind us that FTR exists via being brutally picked apart. BPJ’s mullet is amazing and I applaud it. I have no idea who the other Varsity Blonde is, but he strongly resembles comedian Cody Wright.

Pictured here at the precise moment he chose to become a wrestler.

Griff Garrison is his name, my bad. Also my bad, we get a fairly competitive match here! It’s still taking some WWE deprogramming for me to not expect returning guys to just win in 30 seconds.

BPJ appears to be doing a tribute to his dad by mainly doing “high flying” moves that haven’t been considered “high flying” since the early 90’s. Remember when early 90’s Shawn Michaels would do a basic Moonsault and Gorilla would react, “WHAT THE FLIPPING FUCK WAS THAT?!?! HE’S A WITCH!”? That kinda high flying. “Jumping-And-Turning-In-Midair” stuff. Barely getting your feet on the ropes and calling it a springboard. It’s fun. They get in a more competitive than expected match, but ultimately BPJ eats a Shatter Machine or whatever they’re calling it these days for the FTR win.

That’s A POP, Pardner!

Reynolds and Silver have been waiting behind a bar for a week to make a cowboy partner pun in tiny hats and I love it. They ask Page to be there partner and he agrees to do a one-and-done (AKA, a Hit-It-And-Quit) to join with them in the 6 man tag.

This only lends further credence to my belief that John Silver is a puppet, possibly one of the Bad Idea Bears from the 2000s puppet musical Avenue Q, wherein said Bad Bears entice other characters into theft, drunken sex, and suicide. Think about it…have we ever ACTUALLY seen Josh Silver’s legs?

It ain’t easy being Silver.

 

 

 

POP: X v VII

DecaD.O. is here to job out to Dustin Rhodes and loses in quick fashion. Evil Uno comes out and makes an offer to Dustin: Sure buddy, you’re a 30 year vet and a living legend, but here in AEW, you’re the 3rd most important Rhodes around. (HOW WILL CODY REACT TO THIS COMMENT?!?) Uno makes him an offer: Join up with us as Number 7 (Which I must admit, I stupidly didn’t get the WCW horrible Seven gimmick reference for several hours). Dustin answers like a natural…A NATURAL BADASS! He smacks Uno around, but Uno holds back his dogs and tells Dustin to think about it.

You’ve got to hand it to Evil Uno: dude is putting in work on the recruitment front. He’s sent his best most endearing marionette to seduce Hangman Adam Page, he’s out here putting in leg work to get a living legend into his multi-level-marketing scam. What’s a guy got to do to get that corner office? Brodie! Time to make this guy VP.

Sometimes Brothers Fight

The Inner Circle is out to discuss whether or not they should break up. MJF excuses last week “Throwing in the Towel” tease by saying he was dabbing sweat in his eyes.

What are they gonna do? Stay together and takeover? Or break apart. Ortiz admits that, much like Santana (who unfortunately missed the show tonight due to a personal issue) that like a fungus, MJF is growing on him. (Does…Ortiz have mushrooms growing on his person? Buddy, get some sunlight, that’s not natural.) And that it’s up to Sammy to suck it up and be the bigger man and shake MJF’s hand. (Adding in a little catchphrase infringement with, “You’re better than him Sammy, and you know it.”)

They shake hands and agree to stay together, but not before Hager complains that Wardlow won’t stop staring at him with lustful wanting. Wardlow says its HAGER who’s looking at HIM with lust in his eyes. They realize they’ve both been thinking the same thing and make love in the middle of the ring.

Jericho tells them to stop, presumably to insist they use protection, but rather, he hawks Le Champion Little Bit O’ The Bubbly as the ultimate aphrodisiac. MJF sings a song responsible love-making, and Sammy, begrudgingly, sings harmony. Ortiz dances.

The IC agree to stay together with an (ironic) semi-circle of middle fingers.

POP: A House Divided: Kingston Family vs. Lucha Bros and Lance Archer

Eddie Kingston has to do the saddest thing a parent ever has to do: wrestle his former adopted Lucha sibling orphans.

Early in the match, Butch drops Penta into a table and he’s lead away limping. It didn’t look like that bad a bump, so I’m gonna assume kayfabe. Or maybe the Butcher, knowing anatomy extremely well from his years spent Butching, just knew the precise tendon to drop against the table and send Penta packing.

Commentary informs us that this is Archer’s first tag match in AEW. Shorthanded, the Kingston’s have the advantage in what is now essentially a handicapped match. Bunny gets some interference in, but not enough to make a difference as she’s not wearing her +300 shredded pants this week.

There’s been a lot of interesting height differentials tonight. In the Inner Circle segment, you can see Jericho is roughly the same height as Ortiz, despite Jericho being considered a “Bigger Guy”. Brian Pillman, despite appearing pretty short, is described on commentary as “slightly bigger than his Dad”.

And here, normally gigantic looking Butcher looks a bit more like Hipster Gimli next to Lance Archer. Again, more WWE deprogramming. You spend a whole lifetime watching wrestling where everyone’s huge and 6’7″ Scott Hall appears average height, it’s gonna fuck up your perspective.

Butcher and Blade get the win with their finish on Rey. The Kingston Family celebrate but Archer jumps in and beats em all down. It’s fine, a little bit of a reset now that the entire Kingston Family thing has been reorganized. I miss scumbag gang leader Kingston on the mic every week speaking with gravitas, but you can’t have that every week.

BOTCH: Nobody wets Shaq on my watch

Nyla Rose and Shaq’s lady friend beat down Brandi. Other people run out, match next week, yada yada yada.

 

POP: Abadon Eats Tesha Price’s Soul

I am all aboard the Abadon train, and it’s not JUST due to a lifelong love of women that kinda scare me. It’s also the first time my fiance willingly wandered in the room and watched wrestling. (And then I had to explain “Yeah, she’s a ‘bad guy’ but you’re still allowed to like her”, and then when that didn’t make sense had to describe the last 30 years of wrestling and that “the bad guy” doesn’t really effect who gets cheered for, there’s a thing called a “Tweener” now. You see, when Brian Pillman started breaking kayfabe in the early 90’s…. and but so but yes but there’s a built in match structure of the heel getting heat and the face getting a second wind and Dear God maybe this isn’t worth it.)

Abadon gets the pin with a sick reverse cutter move, and continues beating Tesha after the  bell. Hikaru comes out and clocks her on the noggin with a Kendo Stick to save her best friend Tesha (I’m guessing), and Abadon does an Undertaker sit up to no sell it.

I know Abadon is still super green in the wrestling world, (I believe she’s only been wrestling several years) but this character is AMAZING. Yes, I know it’s just face paint and presence and there’s no story just yet. But when you think back on “scary” female wrestlers, who do you think of? Scary Sherri? Luna Vachon? Aja Kong? Awesome Kong? All intimidating, and Luna definitely fell into the “weird” category.

Abadon generally seems FRIGHTENING, and that is a breath of fresh air. There are children watching Dynamite that are 100% shoot terrified of her and have nightmares about her, and I for one think wrestling needs MORE traumatic scarring of children. Lead us into the inescapable all-consuming night, my dark queen…

KnY oMgbla

Who cares, let’s not waste one second more without the REAL story.

POPPIEST POP THAT EVER POPPED

MY BELOVED CLEANER GALS HAVE RETURNED SOUTH FOR THE WINTER! Moreover, they have reproduced like paramecium into FOUR Cleaner Gals! Maybe Impact is a more preferable breeding ground for their species? So help me G-d, if they keep multiplying into a full Super-Bowl halftime style dance squad, I may quit this column and devote my life to following them around like Phish.

POP: Kenny Omega, in “Jacksonville Vice”

Schiavone starts off saying he’s had enough of this shit. (No matter how many times I hear the word “Shit” on TNT, it still sounds like a little kid just realizing that he can get away with saying it. There’s like a millisecond of hesitation into every “Shit” on Dynamite)

Callis proudly talks about how he and Kenny pulled off the heist of the Century (eh, the heist of December 2020, maybe). Callis says he’s been watching Kenny grow and waiting for the right time. Says he was the factor behind Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho at the Tokyo Dome, which Tony Khan himself said, AEW would not exist without.

Kenny takes the mic and says, unlike everyone else, he didn’t beg Tony Khan to hire all his best friends once AEW started. He waited and plotted for over a year before pulling the cord and getting Callis the gig. Kenny takes pleasure that the crowd fell for his entire act. And he doesn’t care if Tony Khan, or the Fans, or Jerry Lynn bought it. But it was only important that Moxley bought it, the whole “Gentleman’s Agreement”. And he took advantage and won the belt.

Callis has a great line, “Some people make matches, some people make money, but Kenny Omega MAKES HISTORY”.

What a beautiful dickhead, straight with his white blazer over a tshirt Don Johnson style with compliment President Biden aviators. HOWEVER…I know we’re only a week in, but the importance of the IMPACT aspect of this still seems kinda meh.

What did they do on Impact? They shot something in an RV that could’ve been anywhere in the continental U.S., he didn’t even appear in the studio. Granted, some part of this is definitely the lack of live crowds, who would’ve gone crazy for Kenny showing up in the Impact Zone. So…I don’t know. The story still has plenty of beats to go, but at first glance, the whole Impact aspect has been more a whimper than a bang.

POP: Battle for the Gauche Diamond Pinky Ring

Wrapping up the show, we have the ultimate battle for the tacky diamond pinky ring! I have no idea why, but Bryce Remsburg trying to “display/brandish” the ring you would a title belt filled me with wonderful feelings, especially when he couldn’t get OC to bother to turn and look at the thing. OC may not be entirely sure what this match is about. MJF, you want the ring so bad, you could swap it with a RingPop and OC probably wouldn’t realize. (Also, provided it’s dark cherry, he’d be pretty stoked with the RingPop)

MJF beats the shit out of OC until the predetermined “Time to Care” gear kicks in on OC. MJF makes OC’s stuff look great, like the suplex reversed into the cutter. Also, dude, stuffing Cassidy’s hand in his pockets before a powerbomb on the ring apron? (Strange kissy chef fingers to mouth expression.)

MJF continues working the hand, including a great “fingers-stuffed-in-the-ring-hardware” spot that the camera crew catches magnificently. Also, the sheer detail of hardcore finger work in a match over a literal ring that goes on your literal finger? To once again quote Good Charlotte, “It’s the little things that make (professional wrestling) who (professional wrestling) am today”.*

*(If you’re reading a professional wrestling recap and NOT expecting 20-year old pop punk references, you’re reading the wrong column. I’ve been trying to shoehorn in a New Found Glory reference this whole time.)*

We return from commercial to see Orange Cassidy beaten down. It’s All Downhill From Here, folks. The Best Friends (that I’d still pick over you) use this as the Catalyst to run backstage and grab a bunch of faces to even out the numbers with the Inner Circle.

OC tries a comeback, but it’s Hit or Miss. Given his enthusiasm, I’d say he’s Better Off Dead than continuing this match, and that’s an Understatement. At the Second to Last moment, OC beats back MJF and does a dive into the Inner Circle. (Also, random thought regarding Sting’s entrance, I thought it Never Snows On Florida?)

Jericho throws MJF the bat and he considers clobbering OC, who does the “I’m gonna pretend you already hit me” deal which leads to an interaction between Bryce and MJF that leads to a roll up attempt. OC hits a Superman punch but hurts his hand too much to capitalize.

He lands another but Wardlow throws MJFs leg on the rope. All hell breaks loose at ringside between the Inner Circle and Assorted Faces in a Head On Collision. VideoGame Loving Bulgarian Brute Force slides in the ring and interferes on OC which leads to MJF getting the pin.

Things keep going nuts. Miro starts fucking up PA’s like they interrupted him during a Qbert high score attempt or some other stupid shit.

MJF has the ring for another year. Could’ve saved yourself a lot of trouble if you’d just switched out a RingPop.

Never Ending Story cover.

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