BRM Reviews the 2/26/2020 Dynamite (very bad)

[Big Red Machine]

30-MINUTE IRONMAN MATCH: Pac vs. Kenny Omega (w/the Young Bucks)- 8/10
JR points out that Kenny’s tag team championship partner Adam Page isn’t at ringside with him, but their challengers in three days, the Young Bucks, are at ringside with Kenny. This was a good thing to point out based on the angle, but I’m wondering where Michael Nakazawa is, considering that he is Kenny’s best friend and Pac apparently beat the sh*t out of him off screen TWICE.
I know this is a very minor nit to pick, but the font they used for their scoreboard was a poor choice. The zeros look sideways. Either that or they accidentally used “o” instead of “0.” Like I said, it’s a minor nit, but once the scoreboard popped up, I couldn’t not see it.
As a wrestling match I thought this was awesome. From a booking point of view, however, it was a total clusterf*ck. What’s worse is that all of the problems revolved around the inexplicable decision to make this an Ironman match.
To start off with the smallest thing, if you’re going to have a “thirty second rest period” then Paul Turner needs to check on the wrestlers within that thirty seconds. By the time Turner was asking them if they were ready to continue, fifteen seconds had already ticked off the clock after it paused for thirty.
Now for the actual booking. Last week I praised AEW for having the guts to not put an escape the cage stipulation on the main event. If Cody has to beat Warlow in a cage in order to get his match with MJF, then Cody needs to actually BEAT the guy, no matter how temping it might be to throw in a stipulation that lefts Cody still win but lets you keep touting Wardlow has having never been pinned or made to submit.
I hereby revoke that praise. If you’re going to do an Ironman match, you need to f*cking BEAT both wrestlers. Several times. Or else what’s the point of the stip? What they gave us here was a two out of three falls match with a tease of a disappointing draw in the middle. And they wouldn’t even beat either guy for the first fall. Instead they took the cheap way out by having Pac get DQed on purpose with a chairshot, then using the damage from the chairshot to pin Kenny to tie things up pretty much immediately afterwards, so neither guy really got beat until the final fall… which begs the question why they didn’t just do a singles match. And just to make this worse, doing this threw away the very first DQ in AEW history in this pointless spot where it had zero impact.
If you don’t do the Ironman match we also don’t run into the following problems: After our thirty minutes of wrestling we had a tie. Pac punched the referee because he was angry, so I hope he’ll be getting suspended. That’s what happened to Nyla Rose, after all.
And moments after the referee was knocked out by a punch from Pac, Justin Roberts told us that the match would continue under sudden death rules and ordered the timekeeper to ring the bell, even though we had no conscious referee. Aubrey Edwards ran down to ringside to take over for Paul Turner, which is fine in a vacuum, but problematic when you remember that less than fifteen minutes ago we had a ref bump and no one came out to take over for the downed referee.
Kenny hits this huge knee, then hits a huge ripcord knee… and the fans are all chanting for the f*cking referee! He’s setting up for the Kamagoye… and the fans are still chanting for Aubrey Edwards. I don’t get it (you might say it’s not fair of me to blame dumb fan chants on AEW, but this isn’t the first time fans have reacted to her like she’s some sort of superstar who they chant for, so they had to know this was a possibility).
Every last one of these problems would have been avoided if they had just had a singles match, which is what would make the most sense anyway because there was no build of any sort towards an Ironman stipulation… but they had to do the Ironman stip because STIPULATION MAKE THE SHOW BIGGER, DAMMIT! And now what? Pac is going to complain that he wasn’t ready for the bell to ring for sudden death (I don’t think he was even facing Kenny when he did) and so he’s going to complain and want another match with Kenny, and we’ll be right back where we started?

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS PAC- I’m not going to lie… I, too, thought it came off like Tony was rubbing Pac’s loss in his face more than trying to get an answer to a real question. Then Orange Cassidy wandered out onto the stage and got in Pac’s face, so Pac punched him in the face and stomped his head into the stage. Security came out to save Orange Cassidy.

JURASSIC EXPRESS vs. THE INNER CIRCLE (Sammy Guevara & Proud & Powerful)- 6/10
A spotfest. Darby Allin helped the babyfaces win by stopping the heels from cheating. He backdropped Guevara over the top rope after the match.

MJF VS. CODY VIDEO PACKAGE- long

THE BUTCHER & THE BLADE (w/the Bunny) vs. BEST FRIENDS (w/Orange Cassidy)- 2.5/10
Orange Cassidy is apparently just fine after getting his head stomped in. Why even do the f*cking angle, then?
A tag team match happened and was interrupted for dumb Orange Cassidy shenanigans, because that’s important in AEW. Seriously. If Orange Cassidy and The Bunny are the only two people in the ring, that means that the legal man for both teams is on the floor, but instead of applying a count, Bryce Remsburg just stands there and watches the dumbf*ckery. Once Goofball McGoofington got his spots in, we went immediately to the babyfaces hitting their finisher and winning.
Orange Cassidy is the problem with wrestling nowadays. There. I said it. Call me a Jim Cornette if you want, but if we want fans to not react to Kenny Omega teasing Kota Ibushi’s finisher in the sudden death portion of an Ironman match that has been built for weeks by chanting for the f*cking referee, we need to start reeducating fans right away, and step one is taking away the goofball horse sh*t.
(For those wondering, step two is putting a moratorium on all table spots until fans stop chanting “WE WANT TABLES!” Every time there is a “WE WANT TABLES!” chant, every wrestler in the industry should agree to not do a table bump for a week. And if it happens in a match that has DQs, it should be two weeks.)

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BEST FRIENDS & ORANGE CASSIDY- terrible
He also announced that Orange Cassidy will wrestle Pac at Revolution. Yeah. They’re really wasting a PPV spot with Orange Cassidy. None of the wrestlers took this announced match with a dangerous opponent who had attacked Orange Cassidy less than an hour ago seriously in any way.

YUKA SAKAZAKI vs. BIG SWOLE vs. HIKARU SHIDA vs. SHANNA- 4/10
We’ve got four women in this match, and three of them are in cosplay gear. That’s too many people in one promotionwearing cosplay gear, never mind in one match. The match came off as very choreographed and spotty. The spot that broke me was someone running around a pin so she could hit a sliding lariat to the person making the pin instead of just running into the pin to break it up.

DARK ORDER PROMO- fine
They’re going to show SCU “the true might of the Dark Order” at the PPV. They said Daniels would learn that he is now “obsolete.” Hmmm…

JR’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH THE YOUNG BUCKS, ADAM PAGE, & KENNY OMEGA- meh
The last minute or so was good, but it took WAY too long to get there. I’m also pretty sure that this was the first time that Page leaving the Elite was addressed by the wrestlers themselves in the several months since the extremely poor decision was made to separate him from the group. What they did with this whole thing was pulled a Russo: They broke Page off from the stable for no good reason, only to keep him constantly involved with the stable so that they could shoot a break-up angle!

JERICHO/MOXLEY WEIGH-IN- hated it
1. Why are we having a weigh-in when there is no weight limit, either upper or lower?
2. Even if there were a weight-limit, doing a weigh-in THREE DAYS BEFORE THE FIGHT is pretty f*cking worthless.
We’ve got scantily-clad ring girls. There goes all of that woke cred that AEW is so fond of. Also, Gary Michael Capetta was not only involved in this, but was also given his own introduction. Taz told us that GMC had many years of “legitimate ring announcing experience.” As opposed to what? Fake ring announcing where he’s just standing there in the ring lip-synching?
GMC appears to have forgotten the name of the PPV. Not a good look.
Jericho grand-standed a bunch. Moxley attacked Jericho for no reason whatsoever, so the Inner Circle beat him up. Dustin Rhodes ran in to fight Hager and they brawled away. Darby Allin came in because he’s feuding with Sammy and got beaten up and had a skateboard broken over his head. Jericho hit Moxley with a low blow, then his own finisher, then hit Moxley with Moxley’s own finisher on the scale so Moxley bled a lot.
This probably sounds like a good go-home angle to you, but let me remind you that JERICHO STABBED MOXLEY IN THE EYE LAST MONTH. This is a come-down from that.
My main problem with this whole thing, though, was how contrived it felt. It felt like they realized that they wanted to get some heat on Jericho and Sammy going into the PPV so they booked a segment that had zero logical reason to occur and had Moxley start a fight just to start a fight so that he could get laid out by Jericho, had Dustin run in to plug his match with Hager, and had Darby run in so Sammy could get his heat back on him.

I thought this was a pretty bad show in general (especially once the Pac vs. Omega match was over), but as a go-home show in particular I think it was bad… but not for the usual reasons. I think the problem with this show as a go-home show was that most of what they were doing peaked last week, making this week feel like either a bunch of lesser angles or stuff that felt like it was being done specifically to get some last-minute heat because they didn’t know what else to do. Whatever the reason, though, this was a bad show, and putting Pac vs. Orange Cassidy on a PPV has me questioning AEW’s judgment.

[XIV]

I'm so pleased to finally hear someone on this site admit that Orange Cassidy is a goof who is exposing and cheapening the wrestling business with his bullshit!!

Also, 3 cosplay wrestlers in one match, again showing that AEW are allowing too much goofiness... if they had 1 individual cosplay wrestler, it would be fine, because t hey'd be unique and that would be their gimmick... but when you've got 3! it just looks stupid. Imagine being a first time viewer of AEW and turning on to the channel during that match!

PAC vs Pockets is a serious problem UNLESS PAC absolutely kicks the crap out of Cassidy and beats him in 3/4 minutes.

PAC legit looks like a horrible bastard and should be portrayed as such... but having him wasting his time against Cassidy like they are is overall a bad decision.

[NWK2000]

Also if Hikaru didn't dress up as Freddy Mercury the "We Will Rock You" part of her schtick wouldn't be nearly as over.

.
And if you can't get over without being a goof, maybe you shouldn't be wrestling in anything resembling a serious spot on the card.

[XIV]

YUKA SAKAZAKI vs. BIG SWOLE vs. HIKARU SHIDA vs. SHANNA- 4/10
We’ve got four women in this match, and three of them are in cosplay gear. That’s too many people in one promotionwearing cosplay gear, never mind in one match. The match came off as very choreographed and spotty. The spot that broke me was someone running around a pin so she could hit a sliding lariat to the person making the pin instead of just running into the pin to break it up.

Never understood the "cosplay wrestlers" argument, especially when it comes to Japanese stuff, when two of the most prolific wrestlers are Tiger Mask and Jushin Liger, literal anime characters. Also if Hikaru didn't dress up as Freddy Mercury the "We Will Rock You" part of her schtick wouldn't be nearly as over, so sometimes when you want to do a goofy thing, it helps to go whole hog.

There's always been an element of "cosplay" in some promotions, but having so many at once and in the same match is definitely an issue!

Anyone wrestling as Freddy Mercury is ridiculous.

[NWK2000]

There's always been an element of "cosplay" in some promotions, but having so many at once and in the same match is definitely an issue!

Eh, I'll give you that Just don't watch Michinoku Pro for your own health, please.

Anyone wrestling as Freddy Mercury is ridiculous.

I've always thought that the goofiness of a wrestler's character doesn't matter if they're shown to be competent in kayfabe. If they're winning matches, then clearly being eccentric/goofy is helpful to them.

[Big Red Machine]

I'm so pleased to finally hear someone on this site admit that Orange Cassidy is a goof who is exposing and cheapening the wrestling business with his bullshit!!

I'm pretty sure I've said this every time he's appeared.

[XIV]

I'm so pleased to finally hear someone on this site admit that Orange Cassidy is a goof who is exposing and cheapening the wrestling business with his bullshit!!

I'm pretty sure I've said this every time he's appeared.

Clearly more subtly than I picked up on

[XIV]

There's always been an element of "cosplay" in some promotions, but having so many at once and in the same match is definitely an issue!

Eh, I'll give you that Just don't watch Michinoku Pro for your own health, please.

Anyone wrestling as Freddy Mercury is ridiculous.

I've always thought that the goofiness of a wrestler's character doesn't matter if they're shown to be competent in kayfabe. If they're winning matches, then clearly being eccentric/goofy is helpful to them.

Please tell me how dressing up as Freddy Mercury has made her competent in Kayfabe?

[NWK2000]

There's always been an element of "cosplay" in some promotions, but having so many at once and in the same match is definitely an issue!

Eh, I'll give you that Just don't watch Michinoku Pro for your own health, please.

Anyone wrestling as Freddy Mercury is ridiculous.

I've always thought that the goofiness of a wrestler's character doesn't matter if they're shown to be competent in kayfabe. If they're winning matches, then clearly being eccentric/goofy is helpful to them.

Please tell me how dressing up as Freddy Mercury has made her competent in Kayfabe?

What I'm saying is, if she's winning matches, does it matter? Clearly something about embodying her musical hero Freddie Mercury gives her the will to win.

[cero2k]

Also if Hikaru didn't dress up as Freddy Mercury the "We Will Rock You" part of her schtick wouldn't be nearly as over.

.
And if you can't get over without being a goof, maybe you shouldn't be wrestling in anything resembling a serious spot on the card.

1. Emi Sakura =/= Hikaru Shida. Hikaru doesn't 'cosplay', y'all either need to pay more attention or not be racist.

2. inspired attires is not cosplaying, but at the end of the day, wrestling is 90% cosplaying.

it just looks stupid. Imagine being a first time viewer of AEW and turning on to the channel during that match!

4 hot chicks with attires of things I like? I'm fucking sold! Anyone who would be put off by that is just going in hoping to get mad for their personal biases.

Please tell me how dressing up as Freddy Mercury has made her competent in Kayfabe?

can i ask the same about everyone who has ever had a wacky gimmick? from The Undertaker and Mankind to Danhausen and The Fiend.

[NWK2000]

1. Emi Sakura =/= Hikaru Shida. Hikaru doesn't 'cosplay', y'all either need to pay more attention or not be racist.

I figured I had that wrong. Thanks for the heads up!

can i ask the same about everyone who has ever had a wacky gimmick? from The Undertaker and Mankind to Danhausen and The Fiend.

Not to mention beloved wrestlers like Tiger Mask and Jushin Liger, who you can argue are literally cosplaying . All it boils down to is the inability to describe why they don't like the wrestling so they'll parrot Jim Cornette.

[Thelone]

Orange Cassidy is the problem with wrestling nowadays.

It's not just him though. It's also the Marko Stunts of the world and Best Friends' dumb hugging spot and Pentagon glove shit/endless posing/Cero miedo and Aubrey Edwards overacting during matches and Statlander being an alien and countless other stuff. This is just bad comedy/dumb schtick, but the worst part is they are used during matches when it makes no sense 99% of the time. Basically, they just traded some flips for a bunch of lulz.

YUKA SAKAZAKI vs. BIG SWOLE vs. HIKARU SHIDA vs. SHANNA- 4/10
We’ve got four women in this match, and three of them are in cosplay gear. That’s too many people in one promotionwearing cosplay gear, never mind in one match.

I mean, Shanna isn't prentending to be Sangoku or Krilin and Sakazaki an arabian nights' dancer/princess/whatever. Really, Statlander is much worse in that regard.

JR’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH THE YOUNG BUCKS, ADAM PAGE, & KENNY OMEGA- meh
The last minute or so was good, but it took WAY too long to get there. I’m also pretty sure that this was the first time that Page leaving the Elite was addressed by the wrestlers themselves in the several months since the extremely poor decision was made to separate him from the group. What they did with this whole thing was pulled a Russo: They broke Page off from the stable for no good reason, only to keep him constantly involved with the stable so that they could shoot a break-up angle!

Did they ever explained what the Elite was/is to new viewers AT ALL?

We’ve got scantily-clad ring girls. There goes all of that woke cred that AEW is so fond of.

Are you shocked by that? I'm surprised they didn't get more flack when they had a bunch of women and... Sonny Kiss (in his only appearence on Dynamite since that battle royal for the diamond ring) out to stop a women's brawl a while ago.

[Big Red Machine]

Also if Hikaru didn't dress up as Freddy Mercury the "We Will Rock You" part of her schtick wouldn't be nearly as over.

.
And if you can't get over without being a goof, maybe you shouldn't be wrestling in anything resembling a serious spot on the card.

1. Emi Sakura =/= Hikaru Shida. Hikaru doesn't 'cosplay', y'all either need to pay more attention or not be racist.

2. inspired attires is not cosplaying, but at the end of the day, wrestling is 90% cosplaying.

1. No matter who it was or whether it was cosplay attire or not, it looked like it was cosplay attire in a match with two other cosplayers.

2. Wrestling is absolutely not 90% cosplaying. Cosplaying is dressing up as an already-extant idea. Wrestling is acting; not cosplaying.

[Big Red Machine]

Eh, I'll give you that Just don't watch Michinoku Pro for your own health, please.



I've always thought that the goofiness of a wrestler's character doesn't matter if they're shown to be competent in kayfabe. If they're winning matches, then clearly being eccentric/goofy is helpful to them.

Please tell me how dressing up as Freddy Mercury has made her competent in Kayfabe?

What I'm saying is, if she's winning matches, does it matter? Clearly something about embodying her musical hero Freddie Mercury gives her the will to win.

Or she's already good and just does this to be silly, which isn't good for the tone of the product. You can have some people like that, but they can only be pushed to a certain level.

[Big Red Machine]

it just looks stupid. Imagine being a first time viewer of AEW and turning on to the channel during that match!

4 hot chicks with attires of things I like? I'm fucking sold! Anyone who would be put off by that is just going in hoping to get mad for their personal biases.

Because in a division with so few established personalities, having three different people for whom the only thing we see of a personality is that they cosplay- and especially having two in the same match- makes the division feel devoid of diverse personality types.

And when you throw in Statlander, a woman randomly calling herself "The Bunny", and the woman who can't go five seconds without telling us that she's a dentist, it makes the division as a whole look bad because Riho, Nyla, and Kong are the only people I can think of who don't inspire laughter.

[Big Red Machine]

Orange Cassidy is the problem with wrestling nowadays.

It's not just him though. It's also the Marko Stunts of the world and Best Friends' dumb hugging spot and Pentagon glove shit/endless posing/Cero miedo and Aubrey Edwards overacting during matches and Statlander being an alien and countless other stuff. This is just bad comedy/dumb schtick, but the worst part is they are used during matches when it makes no sense 99% of the time. Basically, they just traded some flips for a bunch of lulz.

Marko doesn't actually bother me. He's not bodyslamming Big Show. I am fine with him using traditional little-man offense that relies on speed, leverage, and hitting hard.

The posing can work with certain characters (Ilja Dragunov, Cara Noir). My problem with Pentagon Jr. is that when he does it during a match, it feels like he's doing it just to get a pop.
Aubrey's overacting doesn't bother me too much, but it has me worried that if fans keep cheering her and it goes to her head, she'll turn into an American Red Shoes.

I totally agree about the other stuff, though, especially OC and Best Friends. And the f*cking director being in on it and treating it like the Rainmaker pose makes it even worse.

YUKA SAKAZAKI vs. BIG SWOLE vs. HIKARU SHIDA vs. SHANNA- 4/10
We’ve got four women in this match, and three of them are in cosplay gear. That’s too many people in one promotionwearing cosplay gear, never mind in one match.

I mean, Shanna isn't prentending to be Sangoku or Krilin and Sakazaki an arabian nights' dancer/princess/whatever. Really, Statlander is much worse in that regard.

As I said in the other post, the problem is not the concept but that there are too many doing it in the same place at the same time.

JR’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH THE YOUNG BUCKS, ADAM PAGE, & KENNY OMEGA- meh
The last minute or so was good, but it took WAY too long to get there. I’m also pretty sure that this was the first time that Page leaving the Elite was addressed by the wrestlers themselves in the several months since the extremely poor decision was made to separate him from the group. What they did with this whole thing was pulled a Russo: They broke Page off from the stable for no good reason, only to keep him constantly involved with the stable so that they could shoot a break-up angle!

Did they ever explained what the Elite was/is to new viewers AT ALL?

Not sure, but I think most people will have easily been able to grasp from context that it was a stable. The real question is whether people will have understood that Cody was part of it, or will have understood that Brandi was not part of it.

[Big Red Machine]

Please tell me how dressing up as Freddy Mercury has made her competent in Kayfabe?

can i ask the same about everyone who has ever had a wacky gimmick? from The Undertaker and Mankind to Danhausen and The Fiend.

Because Taker, Mankind, and even The Fiend always took themselves seriously. They weren't out there to be goofs like Danhausen or Sakura. There is a massive difference between being a gimmick (Kane) and being a goof (Santino).

[XIV]

Please tell me how dressing up as Freddy Mercury has made her competent in Kayfabe?

can i ask the same about everyone who has ever had a wacky gimmick? from The Undertaker and Mankind to Danhausen and The Fiend.

Because Taker, Mankind, and even The Fiend always took themselves seriously. They weren't out there to be goofs like Danhausen or Sakura. There is a massive difference between being a gimmick (Kane) and being a goof (Santino).

This!

And to whom ever said that people disliking this just "parrots Jim Cornette". That is untrue. I maybe happen to hold the same opinion. When I watch wrestling, I know I'm watching a work these days... but I still want the people involved to be serious about the presentation and have me hooked with an interesting angle and try to make me think for just a second "shit, I know all that other stuff is worked, but this, this feels real". So yes, Undertaker is not literally a dead man, but he always took himself seriously.

Watching someone dress as Freddy Mercury whilst already being talented and not needing to, just comes across as goofy.
Watching Orange Cassidy put his hands in his pockets and play kick people is not a serious presentation of someone trying to win a contest or a fight, it mocks the presentation.

None of this ever gets explained either. No I haven't seen all of these guys Japanese matches or matches for every promotion, so I won't get it. Explain to me why person A wears this or person B acts like this. Nobody has ever explained on AEW why Cassidy acts the way he does! Nobody has ever explained who the hell Excalibur is and why he wears a mask.

When Undertaker and Kane dressed the way they did, it was clearly explained what they were trying to achieve so us as the viewer knows. In order to crack the larger crowd, AEW has to learn how to explain things to the casual viewer and not just expect to coast by on their hardcore crowd watching every Marko Stunt match that's ever existed to understand him or his purpose.

[Big Red Machine]

can i ask the same about everyone who has ever had a wacky gimmick? from The Undertaker and Mankind to Danhausen and The Fiend.

Because Taker, Mankind, and even The Fiend always took themselves seriously. They weren't out there to be goofs like Danhausen or Sakura. There is a massive difference between being a gimmick (Kane) and being a goof (Santino).

This!

And to whom ever said that people disliking this just "parrots Jim Cornette". That is untrue. I maybe happen to hold the same opinion. When I watch wrestling, I know I'm watching a work these days... but I still want the people involved to be serious about the presentation and have me hooked with an interesting angle and try to make me think for just a second "shit, I know all that other stuff is worked, but this, this feels real". So yes, Undertaker is not literally a dead man, but he always took himself seriously.

Watching someone dress as Freddy Mercury whilst already being talented and not needing to, just comes across as goofy.
Watching Orange Cassidy put his hands in his pockets and play kick people is not a serious presentation of someone trying to win a contest or a fight, it mocks the presentation.

None of this ever gets explained either. No I haven't seen all of these guys Japanese matches or matches for every promotion, so I won't get it. Explain to me why person A wears this or person B acts like this. Nobody has ever explained on AEW why Cassidy acts the way he does! Nobody has ever explained who the hell Excalibur is and why he wears a mask.

When Undertaker and Kane dressed the way they did, it was clearly explained what they were trying to achieve so us as the viewer knows. In order to crack the larger crowd, AEW has to learn how to explain things to the casual viewer and not just expect to coast by on their hardcore crowd watching every Marko Stunt match that's ever existed to understand him or his purpose.

Excalibur's mask doesn't bother me. It's not hare to infer that he's a retired American Luchador.
I agree with everything else, though.

[cero2k]

1. No matter who it was or whether it was cosplay attire or not, it looked like it was cosplay attire in a match with two other cosplayers.

2. Wrestling is absolutely not 90% cosplaying. Cosplaying is dressing up as an already-extant idea. Wrestling is acting; not cosplaying.

1. by that sense then everyone is cosplaying! The fucking Undertaker and Kane look like cosplays! "3 cosplayers in a match!" is nitpicking.

2. 90% of wrestlers are wearing costumes. wrestling cosplays itself all the time