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BRM Reviews the 11/18/2020 Dynamite (best in a long time)

Posted: Nov 19th, '20, 21:41
by Big Red Machine
TOP FLIGHT VIDEO PACKAGE- great

AEW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Young Bucks(c) vs. Top Flight- 7.5/10
Top Flight are very good… but I didn’t see anything in them that I haven’t seen in every other highspot indy team that comes along.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine, I guess
TH2 show up after the match and attack Top Flight but the Bucks chase them off. Let me guess: Next week I’m going to find out that they’ve been on some huge winning streak on Dark?

Moxley vs. Omega is happening on December 2nd… NOT on PPV?

THE INNER CIRCLE GO TO LAS VEGAS- More stupid bullsh*t, and a total waste of time. We got cameos from Konnan and Piff the Magic Dragon.

A COMMERCIAL FOR SOME SORT OF AEW PROPAGANDA PUFF PIECE- If WWE can have them, then AEW can, too.
There was a line in here where someone said “we can be the wrestlers want to be,” and that is both AEW’s strength and its weakness. Some people should be trusted to be the wrestlers they want to be, but others need a competent editor. The majority of the people in AEW seem to need an editor

JON MOXLEY PROMO- very good

ORANGE CASSIDY vs. KIP SABIAN (w/Penelope Ford)- 4/10
Miro was on commentary. Best Friends came out with OC but he sent them to the back.
We start off with OC doing comically light strikes and trying to put his hands in his pockets so I guess he doesn’t care about his match. Explain to me again how the Jericho feud changed him? And the Pac feud?
We spent a while on the “the heel doesn’t want OC to stick his hands in his pockets” routine. At one point Kip had OC in a wristlock, and instead of trying to escape the hold or G-d forbid f*cking SELL IT, OC just tried to put his other hand in his pocket. Once they stopped with the goofy sh*t and just had a regular match, this was fine.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Miro attacked OC so Best Friends ran out to make the save. We’ve had two matches and two post-matches attacks where the heel is quickly run off.

OMEGA-MOXLEY CONTRACT SIGNING- fine
Moxley is found knocked out backstage. Omega says that Moxley is trying to get out of the contract signing like he “got out of” last year’s match with a staph infection (so I guess Kenny is just ignoring their unsanctioned match like a heel would).

MORE INNER CIRCLE BULLSH*T- dumb
They got black-out drunk and woke up to find out that they had gotten up to antics. We got Honkytonk Man showing up, and the payoff to this was seeing Hornswoggle in a diaper. In kayfabe, why would AEW have ever put this on the air?

PAC vs. THE BLADE (w/The Butcher & The Bunny)- 6.5/10
Eddie Kingston was on commentary for this match. The story was The Butcher and The Bunny interfering, which makes Pac feel like a babyface, which he absolutely is not.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- We’re 3/3 now.
Pac started to cut a promo on Kingston but he got jumped from behind by The Butcher. Kingston started to cut a promo on Pac but Rey Fenix ran out to make the save. He got beaten down, too. Then Penta el 0M came out with a chair, walking extremely slowly. Dude… we all know you’ve made up you’re mind which side you’re going to be on it, so just run and be on that side already. Walking slowly to create drama just makes this all feel fake.
He teases hitting Rey Fenix, but instead saves him. I’m sure Fenix appreciates him walking slowly and allowing their enemies extra time to hit him. Anyway, the Lucha Bros have split with Kingston and the Death Triangle is back together. This company that is always talking up how they are telling these “long-term stories” when it feels to everyone else like they’re dragging things out needlessly, and yet there they ran through about two months’ worth of storylines between the main event of last week’s show and this segment right here.

JADE CARGILL HAS ATTACKED BRANDI BACKSTAGE- meh
For no reason that I can think of, Vickie Guerrero and Nyla Rose have decided that they are going to stop the referees from running in and pulling Cargill off of the defenseless Brandi. That should be a fine and suspension right there for putting their hands on referees. Brandi’s arm got Pillmanizered.
This should have felt like a much bigger deal but three things held it back for me.
1. Vickie and Nyla’s involvement is completely random… and this is not the first time other women have been involved in harming Brandi for reasons that feel random at the time (and with hindsight, we see that they were, in fact, random, and only happened to facilitate some other angle with Brandi).
2. The last time we saw someone get Pillmanizered, he was able to wrestle again in two weeks, and that was with the assailant coming off the top rope rather than “merely” a stomp like we saw here. This doesn’t feel any different to me than if Jade had just put the boots to Brandi.
3. Brandi was such a bitch to Cargill last week for almost no reason (and has been a poor friend to Q.T. about the Allie situation), so she kind of feels like she had this coming.

NWA WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Serena Deeb(c) vs. Thunder Rosa- 8/10
During our obligatory plug for AEW Heels, Jim Ross asked “do they do bake sales?” Yes, really. Schiavone didn’t know if they did or not. You’d think he would know what is going on because last week they told us that he is an “honorary member.” Thankfully, Excalibur did know what is happening in AEW Heels: Next week they are “having a talent competition.” That’s not a joke. That’s exactly what he said. Obviously Ross’ sexism is a problem, but Excalibur’s answer exposes why it is allowed to continue: The woman who (supposedly) has put Heels together clearly has the same out of date views on women’s interests as Ross does.
The match itself was really great. It should be an embarrassment to AEW that the women from the lowly NWA are coming in and doing better than AEW’s pushed women have been over the past year. Britt Baker attacked Thunder Rosa while Deeb was out and Rebel was distracting the referee. Apparently these two have been arguing on Twitter. After this spot, they went a lot longer, so I’m not sure why they didn’t just have Britt attack her after the match if it wasn’t going to lead to the finish. And don’t tell me it’s because we’ve had too many post-match attacks on this show, because we got another one in the…

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Instead of running away like you would expect, Britt and Rebel apparently just want to sit in the stands. Thunder Rosa spotted them and attacked them (4/4), and she and Britt had to be pulled apart by referees.

DARK ORDER PROMO- very good
Cutting this promo are Anna Jay and John Silver. Where is Brodie Lee? I don’t think we’ve even seen him since he lost the TNT Title to Cody.
Other than Silver being too over the top, I really liked this. Anna Jay is another one of those people who has gone on a winning streak on Dark that hasn’t been mentioned once on Dynamite, so she’s getting a title shot next week. Apparently Brodie Lee had to go to Tony Khan and ask for it, so that’s yet more evidence that in kayfabe management completely ignores the women’s division.
Anyway, the thing I liked about this was that they laid out a simple arc of the story for us. Anna Jay lost to Shida once, but she has since gained experience and confidence and says she is no longer a rookie, giving us a reason to think the outcome might be different this time.

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO- I don’t get it. He skateboarded around in what looked like an abandoned church, then set his own leg on fire.

TEAM TAZ vs. DARBY ALLIN & CODY RHODES (w/Arn Anderson)- 7/10
Taz was on commentary for this match. He would eventually go to ringside and provoke Arn into getting ejected. The heels managed to win clean

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- you guessed it! A post-match attack. Will Hobbs ran out with a chair to make the save and then posed with the FTW World Title… and then hit Cody with it. This might be a Russo Swerve, so hopefully Hobbs will cut a promo next week explaining to us that he made his decision to join Team Taz in the moment so that this won’t be a Russo Swerve. As for the turn itself, I think it was necessary, as not only did the babyfaces have the numbers advantage (and that’s without anyone from Cody’s stable getting involved), but this also gives Darby an opponent who doesn’t feel stale.


This was probably the best Dynamite in a very long time. The wrestling was very good, and while the storylines had their flaws, they weren’t as infuriating as usual (it was more missed opportunities or suffering from previous weeks devaluing certain angles than it was things actively being bad). It would have been better if it wasn’t so damn repetitive with the post-match attacks after every single match (and also two backstage) and if they hadn’t wasted all of that time with the Inner Circle bullsh*t, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction for AEW.