BRM Reviews the 9/1/2021 Dynamite (holy crap the promos)

[Big Red Machine]

THE INNER CIRCLE (Santana & Ortiz) vs. FTR (w/Tully Blanchard)- 7.25/10
It always amuses me when a wrestler wants to “pay tribute” to a wrestler they admire, and the way they come up with do this is to do a spot where their hero’s finisher gets kicked out of. This was a great match. I’ll give them some benefit of the doubt that Wheeler’s arm injury held them back, but this didn’t feel like a big deal grudge match. It didn’t feel like any sort of grudge match at all, really. This felt like the first match in a feud, not the last one.


Jim Ross says he doesn’t understand why Chris Jericho offered to put his career on the line against MJF. It’s nice to see that Jim is paying attention to the storylines. I really hope that report about AEW phasing him out of the booth turns out to be true.

DANIEL GARCIA & 2.0 PROMO- meh
I’d be able to take Garcia a lot more seriously if 1) we’d actually seen him beat someone on TV, and 2) if he didn’t have two loud clowns standing next to him.

Excalibur proudly told us that up next would be “CM Punk, live in the center of the ring.” I hope Punk was listening to that, and spends his whole promo sitting on the ropes, just to f*ck with Excalibur.

CM PUNK PROMO’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY 2.0 & DANIEL GARCIA- good
When Punk was talking about how it’s entirely possible that everything falls apart for him at the PPV and the fans chanted “YOU’VE STILL GOT IT!” and Punk responded by crossing his fingers… that just felt SOOOO real.
2.0 and Daniel Garcia charged out and attacked him so Sting and Darby had to come out to make the save. This felt very forced. I just don’t get why 2.0 and Garcia are doing any of this. What do they hope to gain? Do they think that if they injure Punk and Darby Tony Khan will reward them with a big PPV match? They never win, and now they’re trying to injure other people and take away a match Tony is hoping will make the promotion (and himself) a lot of money. Why wouldn’t Tony just say “f*ck you. You’re fired?” Or, if you want to take the “it’s pro wrestling” approach, why wouldn’t Tony book them one more time against Punk and Darby, who will surely kick their asses because these guys never win, and then fire them once the babyfaces have taken their revenge?
Their entire motivation feels like it is “to be a heel,” which is not a good motivation because it doesn’t do anything for them. Heels are heels because they’re bad people, but they do the things they do in the service of furthering their own careers. The Midnight Express didn’t cheat because it made the fans angry; they cheated because they wanted to win so badly that they didn’t care about morality. This attack felt like it happened just so there would be a reason for 1) Punk to some moves in front of the crowd, and 2) so Punk and Darby could be in the same place, doing moves.
That being said, this segment worked for a me a lot more than most segments that feel forced do, and the reason for that is the genuine connection between Punk and the crowd in Chicago that just feels so special. Also, I loved 2.0 and Garcia hearing the music of the guys coming out to make the save, pausing briefly, then going right back to beating on Punk because they knew how far away Sting and Darby were. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t happen enough. Way too many guys just give up on a beat-down right when someone’s music starts playing, even if the person coming to make the save isn’t anywhere close to being an immediate threat.
The babyfaces all hit their moves on the heels. Punk and Darby got face to face. Sting grabbed a mic and put everyone over, then announced that he won’t doesn’t want to get in the way, so he won’t be at ringside at All Out. Then who is going to stop 2.0 and Garcia when they decide to run in and attack both guys during the match? Shouldn’t Sting be volunteering to be a special ringside enforcer instead? I think we all trust him not interfere.

KENNY OMEGA VS. CHRISTIAN CAGE VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
They keep saying that Kenny is so great and that’s why he’s the champion, completely ignoring the fact that half of his defenses on AEW TV (and two out of his total of five overall) saw him benefit from (and probably only retain the title because of) copious interference?

EARLIER TODAY, TONY SCHIAVONE CONDUCTED A SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH MJF- MJF cut a tremendous promo, but unfortunately all of the crap they did with Schiavone took away from it. It’s not like there was even a reason for Tony to be there. He asked one question, then MJF answered it by cutting his promo. Why couldn’t they just have MJF cut a promo?

ORANGE CASSIDY vs. JACK EVANS- 5/10
Matt Hardy had come out with Orange Cassidy but he attacked OC before the bell so he was ejected from ringside. Remember at the previous PPV when Kenny Omega needed interference to beat Orange Cassidy? If your plan was for OC to spend the next few months feuding with Matt Hardy’s group of undercard jamokes, why didn’t you just let Kenny pin him cleanly?
Anyway, this match was good when Orange Cassidy wasn’t doing Orange Cassidy things. He rolled up Jack for the finish during a commercial break, which I absolutely loved! Every promotion that has commercials should have a match end during a commercial once every six to nine months, just to make sure people know it can happen so that those people who can watch the split-screen (it’s not really “picture-in-picture”) will be able to buy the nearfalls during commercials.
Tony claimed that OC’s stupid kicks are “mind games,” and to a guy who was constantly fooled by people wearing Sting masks even thought their bodies didn’t resemble in Sting in any way other than number of extremities, I’m sure OC’s dumb sh*t does, indeed, seem like a mind game.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Matt attacked Orange Cassidy after the match. Chuck Taylor and Wheeler YUTA came out to make the save, but they got jumped from behind by Matt’s crew. Look at that! It only took Matt five months to figure out that he will outnumber pretty much everyone if he brings his whole crew out. Jurassic Express came out to make the save because they’re good people. This company (and many others) need more of that.
The one negative here was that I found it quite awkward that Statlander didn’t run out with Chuck and YUTA to make the save. They’re all part of the same group and she came out with them before the match. It’s just one of those things that makes the show feel more scripted. Like they somehow knew that not only would Matt’s group be attacking them, but that they wouldn’t be bringing their female members along for the attack to Statlander stayed in the back so that the evil villains wouldn’t have to feel awkward and hit a woman.

EDDIE KINGSTON VS. MIRO VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- awesome

JON MOXLEY VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- meh
Saying he was going to try to maim Kojima for merely wanting to challenge him was a little much for me.

JIM ROSS INTERVIEW CHRIS JERICHO- Jericho cut an awesome promo, but like with MJF and Schiavone earlier, I have no idea why Ross was there? He did absolutely nothing of consequence. He asked a question, and the wrestler answered that question not by talking to Ross but by cutting a promo on his opponent. It seems like AEW thought that having the announcers do the interview would add gravity to the segments, but they have Schiavone do interviews so often that it didn’t add anything to either of these.

DARBY ALLIN VIDEO PROMO ON CM PUNK- AWESOME!
This was better than Jericho’s. Maybe even better than MJF’s.

BRIAN CAGE vs. WILL HOBBS (w/Hook)- 4/10
Taz won on commentary for this match.
Cage jumped Hobbs from behind during his entrance, like a total coward. They brawled around ringside before the match officially started. Hobbs used a distraction by Hook to get the advantage, but it’s hard for me to be upset at them for that because Cage jumped Hobbs from behind.
Jim Ross told us that Hobbs has had five straight singles wins, each under one minute. That sounds impressive. It’s a shame they couldn’t have taken some time out of Omega being a clown or 2.0 ranting to show us any of that over the past few weeks.
The match wasn’t much, but the finish was a great heel finish, with Starks hitting Cage with the FTW Title to set up Hobbs’ finisher.

MALAKAI BLACK VIDEO PROMO ON LEE JOHNSON- great

Q.T. MARSHALL (WITH THE FACTORY) CALLS OUT PAUL WIGHT- terrible
Apparently Q.T. has more guys in the Factory now. Does that mean that the majority of the students have sided with Q.T. over Cody? That doesn’t reflect well on Cody’s version of events, does it?
Wight beat up the goofs while Q.T. ran away. After all of the goof were dispatched, Gunn Club came out, which Excalibur categorized as being out to “even the odds.” Even the odds? Are they going to attack Wight, too? He doesn’t need the odds evened. He just beat up five guys all by himself! AEW, where young wrestlers come to get beaten up by an old-ass Big Show.
Q.T. grabbed a chair and tried to get in the ring, but Billy Gunn punched him off the apron, ensuring that any heat that Q.T. might have gotten from running away like a coward while his students got beaten up in his place is dissipated, making this segment completely counterproductive.
Wait… no. It’s a swerve! Billy Gunn hit Big Show with the chair and he and his sons left. So we’re building to Big Show vs. Billy Gunn, now, too? Did I fall into a time-warp and this is really Raw from the summer of 1999?
After the Gunns left, Q.T.’s students came back. They held Wight up so that Q.T. could do the Diamond Cutter symbol and give Big Show the Diamond Cutter. Because Q.T. Marshall vs. DPP is a match that people were clamoring to see. Meanwhile, people like Matt Sydal and Leyla Hirsch can’t even get on the show.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BRITT BAKER- idiotic
For no f*cking reason, Tony Khan has decided to allow Britt to book any match she wants, so she has decided to book her PPV challenger, Kris Statlander, in a handicap match against her two henchwomen on Rampage.
1) Well if you’re going to do that, why not just keep going and say that they can use weapons and Statlander can’t, and that Statlander’s hands have to be handcuffed behind her and if she takes the handcuffs off she loses her title shot, and that Statlander has to win with a count of 593?
2) WHY THE F*CK IS TONY DOING THIS?! Is he just too stupid to have foreseen that Britt would do something like this? I hope this show ends with Statlander grabbing that scrawny little dork by the collar and dangling him over the balcony and threatening to drop him if he doesn’t cancel the match.

TAY CONTI vs. PENELOPE FORD (w/The Bunny)- 5/10
Good for the time it got. Conti won clean after causing the heels’ attempts at cheating to backfire.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
The heels jump the babyface after the match because G-d forbid we have an episode of Dynamite where that doesn’t happen multiple times. Eventually the Dark Order’s music plays and Anna Jay makes her big return. Unlike 2.0 and Garcia earlier, Bunny and Penelope just stopped attacking Conti and waited forever for Anna Jay to come out. Then they ran away from her despite having a two-on-one advantage. Then Conti and Anna hugged like they hadn’t seen each other in forever. Isn’t the gimmick that they’re really good friends? Are you telling me that Anna Jay was backstage at an AEW show for the first time in months and she didn’t even try to find her close friend and say hi?
Excalibur tells us that Tony Khan has just told him that Anna Jay will make her return to action on the PPV in the Casino Battle Royale. I’d like it if Tony would tell Excalibur that he’s going to start fining people for these post-match attacks. They happen CONSTANTLY and management doesn’t seem to care one bit. Between that and letting Britt book Statlander in a handicap match, it doesn’t seem like Tony Khan cares all that much about the safety of his employees (remember all of those random people backstage the let Lance Archer just assault every week with no repercussions?)

ALEX MARVEZ’S INTERVIEW WITH THUNDER ROSA IS INTERRUPTED BY JADE CARGIL AND NYLA ROSE- meh
Thunder Rosa figures (probably correctly) that she’s about to get jumped, so she just starts throwing punches preemptively. Eventually the tow heels overwhelmed her and beat her up. Then they had a stupid and forced face-off for seemingly no reason other than to give the cameras a good shot of the two of them looking at each other angrily to build up the battle royal. Mark Sterling stepped in between them and said they should save it for Sunday when money is on the line. This was mostly dumb and forced, but Thunder Rosa being a great fearless babyface allowed me to at least bring it up to “meh.”

CHRIS JERICHO vs. MJF VIDEO PACKAGE- this was overkill at this point

LUCHA BROS. & A BOY & HIS DINOSAUR (w/Marko Stunt & Alex Abrahantes) vs. THE ELITE (the Good Brothers and the Young Bucks) (w/Dustin Cutler)- 6.5/10
Don Callis was on commentary for this match. This was short for a main event (just 10:13) and was mostly spots. The Bucks pinned Rey Fenix mostly cleanly. That seems like a pretty bad way to build up Lucha Bros. as PPV challengers in less than a week.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- dumb
Kenny Omega came out and laughed like a cartoon. The heels attacked the babyfaces after the match yet again. Christian tried to make the save but got beaten down. A cage had been hanging above the ring for no good reason, unless you’re going to tell me that Tony Khan wanted it build a week early in order to… um…
Kenny reveals that this was a trap the Elite set, which did make the whole post-match attack and Christian’s save feel less forced (especially because of the established alliance between Christian and Jurassic Express). Then things went right back to stupid when Kenny revealed that, at a meeting earlier today, he stole Tony Khan’s key to the “cage control room.” Control room? It’s a f*cking cage! The only controls it needs are “up” and “down!” Why would you have a whole room for one f*cking switch?! And even if you did, the idea that Tony Khan would keep that on his person is a little silly. Is Tony going to be the one sitting in the room controlling the cage?
The babyfaces got beaten up with Kendo sticks inside the cage. A few other babyfaces (Dante Martin, Frankie Kazarian, Orange Cassidy) tried to climb in but got knocked off the walls. This was supposed to be a heavy heat angle but it completely failed for me because 1) Kenny was acting like a cartoon goof, 2) it was only made possibly by a ridiculous contrivance, and 3) the Lucha Bros. never really turned babyface, and they also just got beaten pretty much cleanly, so this doesn’t come off as the Bucks attacking challengers they are afraid of and I don’t really care that much about these jerk Lucha Bros. getting revenge on the other jerk Young Bucks.


This was a mixed bag show from Dynamite. There were some TREMENDOUS promos on this show to build up the PPV, but also a lot of stuff that was dumb, counter-productive, or both. I wish the people with the good ideas in AEW would be able to split off from the people with the bad ideas, but I highly doubt anyone else will come along willing to bankroll a promotion like this. In the past two decades we’ve really only had Tony Khan and Dixie Carter (you could argue for Billy Corgan, too, but he doesn’t seem to be spending anywhere near as much on his promotion as the first two have spent on theirs), so I don’t see it happening again anytime soon.

[cero2k]

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BRITT BAKER- idiotic
For no f*cking reason, Tony Khan has decided to allow Britt to book any match she wants, so she has decided to book her PPV challenger, Kris Statlander, in a handicap match against her two henchwomen on Rampage.
1) Well if you’re going to do that, why not just keep going and say that they can use weapons and Statlander can’t, and that Statlander’s hands have to be handcuffed behind her and if she takes the handcuffs off she loses her title shot, and that Statlander has to win with a count of 593?
2) WHY THE F*CK IS TONY DOING THIS?! Is he just too stupid to have foreseen that Britt would do something like this? I hope this show ends with Statlander grabbing that scrawny little dork by the collar and dangling him over the balcony and threatening to drop him if he doesn’t cancel the match.

She straight up said that booking this one match was a gambling token she used in her negotiations to extend her contract and Khan gave it to her to get her to sign.

[Big Red Machine]

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS BRITT BAKER- idiotic
For no f*cking reason, Tony Khan has decided to allow Britt to book any match she wants, so she has decided to book her PPV challenger, Kris Statlander, in a handicap match against her two henchwomen on Rampage.
1) Well if you’re going to do that, why not just keep going and say that they can use weapons and Statlander can’t, and that Statlander’s hands have to be handcuffed behind her and if she takes the handcuffs off she loses her title shot, and that Statlander has to win with a count of 593?
2) WHY THE F*CK IS TONY DOING THIS?! Is he just too stupid to have foreseen that Britt would do something like this? I hope this show ends with Statlander grabbing that scrawny little dork by the collar and dangling him over the balcony and threatening to drop him if he doesn’t cancel the match.

She straight up said that booking this one match was a gambling token she used in her negotiations to extend her contract and Khan gave it to her to get her to sign.

I heard what she said. I'm saying that Tony Khan is an idiot for giving in to something so ridiculous. Now every heel is going to do this when their contracts are up. And if Britt had that much leverage, why stop at asking for one? It also still doesn't answer question #1.

[cero2k]

I heard what she said. I'm saying that Tony Khan is an idiot for giving in to something so ridiculous. Now every heel is going to do this when their contracts are up. And if Britt had that much leverage, why stop at asking for one? It also still doesn't answer question #1.

not every heel can hold the championship hostage, not every heel is at the level of Baker. Khan probably figured that a single match is way easier to accept than having to say not and instead give Baker an extra million dollars to seal the deal.

As for question 1, because Baker considered that was enough, it's like the question why doesn't someone bring a gun or a sword to a no DQs match.

[Big Red Machine]

I heard what she said. I'm saying that Tony Khan is an idiot for giving in to something so ridiculous. Now every heel is going to do this when their contracts are up. And if Britt had that much leverage, why stop at asking for one? It also still doesn't answer question #1.

not every heel can hold the championship hostage, not every heel is at the level of Baker. Khan probably figured that a single match is way easier to accept than having to say not and instead give Baker an extra million dollars to seal the deal.

But anyone who is a big enough deal (and half of promoting is to frame as many people as possible as a big enough deal) should be able to get away with it, and will likely just up the money. Granted, I'm not a millionaire, but if I'm Tony Khan and Britt is that good, I'd just give her the extra million. The integrity of the promotion should be paramount, and letting someone book an unfair match hurts that, and double so when said unfair match is specifically designed to give them an advantage in a title match.

As for question 1, because Baker considered that was enough, it's like the question why doesn't someone bring a gun or a sword to a no DQs match.

The way I see it, most people don't want to kill the opponent, and would be worried about missing and killing a bystander. Even a heel who wouldn't care if a fan accidentally got punched probably doesn't want manslaughter on his/her conscience.

Rebel is so incompetent that I don't buy that Britt considers her enough back-up to ensure that Statlander is hurt.


I'm not saying you can't logically justify an instance of this. What I'm saying is that doing so opens up future logical issues when the world as a who is considered.

I'm about to start watching Rampage now. Maybe they'll do something that I think is brilliant enough and required the specific set-up of the handicap match to make it work and I will change my mind about this.

[Big Red Machine]

Props to Wade Keller for pointing out their big angle at the end actually undermined the cage, as it wasn't the cage keeping people out but rather Cutler and the others knocking people off the cage and stopping them from climbing it.