BRM Reviews the 12/8/2021 Dynamite (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- odd segment
MJF’s music played and it got about a 50-50 response of cheers and boos (markedly different from the last time AEW was here). Then CM Punk came out instead of MJF, and it turned into about 80-20 in favor of booing. Taz asked why Punk would come out to MJF’s music, which is a darn good question. Tony Schiavone gave the hackneyed answer of “mind games,” which really doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like they’re wrestling tonight, so if Punk makes MJF a bit mad, then so what? Then again, I guess he really doesn’t have anything to lose by doing his either.
Punk proceeded to start trolling the crowd, even insulting the Islanders. After Punk hit his zinger on the Islanders, they cut around to the crowd to get shots of people booing… but the idiot director managed to cut a shot where there was a guy in a Rangers jersey with a big smirk on his face. Oops. Punk would continue to take shots at the Islanders throughout his promo, and there was another point where they found a guy in an Islanders sweatshirt… and the purposely zoomed out to show his friend in a Rangers sweatshirt standing right next to him. Who is making these decisions that undermine the effectiveness of the segment to the TV viewer?
Also, Taz go quite upset every time Punk insulted the Islanders, which shocked me. He usually hates it when other people wear orange.
Punk asks the crowd if MJF is their guy, and they mostly cheer. Punk unzips his hoodie to reveal that he is wearing a Four Pillars shirt but with MJF replaced by Britt Baker. In reality, she should be replacing Sammy Guevara, but the point is more trolling. Punk made a solid point that MJF is a douche. The crowd responded by chanting something I couldn’t hear clearly. It sounded like “F*CK YOU, CENA!” but that doesn’t make sense.
Punk challenges MJF to a match. He plants seeds for it being a #1 contendership match. He also started to say things like he doesn’t want MJF’s friends to interfere and doesn’t want MJF to run away, so it sounded like he was going to challenge MJF to a cage match, but didn’t. He said he’d be willing to have the match tonight, but he doubted MJF would be brave enough to accept. Shockingly no one pointed out that MJF is already booked tonight in the stupid battle royale for the ring, so Punk’s challenge here was an act of cowardice.
I REALLY didn’t like this. It felt like Punk decided to come out here and be a heel all the way because he thought the crowd was going to be pro-MJF… except that there was no reason to assume that this would be the case. AEW was in this same market just two and a half months ago, and the fans booed MJF loudly. This felt to me like Punk, Tony Khan, and MJF getting together and saying, “hey, wouldn’t it be cool and fun if Punk went into MJF’s hometown and was a total heel?” It felt like them playing with a trope rather than something that had a real, organic, reason for happening.
Yes, it turned out that the crowd was much more pro-MJF than last time, but that doesn’t mean you have to play into that, and Punk certainly did. He was TRYING to turn the crowd against him from the moment the music played (and did), and I also don’t think the crowd would have been quite so pro-MJF in the first place if Tony Khan hadn’t primed them by saying he thought MJF would get cheered a lot before the show. After all, they were much more anti-MJF at the previous show in the market, and that was when MJF was feuding with Brian Pillman Jr., who is a lot less over than freakin’ CM Punk.

DYNAMITE DOZEN BATTLE ROYALE: Frankie Kazarian vs. Matt Sydal vs. Will Hobbs vs. Dante Martin vs. Lio Rush vs. Ricky Starks vs. Wardlow vs. Jay Lethal vs. Lee Johnson vs. Lee Moriarty vs. Matt Hardy (w/The Bunny) vs. MJF (w/Shawn Spears)-
As a reminder, this is a battle royale down to two, with the winners having a match next week for the Dynamite Diamond Ring.
Early on, Spears saved MJF from being eliminated TWICE. You’d think the referees would eject him from ringside, but apparently not. And don’t tell me “it won’t do any good because there are no DQs, so MJF and Wardlow wouldn’t be eliminated if Spears came back out,” because if you’re going to use that argument, then why doesn’t Spears just run into the ring and start helping MJF and Wardlow toss people out?
On a similar note, at one point The Bunny gave Matt brass knuckles, which he knocked Jay Lethal out… and then Matt gave them back to The Bunny. Why not just keep wearing them if there are no DQs?
Matt’s use of the brass knuckles also kind of exposes the problem with this whole gimmick. So far as I can tell, the only rooting interest of any sort we as viewers should really have here is hoping that MJF doesn’t win, because then he won’t be able to keep using the diamond ring as a foreign object… but if brass knuckles are easily obtainable (which they surely are for someone of MJF’s wealth) then what does it matter if he has the diamond ring or not. And it’s not like we have any real reason to want to see anyone else in particular win the diamond ring, either, so it’s really just a pointless MacGuffin. This match would feel a lot more important if we were determining who will face off for a TNT Title shot.
Lio Rush decided that the middle of this match was a good time to try to have a confrontation with Dante Martin, so they both got levelled by much larger men blindsiding them. Credit where it’s due: That set up our obligatory confrontation between the two big powerhouses (Wardlow and Hobbs), which was a clever way to get them together.

There’s an idiot in the second row opposite trying to film this om his iPad. Dude… you know this on TV, right.
Stuff happened, but they managed to make most of the eliminations feel important. The final three were MJF, Starks, and Dante… and then someone started playing with the lights. Dante betrayed Starks, so and MJF will meet next week.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- odd
Dante tore off his FTW armband. Well… that was an odd turn. MJF offered Dante a handshake, and Dante accepted. MJF headed up the ramp, and Starks attacked Dante from behind. MJF looked conflicted, but then chose not to make the save… and, quite frankly, the idea that he was in any way conflicted comes off as completely phony to me. It felt like something that only happened so that we could tease MJF’s home-town fans with him acting as a babyface.
MJF didn’t make the save, but CM Punk did… and he got booed. For saving a guy who just theoretically turned babyface by leaving a heel stable. And the only reason Punk is being booed for doing this babyface thing is because AEW decided that he should be a heel for this one night.



Remember when Kaz swore revenge on The Elite? I guess he just kind of gave up on that without any resolution of any sort. And before anyone says “well how are you going to blow that off without Kaz injuring everyone in the Elite or costing them titles or doing something else that goes against what they had planned?” my answer is as follows:
You have someone in the Elite (one of the Bucks would be best, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it having been either Omega or Cole when Cole came in) declares that this has to end (after Kaz has cost them some match or another the previous week, of course) and challenges Kaz to match where if Kaz loses, he can’t touch any member of their group outside of the confines of a match for a period of one year. Kaz will demand some sort of concession in return to ensure fair play. Maybe have the match in a cage so the others can’t interfere, or a trouble-shooting referee of his choice (maybe some indy vet he came up with, or James Storm, if Storm is available. Hell, get Michael Shane. That’d be good), or maybe some sort of stipulation whereby if the others interfere then he stips are voided.* And you have Kaz lose that match cleanly. Kaz can then get depressed, and you’ve then got an entire year before the stip is up to turn Kaz into a selfish heel who wouldn’t care about not being able to team with Daniels anymore.
*(I know, the obvious answer is a match where if Kaz wins, he and Daniels get to team together again, but the issue there is that that stipulation was self-imposed, so it doesn’t make sense that a match against anyone could undo it).

JURASSIC EXPRESS & THE VARSITY BLONDES (w/Julia Hart) vs. THE ACCLAIMED & 2.0 (w/Daniel Garcia)- 6.5/10
The announcers claimed that the four teams in this match have “over a 70% won-lost record here in AEW.” I don’t think I’ve seen 2.0 win a single match.
The babyfaces won clean. Eddie Kingston came and took out Daniel Garcia right before the finish.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- whatever
We followed Kingston to the back. Ortiz was there for some reason, trying to calm him down. Also for unknown reasons, Ortiz had his face all painted up. When we first saw him in the distance, I was worried that AEW had signed Dorkhausen. 2.0 and Garcia came at them looking for revenge, and we had a pull-apart.
Yes, Ortiz and Kingston are both from the Bronx and they were in LAX together in TNA, but his presence here didn’t work for me at all. It felt like he and Eddie were friends out of nowhere. Last year Eddie Kingston put together a stable of guys he considered close friends, and the fact that he was close with Santana and Ortiz was never even mentioned. This friendship feels like an ass-pull in this situation. I don’t buy this principle that some promotions seem to operate under (AEW now, and TNA often has in the past as well, plus ROH at times, especially under Delirious) that you can just pull something real into kayfabe and everyone will just accept it because they “know” it’s “real,” and doubly so if bringing that into kayfabe raises questions like the one I just raised about why the connection between Kingston and LAX wasn’t ever even mentioned when Kingston was putting together a stable of his close friends last year.
Also, but just shoving Ortiz into this segment already by Kingston’s side, it feels like they’re missing an opportunity to tell a story about LAX bringing Jericho and Kingston together to fight 2.0.

FTR & TULLY BLANCHARD PROMO- Cash’s current look is absolutely awful. Great promo-work from everyone, though.

THE YOUNG BUCKS (w/Adam Cole & Brandon Cutler) vs. CHAOS (Chuck Taylor & Rocky Romero) (w/Orange Cassidy)- 7/10
Action happened. Orange Cassidy, having learned nothing from last week because he’s a moron, got in the ring to confront Cole… and gently kicked him in the shins, allowing one of the Bucks to kick his head off.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- stupid
The heels jumped the babyfaces. Wheeler YUTA ran out to try to make the save (not sure why he wasn’t at ringside for the match when the heels had two guys at ringside), but he got taken out. Krist Statlander didn’t come out to help save her friends because… um…
Chuck eats a Panama Destroyer from Cole and OC is about to eat a three-way BTE-Trigger… when Best Friends’ music starts to play. We then cut to a camera that is watching Trent’s mom drive a minivan, and Trent gets out. HA! He’s a grown man whose mother drives him to his job (an hour late, by the way). LOL! Isn’t that funny? Boy, I’m sure glad this AEW’s sense of humor isn’t childish and unsophisticated like WWE’s is.
Anyway, Trent gets out of the van… and despite one of his supposed “best friends” being in grave danger, he takes some time to soak up the cheers, gets a kiss on the cheek from his mom, and then casually strolls down to the ring instead of immediately running to help him. I was hoping that by the time the camera and Trent got to the ring, the canvas would be dyed red with blood because Trent’s f*cking sauntering gave the heels enough time to stomp his friend’s heads into jelly, but unfortunately it was not to be.
He only started running when he was already on the ramp, and only because Brandon Cutler was charging at him. He speared Cutler… then started to take his vest off. If you need to take your vest off to fight why didn’t you do it while you were walking? Or before you got out of the car?
He stars strolling around more, and dares he heels to come at him. For some stupid reason, not only do they do so, but they decide to keep coming at him one at a time, like stupid AI. So the idiot babyface won the day with no real harm done, only because the heels were first uncharacteristically merciful, and then uncharacteristically stupid. If they’re not careful, they’re going to turn Adam Cole into their next Andrade.
Oh. There is Kris Statlander, just standing with Trent’s mom. Thanks for helping, Kris. Why did they even put her in this stable? It has been almost nine months, and if her being in the group has been relevant more than twice, I’ll be shocked. The babyfaces in the ring all had a big stupid hug, because that’s their stupid thing. Then Statlander brings Trent’s mom to the ring, because we needed to have that. How about we keep the clown-show crap to show with “Dark” in the title.

ALEX MARVEZ’S INTERVIEW WITH RUBY SOHO IS INTERRUPTED BY PENELOPE FORD & THE BUNNY- bad
Upon having his question interrupted, Marvez just left. What a lazy sh*t. Even worse, he took the microphone with him… and yet we had absolutely no problem hearing what anyone was saying. “Detail Guy” Tony Khan strikes again.
The two blondes tell Ruby that Nyla Rose has promised them the first title shots if she wins the TBS Title. I’m not sure why they believe her, as it’s not like Nyla has the power to book matches, but they do. They tell Ruby to ensure that Nyla wins, there is going to be a six-woman tag on Rampage, with the two of them teaming with Nyla to take on Ruby and two of her friends… “if you even have any!”
Assuming that Tony Khan actually did book this match, why did he not book Ruby any tag partners. Is he really okay with this becoming a handicap match if no one wants to team with her?
The heels tell Ruby that they just might attack her right now, so Ruby launches a preemptive strike. THIS is exactly what Orange Cassidy should have done last week. Unfortunately for Ruby, she got overwhelmed by the numbers game, which only got worse when Nyla Rose showed up as well. The heels stomped a mudhole in Ruby until Tay Conti and Anna Jay showed up with some chairs to make the save. Tay was close enough to the heels that the fact that she didn’t even try to swing the chair at them looked bad… but I guess that just made it fit in better with this segment. Not only did we get the return of Lazy Booker Tony Khan (“eh, she can find her own tag partners, I guess”), we also had Penelope and The Bunny be monologuing cartoons for the purpose of explaining things to the audience, resulting in them needlessly alerting their intended victim to the assault they were about to launch. Oh, and they were all standing in a line, facing the camera, like this was WWE.

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH SAMMY GUEVARA IS INTERRUPTED BY CODY RHODES-
Cody’s arms look HUGE. They also have some nasty-looking burns on them from last week. Apparently Sammy had an open challenge for Christmas Day, and Cody has answered it and filed all of the proper paperwork and gotten it approved by Tony Khan. I’m no expert on Christianity, but I’m pretty sure that Christmas Day is December 25th, which is a Saturday this year… but AEW doesn’t have a show on Saturday. Or maybe they’re doing a Rock-Cena thing and this match is for a PPV on Sunday, Dec. 25, 2022.
Cody offered a handshake and wished Sammy “good luck, kid.” Then he started to walk towards the “heel” entrance tunnel before turning around, walking back in front of Sammy, and going to the babyface tunnel, because meta.
THE MEN OF THE YEAR CUT A PROMO ON SAMMY GUEVARA-
Once Cody left, the proceedings were interrupted by Ethan Page, who was up in the balcony with Scorpio Sky, and they each already had a microphone with them. Did they just grab them at one point and say “hey, Tony! We’rem going to go sit in the balcony, but we’re going to take these with us in case we feel like interrupting something, okay?”
Ethan Page alleges that Cody is only getting a title shot because he’s an EVP. He also announces that Dan Lambert will be returning. Scorpio Sky accused Sammy of dodging people in the Top Five. I assumed that this mean that either Sky or Page was in the top five. It turns out that Sky is ranked #3. I don’t remember the last time I saw him win a singles match. How is Scorpio Sky (plus Omega and Miro, who have been inactive for several weeks now) in the top five, but guys who I don’t remember seeing lose except on rare occasion (Adam Cole, MJF, Wardlow) aren’t?
Scorpio had a good point, but it’s really Tony Khan he should be angry at than Sammy.

JADE CARGILL VS. THUNDER ROSA PROMO- AWESOME!
Thunder Rosa is easily the best babyface in wrestling right now.

RIHO vs. JAMIE HAYTER (w/Dr. Britt Baker, DMD & Rebel)- 7.25/10
A great big-woman vs. small-woman match, despite one or two moments that didn’t quite go to plan.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Dr. Baker attacked Riho after the match. That’s three out of four matches so-far where the heels attacked the babyfaces after the match, and the other match had brawl after it.

HOOK WILL WRESTLE ON DYNAMITE- He’s wrestling Fuego the pity-case loser. Good managerial work by Taz, securing a tomato-can opponent for his son’s debut.

HIKARU SHIDA VS. SERENA DEEB VIDEO PACKAGE- very good

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VARSITY BLONDES IS INTERRUPTED BY MALAKAI BLACK MAGICALLY TRANSPORTING HIMSELF ONTO THE RAMP- bad
He blew mist into Julia Hart’s face. She was screaming in pain. The mist got all over Pillman Jr.’s face, too, but he seems fine. Malakai Black has started to feel like Bray Wyatt. He’s been around for five months at this point, and we know absolutely nothing about what motivates him. He’s got a cool entrance and says things that sound cool and interesting, but there isn’t any depth there. He’s not a character so much as an agent of the plot of the plot gods, doing whatever they feel is necessary at that moment without much rhyme or reason as to why he would be doing such things.


BRYAN DANIELSON vs. JOHN SILVER- 7.5/10
A great match that would have been a lot better of Silver hadn’t been portrayed as a f*cking clown for the past year and a half. Dragon won with a Gotch-style Piledriver into some sort of shoulderlock. Danielson left the hold in after the bell. I’m counting that as yet another post-match attack.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Danielson cut a promo, then went back to Silver to attack him some more. Adam Page ran out to make the save. He grabbed the mic and promised to “stomp the cowboy sh*t” out of Bryan. Wouldn’t that require Bryan to be a cowboy?


This was a bad episode of Dynamite, despite some great action towards the end. It feels like the show has taken a backslide from the generally solid product we got over the summer and most of the fall, into more of what it was before that, with too much comedic crap and not enough attention to logic and detail.

[XIV]

The first 30 minutes were okay then the show really hit the skids and went downhill, the Punk Promo and MJF bits were okay and Danielson / Silver match was good, but everything in between was not good. Not good at all.

[Thelone]

OPENING SEGMENT- odd segment

Once again, they threw every big bomb they could think of during the FIRST exchange, and they're already running on empty it seems like after that dumb segment last week and... whatever that was here. Khan just doesn't know how to build stuff up and instead goes for "moments" and shock value.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT (with Kingston)- whatever

Same here really : put Kingston somewhere and stick with it. Awkwardly putting him in storylines because "PAC is stuck in the UK"/"Moxley's in rehab" makes it even more transparent that Kingston is just a pawn that you're moving around because something went wrong.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT (with Biesse Friends)- stupid

Whatever is happening with Hook right now (dubbalos are creepily excited about this guy) made me realized that their fans want meme wrestling basically. Like, they'll get excited over the dumbest shit (Cassidy and his shitty friends, Pineapple Pete, Statlander, Itoh, that other Darkhausen guy who faced Cody that one time, Hook now), and either get bored pretty quickly and move on to the next one or still enjoy one when it's way past its expiration date.

I assumed that this mean that either Sky or Page was in the top five. It turns out that Sky is ranked #3. I don’t remember the last time I saw him win a singles match.

Ah yes, I vaguely saw that the other day and was pretty shocked, even for AEW standards. His last singles TV match actually is the TNT one against Darby in MARCH. He had a bunch of squashes on the Youtube shows since then, but even then it's only nine wins over jobbers. Also since when are records actually relevant to earn a TNT title match?

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VARSITY BLONDES IS INTERRUPTED BY MALAKAI BLACK MAGICALLY TRANSPORTING HIMSELF ONTO THE RAMP- bad
He blew mist into Julia Hart’s face. She was screaming in pain. The mist got all over Pillman Jr.’s face, too, but he seems fine. Malakai Black has started to feel like Bray Wyatt. He’s been around for five months at this point, and we know absolutely nothing about what motivates him. He’s got a cool entrance and says things that sound cool and interesting, but there isn’t any depth there. He’s not a character so much as an agent of the plot of the plot gods, doing whatever they feel is necessary at that moment without much rhyme or reason as to why he would be doing such things.

But but... THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND lOnGtErM sToRyTeLlInG!!!

Anyway, kinda glad Malevolent Black is being exposed as a shallow character spouting pseudo deep drivel, totally different from Aleister Black who was a shallow character spouting pseudo deep drivel from his broom closet, because he was ashamed to be in the FED PRISON holding him hostage I suppose.

[Big Red Machine]

en are records actually relevant to earn a TNT title match?

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VARSITY BLONDES IS INTERRUPTED BY MALAKAI BLACK MAGICALLY TRANSPORTING HIMSELF ONTO THE RAMP- bad
He blew mist into Julia Hart’s face. She was screaming in pain. The mist got all over Pillman Jr.’s face, too, but he seems fine. Malakai Black has started to feel like Bray Wyatt. He’s been around for five months at this point, and we know absolutely nothing about what motivates him. He’s got a cool entrance and says things that sound cool and interesting, but there isn’t any depth there. He’s not a character so much as an agent of the plot of the plot gods, doing whatever they feel is necessary at that moment without much rhyme or reason as to why he would be doing such things.

But but... THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Is that what this is? Is Raven booking now?

[Thelone]

Is that what this is? Is Raven booking now?

That's the theory I've seen thrown around online that would make the most sense at least. I think it goes like this :

• Cody = pride
• PAC = wrath
• Dante = envy
• Hart = lust
• Cassidy = sloth
• Hardy = greed

Only gluttony doesn't have a clear one, lust is a bit of a stretch since Hart isn't oversexualized and Black should mist anyone lusting over her instead, and PAC was a random one-off for a tag match.

Again, this could just be fans trying to make some sense out of Malcontent Black's booking so far like they most likely did with Wyatt a few years ago, and we know how satisfying that ended up being (totally not a shallow character spouting pseudo deep drivel, ok I'll stop now).

[Big Red Machine]

With Hart the sexualization wouldn't matter. She would be the one doing the lusting but we haven't seen any of that, either .
And who is Dante envious of?

[Thelone]

With Hart the sexualization wouldn't matter. She would be the one doing the lusting but we haven't seen any of that, either.

Oh I agree that Hart would be one of the weirdest choices since she's more the "cute girl next door" type and very much not Scarlett, but I'm not sure who would fit that particular bill here. Maybe Sonny Kiss or a guy you can buy as a womanizer like Starks? Ford?

And who is Dante envious of?

I guess he's envious of Malfeasant's great success? I mean, he's a young guy who kinda just came in, he could be envious of most people on the roster.

Like I said, this is just a fan theory that I've seen online and it sounds more interesting than "something something Black does evil things, something something spoopy". This could very well be complete horseshit for all I know and Black is just turning into Bray Wyatt while the dubbalos are pretending that this is some epic masterpiece of storytelling.

[XIV]

en are records actually relevant to earn a TNT title match?

TONY SCHIAVONE’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VARSITY BLONDES IS INTERRUPTED BY MALAKAI BLACK MAGICALLY TRANSPORTING HIMSELF ONTO THE RAMP- bad
He blew mist into Julia Hart’s face. She was screaming in pain. The mist got all over Pillman Jr.’s face, too, but he seems fine. Malakai Black has started to feel like Bray Wyatt. He’s been around for five months at this point, and we know absolutely nothing about what motivates him. He’s got a cool entrance and says things that sound cool and interesting, but there isn’t any depth there. He’s not a character so much as an agent of the plot of the plot gods, doing whatever they feel is necessary at that moment without much rhyme or reason as to why he would be doing such things.

But but... THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Is that what this is? Is Raven booking now?

Did nobody pick up on the fact that for the second time, Malakai Black actually missed with the mist? Go watch it again, he’s too far away and doesn’t get her at all! It’s her quick thinking to keep her head down that saves the thing. If you don’t know how to do the mist, don’t do it. Especially in a fuckin’ pandemic.

[Thelone]

Did nobody pick up on the fact that for the second time, Malakai Black actually missed with the mist? Go watch it again, he’s too far away and doesn’t get her at all! It’s her quick thinking to keep her head down that saves the thing. If you don’t know how to do the mist, don’t do it. Especially in a fuckin’ pandemic.

To be fair, maybe that's why he's "missing" the mist, but then why do it in the first place if you're being overly cautious and it looks like shit as a result?

[Big Red Machine]

But but... THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Is that what this is? Is Raven booking now?

Did nobody pick up on the fact that for the second time, Malakai Black actually missed with the mist? Go watch it again, he’s too far away and doesn’t get her at all! It’s her quick thinking to keep her head down that saves the thing. If you don’t know how to do the mist, don’t do it. Especially in a fuckin’ pandemic.

I noticed him missing the first time. I noticed this one getting on Pillman, too, but didn't notice it missing Julia. If it did and she covered her face up too quickly for me to see, then good on her for covering well.

[Big Red Machine]

Did nobody pick up on the fact that for the second time, Malakai Black actually missed with the mist? Go watch it again, he’s too far away and doesn’t get her at all! It’s her quick thinking to keep her head down that saves the thing. If you don’t know how to do the mist, don’t do it. Especially in a fuckin’ pandemic.

To be fair, maybe that's why he's "missing" the mist, but then why do it in the first place if you're being overly cautious and it looks like shit as a result?

This!
If you can't do it safely and still have it look good, then don't do it at all.

[XIV]

Is that what this is? Is Raven booking now?

Did nobody pick up on the fact that for the second time, Malakai Black actually missed with the mist? Go watch it again, he’s too far away and doesn’t get her at all! It’s her quick thinking to keep her head down that saves the thing. If you don’t know how to do the mist, don’t do it. Especially in a fuckin’ pandemic.

I noticed him missing the first time. I noticed this one getting on Pillman, too, but didn't notice it missing Julia. If it did and she covered her face up too quickly for me to see, then good on her for covering well.

It definitely missed and she did cover it up well. But I don’t think Black should do the mist anymore.

[XIV]

Did nobody pick up on the fact that for the second time, Malakai Black actually missed with the mist? Go watch it again, he’s too far away and doesn’t get her at all! It’s her quick thinking to keep her head down that saves the thing. If you don’t know how to do the mist, don’t do it. Especially in a fuckin’ pandemic.

To be fair, maybe that's why he's "missing" the mist, but then why do it in the first place if you're being overly cautious and it looks like shit as a result?

This!
If you can't do it safely and still have it look good, then don't do it at all.

Exactly my point. You’d get the same effect doing something else creepy that doesn’t involve mist