BRM Reviews the 8/24/2022 Dynamite (PROMO OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/24/2022 Dynamite (PROMO OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 25th, '22, 14:26

Ross, Schiavone, Taz, and Excalibur are all in the booth.

CHRIS JERICHO CALLS OUT DANIEL GARCIA- hated it
The fans chant “you’re a wrestler!” at Garcia. Jericho wants Garcia to apologize for slapping him.
Garcia responds by telling Jericho “you know how special that moment was for me,” “to share the ring with my hero, Bryan Danielson.” He says that the match “got great reviews everywhere” and that “I hung with my hero, Bryan Danielson, for thirty minutes.” And now Garcia is going on about how happy he is that he “the kind of match I always dreamt of having” and how he hopes it “inspires some other kid sitting at home… that wants to have that match, too.” It felt so amazing after the match when Bryan Danielson showed him respect, and you “ruined that moment for me, Chris!”
Jericho apologizes, but demands that Garcia admit to him that he’s a “sports entertainer” and not a pro wrestler. At this point Bryan Danielson came out and said that Garcia can identify however he wants, but he respects their “wrestling” last week, and he agrees with the fans that Garcia is a wrestler. Angsty teenager Garcia (in his defense, he’s not that far past being a teenager) can’t make a choice and doesn’t like being pressured, so he yells that he can’t choose right now. He turns to leave, but Jericho grabs his arm. Garcia shoves Jericho, then gets even more angsty and leaves.

I’m going to pause here and explain why this segment completely failed for me, which was because of two interconnected issues:
1. Why was this such a big moment for Garcia? He was in the ring with his hero? He was in the ring with him just a few weeks ago. And, in fact, he beat him. Because the match was critically acclaimed? So was the previous one (and we’ll get to that in a minute).
Because he earned Dragon’s respect? This seems to be the answer, but the idea that he cares so much about earning Dragon’s respect is undermined by the fact that he was fine cheating to beat him a few weeks ago and then went around bragging about it. That’s not how you treat someone you respect as a combat athlete, and certainly not someone you respect enough to immediately start questioning your mentor when they offer you a post-match handshake one time. Maybe this could have worked if Garcia’s bragging promos had some subtle note of regret or reluctance in them, but they didn’t.
2. Daniel Garcia lost to Bryan Danielson last week, and yet last week’s match is supposed to have been this big moment for him that Chris Jericho ruined. Look at all of the reasons that Garcia gave:
The match got great critical reviews
His hero showed him respect
It was the match he dreamed of having as a kid
It will hopefully inspire others.
All of that sounds like the sorts of things a “sports entertainer” would care about. A professional wrestler would care about the fact that he lost (he would care about the respect from a respected hero as well, but that would be secondary, and anything about inspiring the children and critical acclaim would be miles down the list). There is a reason you don’t hear the Blackpool Combat Club- guys who are presented as the counterpoint to the evil “sports entertainers”- talk about that stuff. And yet all of Garcia’s reasons for beginning to reject Jericho and move towards Dragon are things that “entertainers” like Jericho should care about, and things that “wrestlers” like Dragon shouldn’t care much about and have never shown themselves to.

CHRIS JERICHO AND BRYAN DANIELSON HAVE A CONFRONTATION- good
They said things to set up a match, which Jericho wants at the PPV. Jake Hager then came out of the crowd and jumped Dragon from behind.

JAY LETHAL vs. DAX HARWOOD- 7/10
Everyone’s seconds decided to go to the back during their entrances. As a detail guy, if you’re not going to have this be the result of a stipulation, you should have the heels enter first so that the babyfaces are doing the sporting thing, but only after the heels have indicated that they will be more sporting than should otherwise be expected of them.
This was the expected great match. Sonjay came out to interfere… and, of course, neither Cash Wheeler nor Wardlow came out to stop him. Lethal won with a roll-up while pulling the tights.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Apparently there is a trios match at the PPV, and Sonjay reveals that instead of the match we all expected- because that’s the match they have been building up on TV- of FTR & Wardlow vs. Lethal, Sonjay, & Satnam Singh, it will be FTR & Wardlow vs. Jay Lethal and the Motor City Machine Guns. I’m happy that MCMG are getting a payday because those dudes deserve it, but there is no room on the roster for them, and why are you aligning them with the heels when you know no one is going to boo them because they’re MCMG?

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS THUNDER ROSA- She announces that she must step down as AEW World Women’s Champion. I was terrified that they were just going to have her vacate the title instead of having an interim champion, but at least they didn’t make that mistake.
Thunder Rosa was good here.

They told us that there will be a four-way at the PPV to crown the interim champion. If this four-way doesn’t consist of the four women in the top five not already booked at the PPV (i.e. everyone in the top five other than Athena, who is challenging for the TBS Title), I will scream.

COLTEN GUNN (w/Austin Gunn) vs. BILLY GUNN (w/the Acclaimed)- 4/10
Instead of being at ringside with his new clients, Stokely Hathaway was sitting the front row. That was weird. Wait… now Excalibur says that Stokely is still the “scouting” phase with Gunn Club. It seems kind of silly to me that they would turn on their father without a deal in place from Stokely without the scenario I laid out last week where the turn is more them being angry at Billy than it is Stokely approaching them.
Old-ass Billy Gunn beat the sh*t out of the up-and-comer. Colten only won after a low blow made possible by Stokely attacking Max Caster on the outside causing a distraction.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- somewhere between bad and confusing.
Stokely offers Gunn Club his business card, but they ignore him. They beat Billy down some more. The Acclaimed try to make the save but get beaten down. Shane Strickland and Keith Lee come out to make the save… by which I mean that Stickland ran and Lee walked slowly afterwards, like he didn’t know that Swerve was going to make this save and isn’t even sure why he would do so, which feels backwards for their personalities (Lee is the nice guy and Swerve is the more self-interested one). Gunn Club ran away from Strickland (Lee was nowhere close). Lee & Strickland offered everyone handshakes.
The storytelling in Gunn Club’s turn continues to baffle me for the reasons I mentioned last week, but now I’m confused as to what they’re doing with Stokely as well. He is able to influence all of these people enough to get them to turn heel, but not enough to convince them to join up with him (other than Leyla Grey, who was- and still is- a total nobody)? He’s supposed to be a big deal as a manager. In fact, he’s such a big deal that a big star like Jade Cargill signed up with him and seems to have dumped her previous manager to do so but Lee Moriarty and f*cking Gunn Club aren’t willing to sign up with him right away, even after dumping their previous mentors and after Stokely helps them win?
And then there is Lee and Strickland. I like babyfaces coming out to make the save because it’s the right thing to do, but to have these particular babyfaces come out and do this seems to cheapen the (admittedly already cheap) show of “newfound respect” they gave Private Party on Rampage. There were a million other babyfaces who could have made the save. Why these guys (especially when it’s not really in Strickland’s personality to do so)?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Yup. That was me screaming.
They revealed that the four women competing for the interim title will be Toni Storm, Jaymie Hayter, Britt Baker, and Hikaru Shida. This is the first time Shida’s name has been mentioned since she was forced to pull out of the Owen Hart tournament due to an injury back at the end of April.
So this is her big return from injury, right? NOPE! It turns out this big star and former champion returned from her injury A MONTH AGO and has been wrestling on Dark, and they never mentioned it on TV once.
But at least these wins have put her in the top five, right? NOPE! The top five is currently (in order) Toni Storm, Britt Baker, Athena, Anna Jay, and Jamie Hayter. Yup. Not only did they stick Shida in this match when she isn’t in the top five, but they didn’t even bump the #5 wrestler to give her that spot. They bumped the #4 wrestler and still put #5 in the title match.
This, of course, tells us that they need Hayter in that match for some reason, and the only reason I can think of that couldn’t be achieved by simply having her interfere and having that interference screw Britt is that they’re going to put the belt on her and Britt will get jealous… because we’ve all been clamoring for a f*cking Jamie Hayter babyface turn.

TONY SCHIAVOE INTERVIEWS THE PEOPLE IN THE MAIN EVENT- bad
Schiavone claimed that this match, Death Triangle vs. Will Ospreay & Aussie Open was “years in the making.” A blatant lie. I don’t think this match would even qualify as “years in the making” if you were living on Mercury.
Ospreay said generic stuff about wanting to win titles for his stable. Pac said that his group was going to murder these people who they seem to have no real quarrel with.

BRITT BAKER vs. KILYNN KING- 3/10
Britt Baker, the big star, apparently started a post-match fight with and subsequently got beaten up by a jobber on Dark, so now we’re having this match tonight.
Jim Ross seems to think that if King wins this match, she gets Dr. Baker’s spot in the PPV match. Why would he think this?
Britt won a short match in which a jobber was allowed to look competitive against her. That’s another case of a local put on TV just to job in her home market.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Britt says that she wrestled her entire title reign with a broken wrist. Considering this, they really should have told us what Thunder Rosa’s injury was. She made some comments about making Toni Storm relevant, so Toni came out, walking right into an obvious trap of an attack from behind by Jamie Hayter. Shida showed up to make the save. This segment felt a lot less forced than this sort of thing usually does in AEW because this sort of promo and trap are extremely in character for Britt.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS SWERVE IN OUR GLORY & THE ACCLAIMED- didn’t like it
Keith Lee puts the Acclaimed over and says that they saved the because they respect them and think they have earned a tag title shot. The Acclaimed got upset at this, because apparently no one in this company is capable of showing any sort of gratitude.
For those wondering, the Acclaimed are currently ranked third. On the one hand, the two teams above them eight might or definitely do have other matches at the PPV (FTR are in this dumb six-man tag, and Bucks are still alive in the trios tournament, but on the other hand, why did we need a tag title match announced right now? Why not wait until the Bucks’ semifinal is over? I guess you could say that Swerve in Our Glory were worried about being left off the PPV, but that kind of reasoning doesn’t make management look very good.
By the way, the #4 ranked team is the team of Evil Uno and Preston Vance of the Dark Order. Yes, really. I don’t know who they have beaten, but I can guarantee you it’s less impressive than FLI’s win over Lucha Bros.

I was glad that they were starting the match with the sixty-minute time limit with sixty minutes left in the show (well… in the show, plus a believable overrun)… and then Excalibur pointed out that we still have one match left after that. *Facepalm*. And not only that, but the match being give the main event spot over UNIFYING THE WORLD TITLE AND THE INTERIM WORLD TITLE is a f*cking quarterfinal match in a tournament to crown Trios Champions.
The announcers insisted that they will stay with both matches for as long as it takes… so why the hell isn’t the title unification match the main event?

TITLE UNIFICATION MATCH: CM Punk(AEW World Title) vs. Jon Moxley (AEW Interim World Title)- no rating, we’ll see what happens.
Punk seemed to reinjure his foot throwing a kick early on. Moxley pounced on the injury, but then switched to attacking Punk’s head. Moxley grabbed the foot again, but quickly let it go, hit some Paradigm Shifts, and got the quick win. I’m assuming Punk reinjured himself, which would be very unfortunate.

TONY SCHIAVONE INTERVIEWS CHRISTIAN CAGE- AWESOME!
Christian’s arm is in a brace. He accepted Jungle’s challenge to a match at All Out with the kind of righteous fire that only a heel who truly believes himself to be in the right can muster.

RICKY STARKS PROMO- PROMO OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE!
Ah. So now he’s actually upset about losing the FTW Title. Other than that, this was an EXCELLENT babyface promo. On a personal note, I really enjoyed the “this guy visited me in the hospital all the time when I was injured” that had become a frustrating trope for heel turns in Delirious’ booking of ROH being turned on its head and used as a reason why Starks thought Hobbs would never turn on him.
The line about Hobbs having been Britt Baker’s security guard at one point is the sort of line I’d usually hate, but I actually like it here because it is a subtle note to us that while he might have officially debuted as a babyface the reality is that he always has been greedy/selfish/willing to sell out for money or opportunity.
He wants a match with Hobbs at all out. This was absolutely amazing, and you need to watch it.

JON MOXLEY PROMO- AWESOME!
Maybe they should stop wrestling and just cut promos.


PPV RUN-DOWN- There are A LOT of matches booked.

KENNY OMEGA RETURN VIDEO PACKAGE- meh
There was no speaking in this. How did they not have him or the Bucks cut a promo.


AEW TRIOS CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: United Empire (Will Ospreay & Aussie Open) vs. Death Triangle (w/Alex Abrahantes)- 7.5/10
Don Callis was on commentary for this match. Unfortunately, they had five headsets, so we had to hear Schiavone claim that this match “has dream match written all over it.” No, it doesn’t. Will it be great? Probably. But it is not a dream match. It’s not even one of the first ten things I would do with Will Ospreay on the AEW roster.
For those wondering, those things would be:
1. Ospreay vs. Bryan Danielson
2. Ospreay vs. Kenny Omega
3. Ospreay vs. Claudio
4. Ospreay vs. Keith Lee
5. Ospreay vs. Adam Cole
6. Ospreay vs. Andrade
7. Ospreay vs. Malakai Black
8. Ospreay vs. Buddy Matthews
9. Ospreay vs. Dante Martin
10. Ospreay vs. Matt Sydal (there’d be a great story there of Ospreay’s dickishness throwing Sydal off balance and Sydal having to recenter himself).

They did flips. That’s all this was. Flips and kicks, and then we got the screwy finish involving a feud that I, who have seen basically every episode of AEW TV, knows nothing about.
At one point Pac got distracted by the goof with the box over his head, who is apparently Kip Sabian. Why does he have a box over his head? What good does it do him if everyone knows who he is?
Wait, no…it’s someone who Sabian gagged and apparently forced to stand there as a decoy via blackmail or something. Pac got distracted, and Sabian attacked him from behind, taking him out, because we’ve got to have f*cking Pac vs. Kip Sabian going on now, too.
Also, this makes me wonder what the finish of the unification match was going to be if they decided to put that on before this and still gave us a f*ck finish here. Surely if the finish to that match was supposed to be clean, you’d put that in the main event spot, right? And remember that William Regal wasn’t on commentary for that match, and pretty much every time he isn’t on commentary for one of his stable’s matches, there are some shenanigans, either during or after the finish.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega came out to the ramp to stare at their opponents. The announcers told us that Kenny “looks like a mess” and that he “might have come back too soon,” and connected that to CM Punk’s earlier injury.


Despite some major frustrations, I have to all this a good episode of Dynamite, some very good wrestling and a series of outstanding promos. I am very much looking forward to all out, if just for the strength of the card rather than any sort of emotional investment in things.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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